Tag Archives: porch swing

by | June 13, 2020 · 10:30 pm

…that the Play is the Tragedy “Les,” and Its Hero–

Link to today’s strip.

…is the Enabler Cayla.

You know, Les and Lisa are horrible, horrible people.  But today’s entry makes a strong case that their infection has spread beyond the immediate Moore family, and has made its way into the outer world.  Soon, entire cities, entire nations will fall as the Lisa-Worship pandemic spreads to every corner of the globe.

Because here’s Cayla, Les’ current wife, asking Les to make sure that Lisa, Les’ dead wife–dead at least twenty years now, mind–is protected from the machinations of the cruel, uncaring world of entertainment–you know, the slugs who push awful contrived entertainments on the (shudder) masses so they can sell toilet paper and cheap auto loans.

And this is something Cayla cannot stand.  Because Lisa’s reputation, Lisa’s legacy, is the only thought she has.

Not a thought for herself remains.  Not a thought for herself, her own child, her marriage, her future.  It’s all Lisa now.  It will never be anything other than Lisa.  Lisa.

I thought I was being clever the other day when I referenced “Colossus: The Forbin Project.”   (And c’mon, I kinda was.  And if you haven’t seen that film, then you should.)  But the real reference film here is far more chilling.  From 1956.

Well, it started, for me it started last Thursday. In response to an urgent message from my nurse I’d hurried home from a medical convention I’d been attending. At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.

The “Colossus” movie ended with Dr. Forbin’s defiant “Never!”   The book ended similarly, but included a final paragraph:

Never?

Anyway, that’s all from me for now.  Thank you all for your indulgence, your creativity and your knowledge.  It always makes hosting this place a treasure, when the actual strips make it a chore.   I learn nothing from the strip, but learn a lot from you all.  Kudos!

Tune in Monday, when your snarker extraordinaire Epicus Doomus takes the center seat in the Funkyverse’s most-watched game show, “How Bad Can It Get?”

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by | May 17, 2019 · 10:49 pm

Spring Swingers.

Link to today’s strip

I gleaned a few interesting tidbits from the dialogue today. Les’ statements about having to sell more books and the school being happy with a perpetual super-senior indicates that he is currently paying for some or all of her college. Summer’s scholarship must have run out and/or it was not a full ride. Kent State is a NCAA school and only allows students to compete in four seasons of a sport. Maybe she was a redshirt freshman and wasn’t on the team her first year? But it indicates that this will be her fifth, sixth, or even seventh year of college.

If Les’ is paying for Summer’s graduation, maybe from Lisa’s life insurance, then is Keisha’s college also being paid for? Wouldn’t that be super awkward if Keisha was having to take on a bunch of student loan debt while Summer gets to start clean? But, then again, Keisha seemed like a smart girl. She probably made sure she finished her degree before her athletic scholarship was gone.

Actually going to commend the artwork today, relatively speaking. The ruler did a lot of the work, but there is good attention to detail for once. In the background at least. Les is drawn as a sightless abomination talking out of his ass, but I’m guessing that’s Ayers subtle caricature of him. And putting up the porch swing in spring not only sets the season, it’s a subtle callback to the strips way back in June 2011 when Cayla and Les confessed their love on it. Batiuk may forget how many kids his characters have, but he seems to always remember that Les has a front porch swing.

Of course…it was TAN not BLUE. But then again, maybe it’s been painted.

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by | October 26, 2015 · 10:37 pm

For Leaf Closure

Link to today’s strip.

Dear Mr. Batiuk–

Look, we get it.  You killed off one of your favorites to win a prize, and when you didn’t win that prize, you’ve tasted ashes and been filled with regrets ever since.

But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead, and you need to stop bringing her back.  Either that, or finally give Cayla a small bit of dignity and have her divorce Les for “irreconcilable differences.”  She can even make puns on the way out the door.  Then Les (and Summer) can wallow in Lisa memories until March 2022.

She’s not poignant.  She’s not insightful, or funny, or even interesting.  Les’ continued need for her makes him look even more pathetic than he actually is.  Here’s the thing: The more you bring her back, the less special her death becomes. 

