Here is today's strip Is it worse than we all feared Or simply as bad If I was popcorn I would be quite offended By this portrayal Les hated this film Why would he even watch this Was happy it failed In this case, "writer" Would not describe Les as he Did not write the script This deserves more scorn I'm a skink, I can't rant, so I'm counting on you Rip this thing to shreds Kill it with all of the fire Or just acetone
Tag: Oscars
Special Enragement
In today’s strip, Marianne is coming off as not simply composed but rehearsed, belying the nerves and words she had just a few days ago. Or maybe Marianne is just that good of an actress and really is worthy of that Oscar… I have to admit, only a great actress could say that Mason and Lisa’s Story deserve Academy Award nominations without breaking out in riotous laughter.
Let’s look at some odds on who this Oscar-worthy “very special person” is:
- 100-1 Cassidy Kerr, for giving Mason points on the backend
- 1,000-1 “Mr. Director” Martin Johns, for keeping his head when Marianne went AWOL from the Starbuck Jones set, actually trying to reach Marianne instead of pointlessly pontificating, and then contacting the actual authorities like a sane person
- 1 million-1 Cable Movie Entertainment and Clay Wallace, for letting Mason pitch Lisa’s Story at another studio with no resistance after he torpedoed their Lisa production by quitting to become Starbuck Jones (nope, it ultimately wasn’t the infamous “kill fee”)
- 75-1 Cindy, for arranging to use Bull’s funeral as a pre-production springboard for the movie
- 275-1 Holly, for demanding the movie be made but not demanding her role be portrayed
- 50-1 Rex Morgan MD, for… uh, aren’t people always giving him things for no reason?
- 700-1 Cayla, for being inhumanly comfortable with being treated as a silver medal
- 40-1 Marianne’s oncologist, for obvious reasons
- 10-1 Lisa, for dying
- 27-1 Lisa’s oncologist, for obvious reasons
- itsgonnabehim-1 Les, for absolutely no defensible reason at all
My mother, the car
Quite the crowd on hand in today’s strip, with the first panel serving as the Batiukverse equivalent of the semi-famous crowd reaction photo from the 2017 Academy Awards’ wrong envelope incident. While the crowd of stars watching Marianne are not quite of the same wattage as those in the 2017 audience, I still spy some big names.

- OK, I don’t know who this is, but his mouth is huge
- The shirtless Nazi who gets shredded by a propeller in Raiders Of The Lost Ark
- George Foreman
- Dorothy Hamill (what’s with all the sports people?)
- The giraffe that stole David Cassidy’s hair
- A Dilbert cosplayer
- General/President Ulysses S. Grant
- Who invited Creepy Pete?
- Christopher Columbus (not that one)
- Soft-serve ice cream
- SHEMP!
Quite the menagerie present to hear Marianne call back to the time she went AWOL, nearly committed suicide, and then quoted her mother quoting an actress who was one of Hollywood’s most famous suicides. Anything to fulfill your parent’s dreams. How inspiring!
Clothing Time
The entirety of today’s strip is going be spent on that same “picture the audience naked” advice from the last strip? This is where the story arc has decided to stall during the requisite Funky Winkerbean storyline doldrum?
Heck, we skipped right over Marianne being presented her Oscar… I’m assuming this is because Rick Burchett isn’t around to draw Conan O’Brien. I’m torn on whether that is a good thing or not. On one hand, there could be some level of unintentional comedy in seeing the cowering, flop sweating trainwreck Marianne from today’s first panel struggle to not fumble the Oscar hand-off from Anthony Hopkins. On the other hand, such a scenario would probably wind up being an even more insufferable attempt at making Marianne endearing than today’s strip.
Cindy probably appreciates Marianne’s opening line, though.
Naked and Famous
OK, three weeks until the actual Oscars ceremony, plenty of time to build suspense. Will Marianne beat out Gretchen Gold and Cordelia Rama for best actress? We won’t know for sure until…
The first panel of today’s strip?!
Uh, points for brevity, I guess, though in this case it is most certainly not the soul of wit… or any other word positively associated with writing. In the absence of anticipation as to whether or not Marianne will win the little golden man statuette, we have the ridiculousness of professional actress Marianne (and no stranger to public speaking and media attention) not having any remarks prepared despite having an apparent one-in-three chance of winning. This is compounded by the ridiculousness of her asking advice on accepting an award from a guy whose work outside of Lisa’s Story and Starbuck Jones consisted of Dino Deer, My Dog Pookie, and being incredibly nervous about simply doing a table read (!!!) for the unfinished masterpiece that was Lust For Lisa.
At least Cindy’s shtick is consistent.