Tag: Rana

Plugging Away

Link to today’s strip

Putting aside how it’s at least a little presumptuous for Wally to just decree what he’s going to do all by himself about the “group” project while Adeela sits there silently, I do think it’s kind of funny how Wally says he’s going to just send her the outline, rather than e-mail or use Google Docs.  Which, as backwards technologically as this strip is, it would not shock me if he just photocopied her notes, cut them out, pasted them together with his, and then mailed her the results.  Because when I was in grad school ten years ago people were using Google Docs for this exact situation, so all group members can collaborate on one single project, without one having to swipe the notebooks of the rest of the group.  Which is going to make it pretty hard for her to do any additional work.

This latest entry in “Batiuk Really Doesn’t Understand the Students Today” still make more sense than Rana creeping up on Wally like she’s stumbled upon Elvis or Jimmy Hoffa.  Which Wally is basically the FW equivalent of, I guess.

You Never Know, But They’re Sure to Be Boring and Badly Drawn

Link to today’s strip

I’m excited to be getting a chance to contribute my bit here.  I was honestly dreading that my first strip would be a Les strip, or Dinkle writing a book, and I’d have to come up with something halfway interesting about that.

I do like how this strip somehow managed to shoehorn in bricks.  Precious, precious bricks.  And “breaking down the barriers between people” translates to two people each saying one sentence and then staring robotically at each other.  I mean, look at Adeela in the third panel.  She looks like Wally just gave her a diagnosis of Total Body Cancer and she has seconds to live, and her memorial service is going to be at Montoni’s.

I think Wally’s in trouble though.  He had enough difficulty with one Muslim in a hijab.  When he turns around and sees they have him surrounded, even Buddy might not be enough to keep him on the Montoni’s Manager track.

Café Oy Vey

The folks who bring you SoSF rely on Grandpa Google too: mainly to confirm a suspicion that ol’ TB has once again drawn inspiration from his tiny Ohio Universe. The black squirrel on the poster in panel 5 is another tipoff that we’re at Kent State. But KSU’s “Cultural Café” IRL isn’t a permanent dining facility: it’s a monthly series of events  “that seeks to educate and familiarize [students, faculty and staff] about the home countries of our international students.” There’s one this Tuesday. With the exception of Adeela and possibly that swarthy guy with the glasses in panel 1, this “café” doesn’t seem any more or less “cultural” than any other spot on campus. But wait! Who’s the gal with the light blue hijab wrapped around her elongated head? Well, since TB teased it in his blog (and Gerald Plourde reminded us in a comment yesterday) it’s not really spoiling the surprise to tell you it’s Wally and Becky’s adopted daughter Rana, who, like Wally, has been missing in action for years.

Veterans’ Day greetings to our readers, and respect and gratitude to our vets. Tune in tomorrow when newly minted guest author SpacemanSpiff85 takes over the helm!

A glitch in the matrix

Someone refresh my memory but have we not already done this joke!? It was either this or a very slight variation of it.  I’m reminded with strips like these that we longtime snarkers might be recalling the one-a-day gags as being funnier than they were.

In any case, time, or what we understand to be some rudimentary construct of time, seems to be advancing in a forward, almost coherent movement for once. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me when Summer got her driver’s license (or if she even did) but a mess of students are about to graduate from high school, leaving us with Cody, Owen and a gaggle of nameless, faceless students with pencil wrists and melting faces.

Coro-Nate-tion

Epicus Doomus
May 25, 2012 at 3:55 am
…The big “surprise” will be, as always, staggeringly lame and instantly forgettable…

Shocker, huh? Elevating the two gay teens to prom royalty would have required drawing them again and maybe even giving them names or another line or two of dialogue. So much safer to have the kids bestow the honor on Mr. Nate and Mrs. No First Name Green.

Paul
April 11, 2012 at 12:04 am
…this guy [Batiuk] can’t draw “walking,” can he?

He’s not the best at depicting people expressing excitement, either (remember “bespectacled blue shirt khaki guy” at the basketball playdowns?). Summer and Keisha show proper decorum (probably relieved that they weren’t elected as the royal couple). But some of the Westview teens exert themselves so hard to demonstrate their approval as to risk injury. Maddie (wearing that #*@%in’ hat) shimmies awkwardly and offers a cracked grin. Cory may be a delinquent but he’s no homophobe; he thrusts up a thumb and smiles with his bottom teeth. Rana actually seems to be having a hearty laugh at the Greens’ expense for some reason, while Big Mac is just all like durr-hurr-hurr. But I think it’s Touchdown Guy in the blue tux who best expresses the joy that all of us are feeling…this arc is finally concluded.

Phew! Gay prom wore me out! I’ve asked David O to
step in and take over the reins for a week…enjoy!

— TFH