Tag: Montoni's

Jarr-med, I’m Sure

Hey SoSFers, billytheskink here for my second tour of duty. Please bear with my pointless observations and references that usually only I find amusing and continue your excellent snark and discussion in the comments.

So much, and yet, ultimately, so little is going on in today’s strip.

Let us start with the so little, for those whose memories were fried by the back-to-batiuk Dick Tracy and Crankshaft crossovers, this is the auspicious beginning of the interview with Mason that Les arranged for Cindy. Today they are introduced… and that’s it. Mason is remarkable cheerful bout meeting Cindy, considering that this interview basically is happening because of the silent threat that Cindy might reveal Mason’s presence in Westview on the Cleveland evening (Clevening?) news. Funky’s comment is perhaps supposed to give us the idea that Mason’s cheer has to do with Cindy’s looks, but considering that she does not move an inch between the panels I think it is just as likely that TB accidentally put a space between “in” and “action”.

On to the so much…
– This is probably the first time in 30 years that a man kissing a woman’s hand wearing a Members Only jacket has been called “charming”.
– I just now noticed that the Montoni’s man on Funky’s apron is really just a dismembered head and hands.
– Cindy is pulling off the difficult one-handed awkward turtle in panel 2.
– She is also remarkably calm having her hand so close to Mason’s face. Look at thing, you could cut a roast on it.
– The green pitcher is always a welcome sight amidst the general schmuckery that occurs at Montoni’s.

Take The Long Box Home

Link To Today’s Strip

Oh brother. DT and Sam are actually using a WPD vehicle to deliver comic books? Another example of Westviewian tax dollars at work. Nice jawline on DT in the last panel, you could chip ice with that profile. I don’t have a protractor handy but that looks like a 90 degree angle to me. And Holly looks like the world’s worst female impersonator today, especially in that last panel. Yikes.

But as shoddy as the artwork may be, it’s nothing compared to the incomprehensible dialog, which makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, Holly isn’t selling the comic books, Komix Korner is. Second, I don’t recall Holly “learning” anything at all during the Comic-Con arc, as all she did was stand around confusedly while looking stupid. And I’m 100% certain she knew how to do that long before she went to San Diego.

The best line of all, though, is DT’s bit about the “shadiness” of comic book geeks. For a guy who loves comic books as much as BanTom does, he sure has a negative opinion of, well, pretty much everyone else into or involved with the hobby. I guess what he’s trying to say here is that even though they may look and behave like a bunch of filthy disgusting morons, it’s the comic book memories in their hearts that truly matter…or something. I’m not really sure and at this point I’m WAY too sick of comic f*cking books to ponder it for even a millisecond longer. And anyhow, if the guy writing the story has no idea what it means what chance do I have of figuring it out?

No Good Deed Goes Un-Comic Booked

Link To Today’s Strip

So Holly somehow topped Chester The Chiseler’s $50,000 bid in order to repay John for helping her to acquire a bunch of Starbuck Jones comic books for nothing? And now John owes Holly at least $50,001 for the favor? Welcome to BanTom’s whacked-out comic book-centric fantasy world, where happiness is bagged, slabbed, tagged and longboxed. There’s no need to point out the gigantic logic holes here, as the entire thing is a huge logic hole. I don’t mean this story specifically, I mean the entire strip.

Get a load of Skunky’s unbridled joy upon learning that he now owes Holly a cool fifty grand. Why, he’s just like a kid whose parents put themselves into crippling debt to buy him a candy store! I certainly hope Holly hides the vodka and firearms BEFORE she informs Funky about this rather implausible development, or we’ll be re-visiting Act II before you know it.

And, uh, what happened to Dick Tracy? It’s like the big crossover never even happened, which in a way it kind of didn’t, now that I think about it. Oh well, at least it didn’t involve Les in any way, thank God.

Whole Lot Of Dumb

Link To Today’s Strip

So which premise is more unlikely? That Holly could somehow scrape together $50,001 to spend on comic books she didn’t even know about until earlier that same day or that the detective that cracked the case that eventually made the comic books available to be auctioned off in the first place would hang around for that auction AND hand-deliver the comics to the auction winner whom he doesn’t even know? If you answered “both”, congrats. I know I’ve been pounding on this theme all week but seriously, someone over there at Batom Inc. HQ really needs to tap TheAuthor on the shoulder and snap him out of this bizarre comic book fantasy reverie he’s in, as it’s getting out of hand. It’s almost as if depicting DT delivering boxes of comic books was his goal and he wrote the “story” around making that scene happen. And that’s just f*cking weird.

Coming next week: the long-rumored FW/For Better Or For Worse crossover finally begins. Over in the FBOFW-iverse, Funky hits Farley the dog with his car just as Michael opens his rejection letter from comic book writing school at the same moment his gay best friend’s grandfather dies at his sister’s shotgun wedding. Meanwhile, the Pattersons visit Westview and debate the merits of Silver Age vs. Golden Age comic books while eating pizza. Or, alternately, they eat comic books while reading pizza, as if there’s any difference anymore.

Grand Theft Humor

Link To Today’s Strip

Special thanks to TFH and the SoSF staff for everything they do!!

BanTom suddenly abandoning a premise he spent weeks setting up is certainly nothing new in the Funkyverse, he does it all the time. It’s called “writing”. It’s also annoying. But I forgot all about Mason Whatshisface as soon as I tried to decipher today’s brain-damagingly bizarre strip. The Jumbler? Finley’s Pharmacy? Holly pretending to be surprised by the sight of those two morons doing everything but working? What the f*ck?

Then I heard from the crack SoSF research team who informed me that within that massive wall of expository jibber-jabber lurk a few Dick Tracy references, which means that the long-rumored and much-dreaded Dick Tracy super mega crossover arc may be upon us…RIGHT NOW! For those of you not familiar with pop culture fads of the 1940s, Dick Tracy is a comic strip detective of some kind who regularly does battle with comically-named foes like The Jumbler (no doubt named for his propensity toward never properly organizing his comic books). I’m hoping this arc somehow involves Westview’s super-villain Dick Face, the man who paralyzes his foes with rage and disgust. “Watch out for the park bench, Mr. Tracy, it’s a trap!!”.

And once again Holly comes across as a total imbecile. I mean obviously they’re going to a police auction to bid on a huge lot of vintage comic books because of course they are. Duh. They’re not eating pizza or loitering around in that creepy store, so where else would they be going? To the library? The bank? To buy new clothes or fitness equipment? Home to their wives and families? Not bloody likely.