Grate Expectations

 

Today’s strip is just chock-full of dialogue, all of it loopy and stilted. At least someone uses a little tact when speaking about the late John Darling: his daughter. “A great self-appreciator” sounds much kinder that “egomaniacal jerk.” And it’s easier to accept that he used to “grate on people” versus “making their workplace a living hell.”

But…Darling’s murder “still a mystery”? Les wrote (and somehow published, despite losing the manuscript) a goddam book about it. Did he leave the last chapter out?

Daycarelessness



I so love how Jessica’s gone from zero to sixty on her “documentary” project…Shrimp Sauce can only stand there looking pathetic, cradling their infant son. “So are we going to get daycare…?” As if they could even afford daycare. What’s even more professional than enlisting an unpaid college intern as your production assistant? Why, schlepping along your months-old baby as your “sound man.” WAAAAAA!!

So What If It Never Happens?

So seemingly out of the blue, documentarianne Jessica informs her husband that she’s getting back to work on her long-delayed project about her dad you-know-who…as she packs up her camera and heads out the door. Darin asks her a perfectly legitimate, if clumsily phrased, question: do you really want to do this? And it turns out that she does not, since it requires her to revisit a difficult time in her life (which, having been a baby at the time, she couldn’t possibly remember).

Before the Sun Burns Out

For those of you who are new to the Funkiverse: Jessica must always follow the words “my Dad” with “John Darling.” And for those of you who understandably are unable to recall where she left off with her documentary…well, the last time she even mentioned it was almost a year ago…

…right before she got sidetracked and derailed by the return of Darin’s “bio-dad” Frankie, and, after that, giving birth to a son. Now armed with her trusty old VHS camcorder (and her copy of Les’ first book) our Jess is set to re-re-resume her quest. There’s a surprising note of self-deprecation in panel 3, and I wonder if it comes from Jessica or from her creator: remember she’s been telling everybody about this supposed documentary since she and Darin popped up three years ago