It’s like the dork who finally gets a laugh with one of his dumb jokes, so he repeats it endlessly until everyone was sorry they laughed in the first place.   And they wonder why they laughed at all.

One thing I’m sure of.  I’m willing to bet real money that the Pulitzer Committee is not reading this strip and thinking, Wow, we really made a mistake.  This is great stuff.  Let’s award him a do-over prize!  No, like most of humanity, they’re not reading this strip at all.  And if they did, they’d think, Wow, we were lucky on that one.  How did we even nominate this?  Were we drunk?

We get it.  “Lisa’s Story” was your crowning achievement.   Typically, when one has a crowning achievement, one retires.  Otherwise, as one’s crowning achievement recedes more and more into the distance, that crowning achievement begins to look a lot less like the result of talent and more the result of blind luck.  And one ends up as one of those sad old people whose every sentence begins with, “Hey remember when I…”

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by | August 18, 2015 · 10:35 pm

From Here to Punchternity

Link to today’s strip.

Poor Cayla.  Doomed forever to live in Lisa’s shadow.   Of course, she brought it on herself so it’s difficult to feel any sympathy when Les realizes, “Hey, this might get expensive, and she’s not Lisa, so why did I even bother telling her I’d take her overseas.  I’ll buy her dinner somewhere.  At the Paris Bar-B-Que & Bar-B-Beer-o-Rama in nearby Flungdown, Ohio.  And I’ll pretend it’s Paris, France, and she’ll be just floored by how clever I am.  She’s already happy with everything I do, so even if I instead spend the Beer-O-Rama’s five bucks on framing a Lisa picture, she’ll smile in delight.

“And if she insists on China–ha, like she’d insist on anything–I’ll take her to the Golden China Dump in Wastelife, Ohio and she’ll think I’m double clever.  She always does.”

My brother went to China a couple of years ago, and it’s not the sort of trip a cheapskate Wetviewian would undertake.  According to my brother, you’d be wise to go first class, because you can develop some severe health problems in a cramped lower-class seat.  Although, come to think of it, if Cayla got severe health problems…

Ahem.

So, I went to Priceline (because Captain Kirk is cool), plugged in my nearest airport, put in Hong Kong as the destination and selected the dates of November 12 – 18.  (I think Les’ anniversary is around that time.  Like Les himself, I can’t remember.)  The result–

Whoa.  Let’s try something a little more reasonable.  I plugged in my numbers for a late-August, early-September trip to Beijing.

Still up there in “Yikes!” territory for a Language Arts teacher who doesn’t make a lot of money (as the teachers continuously point out).  Keep in mind, in both cases that’s per person, so Les is going to be out anywhere from $25 to $16 grand*.  This is a guy who wouldn’t bother to warn his first wife that she might die–and he’s going to spend that much money on Cayla?   Somehow I think the excuses will come a’runnin’ and Cayla will meekly accept them, now that she understands that she’s worthless.  (Sure seems like Les has been far more damaging than her old typing teacher could ever hope to be.)

Observe that she’s just now moving next to Les on the porch swing, now that Darin has left.  My assumption is that she was afraid she might distract attention away from Les, and that would never do.  Cayla is symptomatic of some kind of syndrome, that’s for sure.  I think it’s Lack of Pulitzer Nomination Syndrome, and I hear it’s pretty wearisome.

*Some might suggest that Les’ publishers would foot the bill.   In the real world, an author who had deliberately sabotaged a movie adaptation of his own work would be lucky to get a second book, and he’d be flung out a window if he asked for a free trip to China.  In the fantasy world of Westview, they’d not only foot the bill, they’d make sure it was national television news.  I don’t feel bound by Tom Batiuk’s logic, however…one of the main reasons this strip consistently fails to impress.

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by | August 17, 2015 · 10:29 pm

Punch Me to the Moon

Link to today’s strip

Yeah–that sounds exactly like the way publishing must work.  Let’s take a book that’s already completed and put it aside for a book that’s barely begun, and might take (agonized) years to finish.   In the meantime, the folks who put literally moments into illustrating the first book will wait patiently to be paid.  This is as close to real as it gets, folks!  After all, if top-of-the-bestseller-lists author Les Moore isn’t handled properly, and given all the time he wants to mediocretize, he might skip to another vanity press!   Heavens!

