Tag: photo album corners

Killing Ed Softly With Baton

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Few people remember how this legendary Act II arc ended up playing out. Dinkle did indeed stab Crankshaft, causing the bus to plunge into one of Ohio’s many ravines. A guilt stricken Dinkle rendered first aid to Crankshaft who managed to survive, but the entire band died of exposure while awaiting rescue. In one of the strip’s most harrowing twenty-two week sequences, Harry and Crankshaft resorted to cannibalism to survive long enough for Les and Lisa to rescue them.  Some of TB’s most chilling (pun intended) work.

The fact that Dinkle is the one reciting this retconned story makes it pretty creepy if you ask me. He’s flat-out admitting that he once threatened to kill a school bus driver for refusing to drive children through unsafe conditions. While that sort of thing was considered hilarious back in 1976, now it’d probably result in that weirdo Dinkle being banned from the school for life, at least. And he’s telling this story to a woman who lost her arm in a car crash, no less. Surprisingly tone-deaf stuff from a guy so in tune with the issues facing young people today and (zzzzzzzz).

This. Weak.

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What could be worse than another Dinkle band convention arc? Ordinarily the acceptable answers would be “Les” or “nothing”, but today BanTom has a wild card up his sleeve in the form of that stupid f*cking bus-driving asshole Crankshaft, once again in retcon form. He JUST DID one of these horrible Crankshaft retcon jobs and it’s WAY too soon for another one now. I really hate Crankshaft and not in a fun “I can’t believe this still exists” kind of way, but like I hate yellow jackets at picnics and garbage juice dripping from the bottom of a full trash bag and pus seeping from an open wound. I try to encounter it as little as possible and when I accidentally stumble across it I’m instantly disgusted.  I’m never going to read it so stop trying to make me, OK? Nice “punchline” too, by the way.

As far as Becky goes, the sleeve is doing all the talking for her today. I told you, he never, ever passes up a chance to draw that sleeve. The Arm…never forget. Poor poor Becky, definitely one of the strip’s more downtrodden characters. She doesn’t really like her job, she’s married to a comic book store owner and she’s still always being overshadowed by Dinkle and his interminable stories. Plus there’s her mother, Wally and the arm thing too. She can’t even really smirk correctly either. It’s really quite a brutal legacy.

Darling Fatigue Syndrome

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After the nausea, gagging and violent retching subsided a little, I asked myself where this arc stands among FW’s all-time worst three weeks-or-longer arcs. Then I realized it’s like a twenty-thousand-way tie for first and the tie breaker formula is just too complicated to get into here. Let’s just say that it really sucked big-time and it’s way up there on the list and leave it at that.

FW doesn’t get more twee than it does in today’s panel three, that’s for sure. Anything that revoltingly saccharine really should come with a warning. And she’s a pretty, uh, mature “baby” today too, but when you just have your heart set on a particular premise there’s no reason why you can’t retcon the shit out of it to make the premise fit, right? Happens all the time. It’s called writing, people.

Batom is world renowned for his novel use of repetition, but this is ridiculous. Ridiculous. His constant repetition is ridiculous. See how ridiculous that is? And I’ve never even been nominated for a Pulitzer or anything. Yet even I understand how ridiculous the constant repetition is and how, in theory, it could potentially induce murderous rage in others. The repetition, I mean.

Surprise Reprise

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Today Batom inexplicably repeats the (ahem) “big reveal” for no apparent reason other than to reaffirm its cleverness to himself, I guess. Or maybe he just assumes that his regular readers are so stupid that they’ll forget JD’s last words unless they’re hammered into their brains repeatedly. Or maybe, just maybe, he’s a total hack who couldn’t think of a better way to end this ponderous story without resorting to mindless meandering and pointless repetition. I personally think it’s a little bit of all three.

And JD, I think everyone would be surprised if Jessica takes up chess. Very, very surprised. Almost as surprised as I’ll be if this arc doesn’t end on an even more nauseating note than it struck today.

 

Justifiable Herbicide

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He’s trying for “menacing” here but he’s stuck on “clown shoes” again. Not only do I have no idea what Plantman is jabbering about, but I am at a complete loss to explain why Jessica is STILL not operating her camera, which was ostensibly her entire reason for this ponderous prison visit in the first place.

I, like 100% of the rest of the world, never read “John Darling” so I have absolutely no idea what the back story on “Plantman” is or why he’s dressed up like a plant or why it’s supposed to be funny. I am assuming that “Plantman” was to JD as Larry “Bud” Melman was to Letterman…a comedic stooge used to fill and kill time when necessary. Now I know way more about “JD” than I ever dreamed possible and yet, somehow, I still feel unfulfilled.

So this Mossman guy really did dress up like shrubbery? I don’t get it. Was he some sort of lawn & garden expert or something? Wait…do NOT answer that, I don’t want to learn more.