Okay, today’s thing is actually kind of funny, in a “Family Circus” kind of way…by which, it isn’t actually funny but you can at least see that a joke was intended.
And who among us here has not said the dialogue in panel one, after reading Funky Winkerbean or Crankshaft?
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Gerard Plourde
October 30, 2018 at 1:25 am
…I have no idea what “RRRRRRRRRR” is supposed to represent. A turboprop airplane? A siren? A lawnmower?
Other readers of this blog have suggested it could be a tornado alarm or a pirate…but at any rate, because this is Act III Funky Winkerbean, the big reveal is a few days away. WhateveRRRRR it is, it’s got both parties, the non-hand-shaking locals and the GI’s, scrambling for cover. While we wait for the inevitable anticlimax, your typophile host would like to point out that the RRRRRR sound effect appears to be typeset in ITC Pioneer, most famously used in posters for the blaxploitation film classic Shaft.
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So: this makes a walloping four times a strip has been unavailable for preview during my latest hosting period. That’s gotta be a record of some kind.
Of course, two of those times were Sundays, and Sunday’s strips are always unavailable for preview. Because why should he give us time to point out the shortcomings practically leaping all over his work?
Over at Shankcraft, for example, Apple Annie is about to sign her first author: Lillian. But–
–didn’t Ann have Les as a client? It seemed only a short eternity ago that Lillian was hosting Les’ launch party for his book about John Darling, who was murdered. I thought the story was, Les, seeing as he and his book were both garbage, tossed his manuscript into the trash (where it belonged, and where it was happy*). Ann, then a bag lady, fished it out (making it unhappy) and got it published (terrifying it), thus leading to the greatest display of egomania ever shown on the comics page. Way to go, Ann. Thanks (said all sarcastic-like). But no, apparently continuity is for losers if you can score cheap points about schizophrenia. It’s supposed to be touching, but it shoots right past maudlin and treacly and lands right in the middle of gorge-rising.
Why is it that Tom Batiuk is completely incapable of creating sympathetic characters? Does he think, “Well, she’s got a terrible mental condition, readers will love her, because they won’t dare not!”? Someday I’d like to ask him about his methods, and I don’t mean that as something nasty. I’m honestly curious about how his mind works.
Anyway, based on what’s coming next week (trust me, it’s not a superpower anyone wants), I’m thinking Sunday will be a stand-alone strip. I’m going to take stab and guess Funky’ll be in it. But who knows? All we can really say is that it will be uninteresting in every aspect.
And speaking of next week, my time in the chamber of horrors has come to an end, for now, so please give a warm welcome to your next host, snarker extraordinare Epicus Doomus!
*I have an idea about a children’s book, about a manuscript that knows it’s bad, and wants to be thrown away, but it keeps getting passed from hand to hand until it’s published. It has a happy ending, in that no one buys it and the author never tries again. Does anyone have Ann Apple’s phone number?
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Once again stayed up late waiting for Sunday’s strip to drop. Les and Cayla are in LA, getting picked up by the world’s worst Uber. Mason has always been portrayed as a dingbat. I would not feel safe with him behind the wheel of a Hummer/Hearse Hybrid during LA rush hour.
It seems that ‘Comic-Con’ this year was completely summed up in one panel of nerdery last Sunday. The awards show might as well have been a poorly attended wedding reception for all the excitement and industry flavor we got.
I’m pretty flabbergasted by it, really. We did get plenty of tone deaf ‘nerdy’ humor last year, and the year of the great Holly Winkerbean Starbuck Hunt. But the idea that Batiuk would have nothing more to say during a Comic Con, that he’s both out of new ideas and not interested in recycling his old ones, it’s not like him. It’s almost worrying. Lack of interest in activities that you once enjoyed is a classic hallmark of depression. Can someone check on him?
Well it has certainly been an interesting couple weeks at the helm. I interpret this awards quickie as TommyBats realizing that while the IRL ‘Lisa’s Story’ was nominated for a Pulitzer, the ‘in-universe’ book has never been similarly rewarded. The Eisner nomination, but not win, is a way of giving his opus similar accolades both within his world and without.
Beckoning Chasm is up tomorrow, to see us through the sights of LA. If Cayla is impressed with Union Station, wait till she sees the Scientology Building.
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There is less than nothing going on today.
This is like when horrible one note authors attempt to pad out their paychecks by writing the same story again, but gender flipped or from the guy’s perspective this time! We have reached Life and Death or Grey levels of storytelling here people.
So because there is no plot to speak of. I’ll just point out some tidbits I noticed in each panel.
Panel 1.) Boy Lisa’s table seems positioned in the middle of the room, instead of up against a wall, and his overhead light seems to be behind his head AND pointed away from his workstation. He asks if the text is ‘more script changes’ which means that they regularly get TEXTS of script changes in a major motion picture sequel. Pete has a tiny phone.
Panel 2.) You know that this is California because of the medical marijuana growing right outside the window. Pete’s hands are the size of his head and the bags under his eyes have drifted so far down his cheek they might as well be Tony Montana scars. Pete’s phone has grown in size.
Panel 3.) Boy Lisa’s desk light is now in front of him. His face is a horrifying mask with terrible pencil eyebrows drawn all the way up on his forehead. He is apparently wearing a black v-neck t-shirt like a total tool. We can see that Pete’s now minuscule cell phone isn’t even a touchscreen smart phone, but rather some knockoff blackberry-lite. I link a picture of my phone, for reference. Sad, cheap, pathetic reference.
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Someone decided to rip of Frank Miller in exactly one panel today.
Actually the art on looks pretty good, bravo to the colorist for the gradient shades on Chester’s bald head. And you can actually tell that it is supposed to be a Hulk poster in the background. Much better than the weeklies. If you look at Saturday we have a brown Green Arrow, and a nearly black Spider Man. I know that there is a black Spider Man now, but I don’t think he’s gone for a suit the same shade as his skin.
In one entire week of strips, we’ve learned exactly HALF of why Chester is here. I’m guessing that at the end of next week we will finally learn why he wants to contact Mopey Pete.
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“Does everybody around here lean back in their chairs doing nothing?” wonders Director Guy as he fetches the producer his coffee. Of course, with Starbuck Jones opening soon, and its sequel having been filmed concurrently, what work would there be for the storyboard artist? Maybe Boy Lisa’s run out of his favorite pens again and is unable to work.
Back in C’ville, Pete has indeed found “something”: he spies a Batiukian/Burchettian blonde who stops him in his tracks so hard that his arms and shirttails fly away from his body. He’s pretty whopperjawed, all right! Casual readers might wonder why Pete’s blatantly ogling Cindy, but we know (since Batiuk teased it two months ago) that this is Crankshaft’s Hot Granddaughter Mindy. She’s successfully parlayed her Kent State diploma into a job helping her brother manage the dive theater.
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