Notice how in just one day, the focus has switched from Darin’s Californian Adventure back to Lisa.   That Pulitzer nomination must be the bitterest flavor Tom Batiuk has ever tasted.  Notice, too, that Cayla shows up just now so she can be further humiliated and placed at the back of the bus so Lisa can ride up front.  I find it very difficult to feel sympathy for her, however, as this is a bus she chose when she fought to get Les as a prize.

I take it back.  The failure of the Pulitzer committee to notice that Tom Batiuk had married his most wondrous character ever to a black woman–that taste must be bitterest of all.

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by | August 16, 2015 · 10:28 pm

Empunchable You

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, BChasm back for another stretch driving the Funky Phantom.  In today’s episode, the most notable thing is another amazingly punchable face by Les in panel three.  It’s so punchable, in fact, that it looks as if Tom Batiuk beat us all to the punch (so to speak) and just kept punching.  I’ve never seen a visage as scrambled as that, outside of Beetle Bailey after Sarge scrunches him to the ground.

As to the “content,” why would Darin ask Les about his Hollywood experience?  I’m going to assume for the sake of argument that Darin actually wants to work on this movie, and to see it through to completion, thus possibly getting a good-paying job.    Les, you’ll recall, worked tirelessly to torpedo his movie and make certain that Hollywood would never call him again.  It’s hard to think of a greater example of non-success, or, to give it its proper name, failure.  Unless Darin is planning on doing the exact opposite of everything Les says, he’s doomed.

The feeling on my part is that the movie won’t be made anyway.  Given the absolute sacredness with which comic books are viewed in this strip, coupled with how Evil Hollywood always wants to alter the purity of the material it has been given, means that all the cast and crew will resign en masse in order to keep from sullying the wonder that is Starbuck Jones.  If it doesn’t come from Les, it’s not allowed to happen.

By the way, I think I’ve figured out what it is that I dislike most about the art in this strip as it appears throughout Act III.  It’s not the smirks, it’s the half-lidded eyes, the ones that seem to be carrying on their own conversation.  “You know, right?”  “Of course I know.  And you know, too.”  It’s that unspoken superiority to all things that is totally unearned.  It makes me want to punch Les all the more, although all the characters do it.

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by | September 6, 2014 · 10:00 pm

What’s a Hemingway?

Major props as always to Beckoning Chasm, and to David O, Epicus Doomus, and Oddnoc, for helping me keep the snark fires burning every day!

As the first autumn leaf drops, Les and Cayla pack up the old porch swing.  What is surely intended to be romantic small talk could be read as icy, dismissive sarcasm with the addition of some quotation marks:

I’m glad you’re home, “Hemingway”…I missed you while you were “doing your Hollywood thing.”

After all, Les’ ultimately doomed movie project once promised big bucks and dreams of stardom. Instead, he’s back in Ohio with nothing to show for his time in LaLa Land.

On a side note: every Sunday strip since August 3 has had these black borders around the panels…is Batiuk finally copping to how morbid and depressing his strip is?

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by | August 23, 2014 · 10:41 pm

Nothing Works Out If You Don’t Let It

Link To Today’s Strip

Good ol’ Cayla, always the affable doormat. “Oh, you’re spending the entire summer living large in an all-expenses paid five star Hollywood hotel suite and dining with movie stars? And I’m not invited? OK, whatevs, I’ll keep some lemonade on ice for you honey!”. Married folks everywhere are reading this and thinking, “uh yeah right, Tom, seems plausible”.

And then he returns home to inform her that the whole thing was for nothing. No big TV bucks, no fame, no future in the business, not so much as an autographed Mason Jarr 8×10 glossy. Nothing. But that’s our Cayla, always content with whatever scraps Les deigns to toss her way. She is, after all, a mere substitute who knows her place, which is directly behind the Lisa shrine with feather-duster in hand.

