Tag: Montoni's

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Listless

 Link To Today’s Strip

Every so often The BanMan throws one at you that just leaves you completely befuddled. I THINK that’s Wally, Rachel, Tony and Funky in that photo although I’m not 100% certain about that. I had to Google “Margo Lanes” and sure enough, Margo Lane was a character in an old-timey 1940’s serial, “The Shadow”. Surely there are four or five still-living people that might get that gag, although the odds on them also being FW readers are, uh…fairly slim, I’d say.

“Why was everyone wearing Santa hats…?”…I’m just gonna go way out on a limb here, Jess, but I’m guessing it was because it was CHRISTMAS TIME, which would be the most logical reason. Good thing she isn’t a detective, huh? I have no earthly idea where this could be going (other than “nowhere”) although “the gang at Montoni’s starts a bowling team” would probably be as good a guess as any. It’s also pretty obvious that Jess is spending WAY too much time in that pizza place too. Where have you gone, Boy Lisa? A boring strip turns its yawning eyes to you.

 

Another Pizza Your Heart Now Baby

 

Link To Today’s Thing

Looks like you could use a few folding tables or even a couple of old milk crates too there, Derwin. What a pair of brain-dead slobs. BanTom sometimes tries to pretend that Boy Lisa is just a “young guy ” who’s “just starting out” but remember, these people are in their late thirties at a minimum, which makes it all the more sad. The crooked lampshade is a nice touch too, it really gives the place that “totally hapless” look that explains so much regarding why Pete is still eternally single.

If they hate that awful Hollywood pizza so much, why are they buying so much of it? I’m assuming that the dry ice really locked-in that famed Montoni’s freshness and kept the grease from congealing too much during shipping, although how will they be able to tell? How many pizzas did she cram into that box? Did she just stack them on top of each other or what? I would think that after spending several years working there (and living directly above it) Darin would be sick to death of Montoni’s by now but I guess it’s in the blood now, like tainted heroin or some sort of incurable virus.

 

Taking It in Stride

SosfDavidO here, just calling up an old, time-honored box-office bomb tradition to get things moving in today’s strip. Apparently the script isn’t going so well, which is forcing rewrites, which is causing Pete and Darin to have to (I assume) redo the storyboards.

That’s right, after 60+ some issues of Starbucks Jones, Hollywood still doesn’t have enough material to crap out a halfway decent movie.

I’m not too sure who is shouting “What!?” here but it’s not like Pete or Darin exactly had a lot going on before they flew out to Hollywood to work as storyboarders on a movie. Darin especially. Maybe as a greenhorn he’s only getting paid in the “exposure” working on a film would bring but it still has to beat living in Ohio in November.

Pant-a-losers

He’s been spending a lot of time in the past, Batiuk has, dating to this past spring when Les got yoked into being reunion chairman. The reunion committee meetings reacquainted us with Junebug and Barry Balederman, and set the stage for a Lisa tribute. The reunion itself of course was the setting for the time pool silliness, in which the Act I cast were trotted out to meet their present-day counterparts (uh, sorry Lisa!). We’ve had a couple Sophmoric Sightings sightings. And speaking of sightings, we saw Les sharing the park bench again with Lisa’s ghost. And speaking of Lisa, we’ve once again dragged out those damned VHS tapes , this time to bake ’em and digitize ’em and preserve ’em for. Ever.

Along the way, Batiuk has of late altered his visual shorthand: the flashback scenes retain their photo album corners but are in full color instead of washed out sepia. Like the central triptych of today’s strip, which offers a perfectly passable gag and which for all we know is a redraw of a published strip from that era. Compare and contrast Coach Jockstrap’s humorous, deadpan style with that of his protege Coach Bushka, who harangues his players with Crankshaftian malaprops.

Hallmark Monitor

Today we’re finally treated to the Sunday strip whose pencilled preview Batiuk teased us with a year in advance. Make that a 53 weeks in advance: this strip would have served as the coda to the “Owen Learns He’s Not Good at Bullying” arc from the week before last, but Batiuk decided we needed to have a week of Les moping about life. I hope that in addition to Senior Lit with Mr. Moore, Owen is taking remedial math: he’s waited three years, not four, to become a senior (he’s entering his fourth year).