Mason Jarr – Page 16 – Son of Stuck Funky

Insert Disinterested Yawning

Boy. these people are pretty dull to be so smug.

What Cindy seems to be saying, here, is that “new media’s” excitement over an “old media” award somehow means that “new media” admits that it is shallow and worthless, and that “old media” are the only “real media.” So I guess BuddyBlog is going to shut down its evil internet-only site and start broadcasting on television.

You remember television. They’re the people who fired Cindy because she aged.

Cindy, by the way, has nothing to brag about. When she was working for BuddyBlog in February 15, 2016, she was a bit irked that she was going to broadcast trivia and gossip. “Anything on the President, or the Middle East?” she asked, thinking there were things in the world that mattered more than cat videos and celebrity gossip.

Now she’s happily making documentaries about an actor no one remembers, who starred in a 1950’s serial based on a comic book, then “lost his career” because 1) he committed Contempt of Congress because it made him feel “cool,” and 2) because tightly held bitterness is this strip’s only balm. Trivia and gossip.

There you go, Cindy. You’ve become BuddyBlog, the thing you once hated…because awards.

Always Give Up, Always Surrender

Link to today’s strip.

Sorry about that, I was watching “Galaxy Quest” and forgot about my duties here!

So, anyway. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Cindy’s documentary will not win an Emmy. Here are the reasons why.

First of all, losing will be a crushing blow to Cindy (especially now that Mason’s enthused about it), and I don’t think Tom Batiuk can resist that. I don’t know about you, but I’ve pretty much forgotten all of high school–but for some, those memories are forever.

Secondly, Cliff Anger has already had the ultimate honorarium–he had a hot-cocoa-and-sammiches meet-up with a bunch of freeze-dried adolescent idio-fans, and that, my friends, is the only honorific that truly matters. An Emmy award for a program about him is overkill.

Thirdly, an award for a Cliff Anger documentary would say that there is a value in persisting and striving for a goal–Cindy’s goal, of course, not Cliff Anger’s–and that goes against everything this strip stands for.

Fourthly , it emphasizes the idea in this strip that awards are not given to *ahem* truly deserving subjects, but are meted out to things that tweak the current zeitgeist; awards are shallow things that shine in the eyes of the great unwashed for a few moments, before the next shiny thing comes along.

Finally, and I think most importantly, an award is impossible for anything unless Les Moore is involved. He alone is allowed to achieve, because, you know, he’s SO sensitive and artistic, and driven by creativity, and–get this–his wife died. How can you not shower him with accolades?

This is another strip that gives the lie to the “time jump” theory. All of Cindy’s competition is thoroughly contemporary. Tom Batiuk didn’t push his cast into the future–he just aged them.

So I’d like to make a request of the Gods of Funky Winkerbean critique. Please stop saying “time jump.” Please start saying “age jump.” Because that’s all it ever was.

PS: If you’ve never seen “Galaxy Quest” I highly, highly recommend it. It’s about a bunch of has-been actors who are given the chance to save the world. Instead of bitterly making sure the angle of their lampshades were just so, they stood up and made a difference. It’s one of the few films I recommend with no reservations.

The cat meows because wants food

Link to today’s strip.

I’ve been looking at this one, over and over again, trying to figure out what it’s trying to tell me. Here’s what I’ve got.

Mason is an insecure imbecile who has no real thoughts or opinions. His brain is completely empty; he baffles science. This makes him a great actor because once he’s read the script, he is never out of character. His micr0-rant yesterday was probably something he overheard on the subway or at the hairdressers. Whoever said it managed to impress his own personality over Mason’s, so Mason’s been saying that person’s “lines” as he acts out the character.

However, his insecurity kicked in once his “lines” were countered by Cindy’s news. So, he’s like a fluffy kitten that does not know what to do. Then, the cat meows because wants food.

Sorry…it’s that kind of a strip. It practically begs you to think of other things.

Also, I thought Cindy was the insecure one in this relationship. Silly me. Really, though, the conversation should have been (paraphrasing)

Mason: Awards are stupid.

Cindy: Yes, they are. I will tell my producers to turn down the Emmy nomination, because if I seek an award, I may lose you, since you hate awards and I might have one.

Mason: Yes, you should do that. However, I deem it “okay” if you do not do that. An award would be good for your esteem. And losing an award would be good for my esteem, as you will be more insecure and cling tighter. Wait a moment. Wait a moment. Wait one moment while I calculate this development.

Cindy: I will wait all required moments.

Mason: (after 22 minutes and 15 seconds of silence) Cindy, you should murder Les Moore by plunging Harry Dinkle through his heart.

Cindy: He will simply reform around the Dinkle, adding its mass to his own.

Mason: Damn it.

Nominated for Best Imbecile in a Supporting Role

Link to today’s strip.

Every time a character says something exceptionally stupid–and Mason here is a shining example–I have to remind myself that, despite Tom Batiuk’s repeated assertions, this strip has nothing to do with the real world. There’s no quarter-inch between there and here.

What this strip is, is a Wish Fulfillment World. This world is how Tom Batiuk believes the world should work. Here, the highest form of art, and the most valuable commodity, is the comic book. Second most valuable is the comic book’s consort, the movie based on a comic book. Here, Mason’s idiocy makes perfect sense.

Now, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a Wish Fulfillment World. Some of them can be quite entertaining. At the risk of ticking people off, I’d put JRR Tolkien’s works in this category. But Tolkien made sure that his world was consistent, and that there were rules that governed his world, and those rules were not to be ignored or bypassed for convenience. Consistency is PRIMARY if you’re going to go down this path. Because of you ignore consistency, you end up with Funky Crankshaft Island.

To wit: Here, the greatest comic book of them all, Starbuck Jones, is both extraordinary evocative to its hordes of fans, who treasure every moment it gave them, and yet it sold so poorly that it put its creators out of business. Here, a peck on the cheek drives the internet into a frenzy, and drives a young actress toward suicide. Here, said actress is simultaneously a naif making her first film and a hot property that can boost a film’s stature into white heat. Here, an actor whose main credit is “Dino Deer” lives like royalty, bathed in luxury. Here, a loathsome prick can make his mark on the entire world by writing about his dead wife, yet he toils in obscurity in a small Ohio town. I could go on; there are thousands of such…Funky Crankshaft Island rides.

And movies are an art form, not a commercial product.

Now don’t get me wrong–movies can be art, and as such can be very enlightening. I have thoroughly enjoyed every Ingmar Bergman movie I’ve ever seen. And most of those made by David Lynch. But every movie ever made by a film studio has one primary goal: to make money. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the real world.

Which this strip does splendidly.

PS: I’d agree that most awards are stupid and entirely ignorable. Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Cary Grant never won Oscars? I’m thinking, though, that Pulitzer nomination letter must really burn right now.

Winters Blunderland

Please don’t spend too much of your valuable Christmas Eve time reading today’s strip. Please.

That Mason fella sure is great, huh? Marianne and Cindy sure think so. In fact, Cindy finds it hard to believe that Mason even exists. I’m with her on this point, as Mason appears today to be some sort of mythical human-unicorn chimera.

But what about Mr. Director? You know, the guy who first noticed the DMZ story and the potential trouble it could cause… The guy who made sure a corrected story was sent out to the media within hours… The guy who was concerned about Marianne to the point that he tried to call and text message her while Mason and Cindy groused about the internet’s big meanies… The guy convinced the police to put out an APB for a woman that had been out of contact for less than half a day… What about him?

Eh… That Mason fella sure is great, huh?