Look at Dickface in that last panel…(urge to kill rising rapidly). Har-dee-har har. Only Tombat could tell a story that takes years to unfold, have absolutely nothing happen then pretend it’s a delightful happy ending. Look at that moronic grin on his stupid face. Look at Cayla purring away in bliss…blech, just nauseating. And does anyone remember the part of the story where Les heroically fought for “credit”? I sure don’t. TB could have skipped this entire arc and just had Les reject the offer and it would have ended exactly the same way. What a sorry display. Thank God it appears to finally be over, hopefully he’s reached his Les quota for 2014.

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by | June 15, 2014 · 10:38 pm

Bu(zzzzz)Kill

Link To Today’s Strip

He’s back: The Delicate Genius, the paragon of integrity and virtue, the defender of the Gospel According to Lisa, the man who has the courage and conviction to see right through the perverse decadence and evil greed that rules “Hollywood” and the twisted freaks that dwell within. That’s right, the smug, annoying dick with ears himself, Les f*cking Moore, along with his trusty imaginary sidekick, Anxiety Cat!

In this installment of “Les Writes The Same Story Again And Again And Again”, it seems that Clay Wallace, noted Hollywood scumbag, has concerns about Les’ shitty script. So he’s postponing the “pilot” and doing a “table read” instead, which makes no sense at all unless you’re a bad comic strip writer trying to toss around “show-biz” lingo, in which case it’s perfectly logical. Maybe they’re turning the cancer book into a series now, where another shoe will drop each and every week.

(“Previously on Lisa’s Story”:……..”Is she….???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”)

And look at TheAuthor trying to work that ridiculous cat into the story again. Les’ imaginary friend means he’s about to suffer once again from the intense angst and self-loathing that comes with the territory for a profoundly gifted “writer” like him. He has no problem with dropping one of his dry little sarcasm bombs on his boss like a big wiseass but when it comes to plying his trade for money he starts simpering in the corner again, all worried about the universe conspiring against him and so forth. He’s just so incredibly insufferable. Look at him there in panel three with that smug obnoxious look on his face, who can look at that panel and not think about killing the guy? What a dick.

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by | November 12, 2013 · 10:30 pm

It Is By Will Alone I Set My Mind In Motion

Today’s Strip.

Les, you horse’s ass.  You’ve never had any problem visualizing Lisa’s thoughts before–why not grab a thermos, a legal pad, and head on out to the park bench?   Lisa can dictate the entire damned script to you.  Problem solved.  Cayla can do the rest of the yard work.  I mean, Cayla has to be good for something, right?

Now, let’s leave aside the fact that you were LIVING with Lisa all through this time, because if we bring that up, it might just indicate how much of a self-obsessed jerk-clod you are.  It might explain why you can’t (or don’t care to) remember when Lisa confided in you about what she was going through.  You know–the kind of thoughts you’re having so much trouble with right now.

Of course, none of her thoughts and fears back then had anything to do with you, Les, and to be honest it kind of moved the spotlight a little too much away from where it should have been.  After all, what about your needs!

But that’s not really the point I was trying to make, Les.  You are supposed to be writing a movie.  Movies have things happen, and scenes where people speak.  They’re a visual medium.  They are not endless interior monologues, unless they were made in France back in the late 1950’s.  You are adapting a book about a woman who died of cancer.   If there was an audience who wanted to see such a film, they’d want to see how she copes with her illness, how her friends react, how her life changes, perhaps how her priorities shift and how she now sees the remainder of her life in a different light.

The Japanese film Ikiru is a fine example of such a film.

The idea that Lisa’s thoughts should be part of this script is really just begging for a nice case of Writer’s Block excuse (“How can I possibly write her thoughts for Hollywood,” Les preened).  Her thoughts would naturally be expressed, visually and through dialogue, in how she interacts with her friends, her family, her doctors and so on.   It’s all about relationships and how cancer would impact them.  All things that could be shown on screen without too much difficulty.  It’s called writing.

As for you, Tom Batiuk, you really don’t know how to write, do you?

Actually, I secretly think Tom Batiuk regrets the whole “serious issues” path he’s taken, and wishes he were doing gag-a-day again.  It would explain why the strip is so half-hearted and bland.  Well, heck, here’s an easy out for you:  teenage Les awakens in study hall.  “Whew!” he says.  “It was all a dream!”  Then Bull punches him.  There you go, that’s funnier than all of 2013’s Funky strips…which admittedly isn’t saying much.

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