Lack of Les Moore crotch shots is a definite improvement, and the pun is kind of clever. I like the implication in panel one that Les is sticking his lips out as far as he can, trying to do a good duck imitation. It’s rather poor but at least it’s an attempt.
However, the strip is still just two guys talking. It’s a boring conversation about things happening to other people who are elsewhere.
It’s a strip designed to take up space. There is no other purpose. No plot is being advanced, no wisdom dispensed, and the pun isn’t that good. And when the action consists of someone pouring a pot of coffee into a mug, maybe it’s time to rename this strip to something more accurate, like “How sedimentary rocks form” or perhaps “I don’t care.”
Why not try to show, instead of constantly telling? I suppose the answer is, because showing is difficult. It requires work. Planning. And the reward isn’t worth it.
I think we’re past any changes in the way the strip unfolds.. Like Funky, it’s ossified and congealed into a barely moveable mass. Maybe we should look at Funky’s disgusted expression in panel three and figure, yeah, that’s about right. That’s how this strip rolls. Or stays put, actually.
In all honesty, I would love to find things to praise in this strip. Reading each painfully bad episode is a chore; there’s rarely any relief from the omnipresent gloom that hangs over this thing. It gets old, really fast. My recollection of Act I was that it was also not action-packed; like Act III it was just people taking, but were talking to each other, about each other, and at the end of the talking there was a joke, and sometimes the joke was pretty funny. I know that’s an awful lot to ask these days.
An awful, awful lot.
Son of Stuck Funky 