Tag: Marianne

Dawn We Now Our Realizations

There have been three instances in this comic strip where Marianne has spoken multiple consecutive complete sentences. THREE. All occurred within a week of each other back in early October. Mason was present for all three. One involved Marianne talking about how great working with Mason is and in the other two she talked about how her single mother dreamed of being an actress and now lives vicariously through her (and also that the Hollywood sign holds a special importance to her). This makes up the bulk of us readers’ interaction with Marianne.

One particularly astute commenter last week (I wonder who that was…) pondered whether or not Mason would remember this conversation with Marianne and rush off to save the day. Today’s strip answers that question with a resounding “yes”.

It begs more questions though, particularly why Mason did not relay his realization to the police officer who was standing right next to him in yesterday’s strip. You know, the police officer with the radio, who works for the department that has officers sitting in running cars minutes from Marianne’s presumed location… might be a good guy to tell.

Instead, Mason has chosen to dash off like a 1950s football player posing for a promotional photo and give no specifics about Marianne’s presumed location. Makes you wonder if he really wants her found.

Hardboiled Volk

Today’s strip tells us literally the same thing that Friday’s strip did. Marianne’s fate will remain a mystery for another day… that day quite possibly being Christmas Day. We are in color again, but I’m not quite getting that infomercial tonal shift feeling I described a few days back.

I feel it my duty to point out that a story about an actress who is driven to suicide (possibly) by cyberbullies is not “hardboiled” It’s pretty much the exact opposite of hardboiled, actually. It can be many other things: sad, appalling, educational (or in TB’s hands: implausible, maudlin, and preachy), but a word meaning “tough, cynical, unsentimental” as hardboiled does? No.

Us beady-eyed nitpickers may notice that Tom Lyle’s signature offers additional proof that TB works a year ahead, not that we really needed it.

lylesignature

You can see the conception of this comic book cover on the official Funky Winkerbean blog

Suspense… of belief

“Read” today’s strip…

So is this it? Is it over? Can we get back to what the Westview High School news broadcast kids are up to now? I’m ready for Bernie Silver’s review of the latest Amazing Mr. Sponge after all of this.

Or did Marianne use the same ninja skills that got her past security up to the sign, the ninja skills that allowed her to balance on the knife’s edge that is the top of the H, to disappear into the night?

If you are wondering why I keep hammering on this dopey theory that Marianne is a ninja, it is because it almost makes her interesting.

There’s an APB for that

The wavy panel border returns in today’s strip.

Again, I do not understand exactly what this is supposed to mean. In the visual language of comics, the wavy border should signal Marianne’s scaling of the H as a dream, but it really comes across like it is just signaling the shift in setting from the studio lot to the Hollywood sign. It’s like telling someone you “dreamed of Portugal” when you really mean that you physically went to Portugal.

Day five in grayscale, and I’m actually starting to appreciate it. Seeing Funky Winkerbean in black-and-white on my local paper’s color comics page is like watching an infomercial for an as-seen-on-TV kitchen product. You know how those ads always begin in black-and-white or muted color, showing a frustrated person trying and failing to use common kitchen utensils to measure flour, slice a tomato, take a bite out of a sandwich, or some other non-difficult task… then the ad switches to color to espouse the virtues of how easy it is to eat eggs or to prevent your children from choking on hot dogs if you just owned this amazing new product?

That’s what it feels like reading this week’s FW strips right next to a bunch of full color strips.

Does your comic strip ignore it’s own continuity, reasonable plausibility, and all good taste? What you need is the…

…overly broad Danish humor of WUMO!
…12 year old political and pop culture references of Get Fuzzy reruns!
…first world problems of Dustin!
…awkward innuendo that populates every conversation in Luann!
…hack-y mundanity of Garfield!
…Phantom‘s striped codpiece!

H-ku

Marianne’s long climb
Continues in today’s strip
Third straight climb panel

No wavy borders?
Is this really happening?
Do I really care?

Nothing quite captures
Los Angeles at sundown
Like black-and-white film

Hoodie and short hair
Marianne continues to
Look like Summer

Did that upset her?
Being compared to Summer?
How would the web know?

Still no police yet?
Seems to support my theory
Of her ninja skills