Mason Jarr – Page 33 – Son of Stuck Funky

All Bias Herself

Things get darker in Hollywood today, as Mason becomes disturbed by Cindy’s increasingly deranged jealousy. Meanwhile, Cindy begins cyberstalking Marianne Winters as her plan to destroy the Starbuck Jones franchise and Marianne’s career begins to emerge. Will she push Mason too far and trigger his bi-polar disorder somehow? Will she suffer a breakdown and retreat to the safety and comfort of her old home town pizzeria? Will Marianne use her youth, looks and stable personality to wrest Mason from the grip of the tired old insane hag Cindy? Will anyone lose a limb? Will anyone DIE?

Nah, just kidding, nothing is actually happening, as usual. The same internet Cindy snidely dismissed on Monday has suddenly become a source of absolutely rock-solid and totally verifiable proof that the Winters woman is a shameless man-stealing hussy of the first magnitude. The internet is just so funny like that, you know? One day it’s killing your career, the next day you’re using it to undermine your boyfriend’s career. One day you’re making terrible jokes about how useless it is and the next day you’re furiously blogging about things that used to be or never were. There’s a word for it…yes, Batiukian, that’s it.

Note how she isn’t wearing her sunglasses in panel one, so he can really capture the desperate panic in her eyes. Well done. Ever since she skulked back to Westview in shame after meekly shuffling away after a national TV network discriminated against her because of her age she’s been nothing but an endless pit of ponderous “over the hill” tropes, one after the other. He hasn’t pounded on a character like this in a while, Funky excluded. “I was fired for being old”, “my ex-husband and I are old”, “I can’t get a job because I’m old”, “I got a lousy job because I am old”, “will this guy like me even though I’m old?”, “he likes me even though I’m old!”, “he’s bi-polar but so what, I’m old”,”note to younger self: you’re gonna get old”, “we’re getting married! I’m old!” and now “he will immediately succumb to the charms of his younger and hotter co-worker because I am old”. It’s like wave after wave of it, like an ocean of imminent defeat and self-loathing. Not only doesn’t he allow her any joy, he won’t even allow her to just be safe in the knowledge that everything is OK right now. I don’t know what he has against Cindy but it’s all pretty dark and brutal comic strip fodder if you ask me. Too bad it’s in the hands of AnAuthor with no imagination at all, you know?

Sex Tripe Thing

Link To Today’s Strip

That’s not really a pun, Mason. And did he actually pronounce the parentheses, or were they merely implied? Well, in any event, Cindy’s rampant insecurity is at least consistent with her character. I personally think she’s doomed here, which is also consistent with her character. And she’ll be wry and self-deprecating about it all, which again…

And what exactly is she talking about? His penis? Why BanTom, you racy PG-13 rapscallion! I would think the best thing that could happen to SJ would be, you know, FINISHING THE MOVIE but whatever you say there, Jarr. Given his propensity for doling out revenge on the cool kids from high school, I see Cindy eventually skulking back to Westview alone in shame, where she’ll probably have to accept some sort of pity-job at WHS as a visual arts teacher or something.

And this Starbuck Jones movie isn’t happening either. Two of his characters hitting it big in Hollywood, Cindy marrying a huge movie star…no way. FW Rule One – if it sounds too complicated or ambitious for FW, it is. Everyone gets their cosmic comeuppance in the Batiukverse and the best you can ever hope for is to carve out a tedious existence in your old hometown and accept your dismal fate. No way are these losers going to be the ones to prove otherwise.

There’s No Buzz-ness Like Show Buzz-ness

Link To Today’s Strip

The old master premise-flogger is at it again. Why say something in a few panels when you can drag it out for months at a time? The SJ movie is generating all sorts of red-hot buzz, yadda yadda yadda. How many more times does this need to be established? This thing has been in production for YEARS now, is it EVER going to move past the writing stage? And the clunky dialog, where every single character needs to reiterate what’s already been said countless times already even though the character they’re talking to knows exactly what they’re talking about…come on, Tom, your readers aren’t nearly as stupid as you seem to think they are. No one is, in fact.

