Batiukian Butt Banter

So . . . it took Jess several years (it’s been years, right? it hasn’t just felt like years?) after she finished the documentary about Her Father, John Darling, Who Was Murdered, to realize that the Hollywood Biz Life wasn’t for her? And what exactly did The Biz do to him? He got murdered by a psycho because he was an asshole. I don’t recall that it was The Biz that turned him into an asshole, I’m pretty sure that’s just who he was.

Is it me or does Jess look pretty creepy in this strip? Like I kind of feel that Baituk instructed the artist to make sure he really showcased her “sexiness” or something. And speaking of badly drawn women, when I first read this I really thought Jess had flown back to L.A. already and was talking to Cindy, but no, that’s Mindy. I think. I really cannot keep track of these identically drawn Attractive Young Blondes Batiuk’s been showcasing lately.

Oh, and going back to the topic of assholes, Crankshaft (who had a love/hate relationship with someone literally named Keesterman) apparently talked about buttering asses enough that his granddaughter remembers it fondly, decades later.

Like I Care

Having satisfied her simian sexual appetites, as well as getting in a “bonding moment” with her child, Jessica has hastened back to L.A.—the world must not be made to wait any longer for that very important Butter Brinkel documentary! She’s probably been back in town barely long enough to unpack her suitcase; long enough to compel Darin to show his “caring” by sending her a package. Rather, “one of” his packages, which suggests this is a thing with him. Batiuk persists in depicting Darin and Jessica as these two starry eyed, young sweethearts, tragically kept apart by their respective, oh-so-important careers.

Like A Ring-Tailed Lemur On A Swedish Meatball

Link To Today’s Thing

OK, now this mess is reading like a really shitty G-rated “Married With Children” knock-off type thing, the only thing missing is canned laughter and audience hooting. After a week of zany gags about children’s behinds, hot sex, Skyler’s aberrant attention-seeking behavior and potty jokes, it’s time for some sitcom-style gender role reversal. Boy Lisa expresses his feelings and his desire to “just talk” to his BFF Pete while the gals get together to exchange crude sexually suggestive similes involving primates and food. See, it’s funny because MEN are typically the over-sexed slobs and…ah, you know. At least Jessica finally got to bond with someone, although unfortunately for little baby Skyler it wasn’t him.

Check out that last word balloon and note the big empty space between “a” and “monkey”. My “inside sources” tell me it was edited. The original dialog was “…on me like Les Moore turning a tragedy into a masterpiece…”Lisa’s Trilogy”, available wherever books are sold!” but Comics Kingdom thought it was a little too blatant, so they went with his second choice, “monkey on a cupcake” instead. “Funky on a cupcake” would have been funnier.

Your Aim Will Help

Link To Today’s Strip

Not only does this one have absolutely nothing to do with anything that came before it in this arc, it also creates some really disgusting mental imagery I really could have done without. What kind of person would visit their spouse’s job and say something like this? I think he tries to aim for “quirky and adorable” with Jessica but honestly, she seems more troubled and deranged than anything else, at least to me.

Weren’t Ann and Skyler involved in this arc for a while there? Where’d they go? Is Jessica really suggesting that without a woman around her husband, Pete and that weirdo Chester would wantonly urinate all over the bathroom floor? Are we to believe that no one cleans the AK building? Who spends time worrying about the restrooms at their significant other’s job? If this kind of thing is indicative of what BatHack has left in his already bone-dry tank, he should consider writing the rest of FW’s run now, before it devolves even more, if that’s even possible.

Cry For Help

So Flash just randomly dropped by the same time John had decided to randomly drop by. Okay then. Plotting is difficult, apparently. It always amuses me how Batiuk just obviously thinks people know who this random minor characters are and that everybody just immediately recognizes them and is thrilled to see them back. I barely remembered who Flash even was and I have to be in the top 1% of people who give a crap about this strip. I like how Darin is just inviting people to make appearances at John’s store.
It’s fun how the artist made sure to get John’s creepy spiky gray hair and Pete’s eye bags just right, but barely drew a face on Mindy. I’m not even sure if what she has there technically counts as a nose.
This strip is more fun if you imagine Flash’s words as a little Easter egg expressing Batiuk’s desire to be done with all this.  It’s totally not necessary though, I mean, the entire strip gives off that vibe.