Tag: Martin Johns

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!

Ho Ho Ho

So it took until today’s strip for anyone to think about contacting Marianne?

I guess that is consistent with last week, when Mr. Director waited until Mason showed up at the lot to dress him down for his excursion to Marianne’s mom’s abode. We see today that he has a phone, so obviously that wasn’t stopping him from calling Mason last week, or Marianne anytime between last week and now. Must not be a talker… or he knows Mason screens and ignores his calls (which makes some sense, Mason makes all the decisions on this lot, after all). Marianne apparently does the same.

I consider myself fairly fluent in comic strip language, but am quite unsure as to what exactly panel 3’s wavy-border is supposed to signify. As I am sure most all of you know, wavy panel borders typically mean that what we are seeing is a dream/daydream, hallucination, or flashback. However, Marianne’s trip to the Hollywood sign began in an un-wavy panel (and also in color, for… reasons?) back on Sunday. I guess it is not unfair to assume that Marianne’s scenes are supposed to actually be occurring but in a surreal state, but it comes across more like the wavy panel border is being used to signal a change in setting. This is really awkward. Nice shot of the “HO” sign, though.

Technicolor Difficulties

TFH, you are a tough act to follow, I stand in line… and apparently it is my turn. Hello folks, billytheskink here to do my level best as I take you through Christmas. Remember, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, no matter what Funky Winkerbean has in store for us.

The world’s gone grayscale in today’s strip.  What could this mean?

Tonal shift?  Dream sequence?  Reference to comic book or film that no one under the age of 83 remembers?  That the syndicate colorist up and quit, their conscience finally getting the best of them?  So many possibilities, but we will probably never know the true story.

Meanwhile, things are happening:
– Mason has psychoanalyzed the internet.
– Cindy thinks a movie set is the perfect place to break out her little black dress.
– The tablet that Mr. Director was thrusting at Mason last week has morphed into a laptop.
– The Starbuck Jones crew has made sure to properly light today’s trio as they crowd around their Pineapple Abacaxibook.
– We learn that Marianne owns a 1991 Mercury Capri convertible.

Well, That De-escalated Quickly!

Sorry, snarkers: the catfight between Cindy and Marianne will not be televised, or uh, comic-strip-tized, uh…we don’t get to see it. It doesn’t happen, apparently, because Mason’s explained to Cindy that it’s not as it seems, and very quickly and convincingly, too. This plotline has become a complete shit show, even by Batiuk’s nonexistent standards. He spends months setting up this conflict between Cindy and Marianne, brings it to a climax in the most contrived way, and then Mason explains it all away and Cindy buys it…offscreen. The paternalistic Director Guy chimes in: “Hey! Hold it down, kids. Don’t get excited! (Who’s excited?) We’ve already put out a corrected story.” Who’s “we“? Don’t “corrected stories” come from the source of the incorrect story? Is he talking about their publicist? “We” have no idea. Nor have we any idea why that massive-headed freak in panel 3—we’ll have to assume it’s Marianne in a “wife beater” undershirt—is just now seeing and is completely aghast at the “DMZ” story.

Summers vs. Winters

Batiuk’s so fond of describing his strip as a “quarter-inch removed from real life” but it’s more like 180 degrees, a Bizarro world. Mason winds up in the tabloids and immediately frets over Marianne…Cindy gets wind of the purported affair and shows up at the studio looking for her supposed rival when you’d think her first order of business would be kicking Mason right in the nuts. Anyway, why is Cindy even still allowed on the set after she ruined a take? I guess for the same reason Frankie and Lenny are allowed to continue running their bogus food truck.