Meanwhile, In Another Circle of Hell…

Link to today’s strip

Greetings, folks, BChasm back for another round in the chair. Let’s see if we can get it to spin!

So, The New Darin and Cindy (looking very close to her “appearance-complaints” in panel one) are leaving Westview, returning to the glamour of Hollywood. Ah Hollywood, where Cindy works at a company that seems like someone’s thinly-veiled YouTube channel, and The New Darin stars in made-for-TV fare that is invariably cancelled. Can’t you just smell the stardom?

As a coda, we get Pete and The Old Darin facing the reality of every town in the Funkyverse–the fact that there is no escape from the horror that pervades every moment of life. There are always those Philistines who refuse to see genuine art for its value, and instead look to crassly commercialize it by sinking black, oozing claws into it until it starts laying deadly golden eggs. Golden eggs full of poison gas.

Kinda looks like The Old Darin has cut off his arm, there, though I’m sure that’s just an unfortunate colorist’s choice. On the other hand, the carefully crafted punchline is really stupid–“changes to the changes” are still changes to the script, “changes to the script” being something that absolutely every movie, TV-movie, and TV series goes through every single time one is made.

In fact, there are so many revisions to a given script that those new pages are printed on different colored paper so that everyone can know exactly where they should be “on the page.” It’s been this way for decades…though usually this happens either during rehearsals (to iron out difficult lines, or block stage business) or on the set (a location isn’t available, an actor quits, a character is dropped, etc). Neither of which can be the case because 1) the damned star of the movie is swooning around in Ohio, and 2) so far as we know, there is no script yet. And they’re not going to send our a crew to do second unit stuff until they’ve got something like a completed script.

Which brings me to a greater question–apparently at Cable Movie Entertainment, they hold script meetings where revisions are discussed. Why in the Hell don’t they invite the screenwriter to these meetings? Why are changes to the script a complete surprise to him? He was hired, after all, because as a comic book writer he has some expertise in the field–why wouldn’t he be at these meetings? He’s not unavailable or living in some distant city–he’s just down the hall. It makes no sense to exclude him, in fact it seems to piss him off quite a bit.

Pete should be at all these meetings. He should know about all the revisions, be able to contribute, and–more importantly–he should be able to shape those revisions, if he’s smart. Not just negatively–“Well, Starbuck Jones wouldn’t do that, he’s got a code of honor”–but also positively–“Well, if you show the approaching Zergian ship, that’s another toy you could have in shops when the movie opens–vehicles are always big sellers…my pal Darin can sketch a rough of the ship for you.” (Good one, Pete, you’ve come up with some dollar value, they’ll listen to your opinions now.)

There’s only one real answer. Pete isn’t the screenwriter on the Starbuck Jones movie. He’s just one of the typists.

Dashing in Darin, Outrageously Blaring

SURPRISE!
Today’s strip features Mason’s evil twin, back from his supposed death at the La Brea Tar Pits.

Wait, sorry, that’s not right. HERE AS EXPECTED! It’s Durwood, who we should have expected because TB has taken a major interest in him this year. He’s been a major player in 6 story arcs in 2015 (based on mentions in SOSF’s excellent arc-by-arc summaries), more than Crazy, Lefty, Dinkle, Owen and Cody… as many as Summer and Cayla got combined, and they essentially shared two of theirs. Every single one of these appearances deals with essentially one thing, by the way, his ability to illustrate comics and storyboards. Yet, we have not once actually seen this ability in the entirety of Act III.

SURPRISE! Pop quiz!
When returning to your hometown for Christmas or some other holiday occasion, whom do you visit first?

A. The wife and child you left behind to move west for work, the former whom you haven’t seen in nearly a month and the latter whom you haven’t seen since August.

B. The parents who adopted you and raised you from infancy, one of whom is crippled and surely difficult for the other to take care of.

C. Your former high school teacher who was married to your biological mother and who allowed you to live in his house for quite a while when you and your wife returned to town. Your half-sister may or may not be there too.

D. Your former boss and landlord and his wife at their dingy pizza joint.