Tag: random students

Statutory Ignorance

Today’s haphazardly drawn tableau finds the senior Scapegoats admiring a statue which their chaperone incorrectly identifies as “Eternal Vigilance” (its actual title is “Guardianship”).  I’m reminded of a quote from Mark Vonnegut’s memoir, The Eden Express: “The price of eternal vigilance is insanity.” Query whether Cory’s opinion of “shrinks” is based on firsthand experience.

Flashback to the 2007 D.C. Trip:
Chien may have been one of the (few) fairly attractive Batiuk women, but her fans may have forgotten how bitchy and unpleasant she could be…

An Inconvenient Douche

Unlike Tom Batiuk, I strive to keep my personal opinions out of my “writing”. But since he insists on preaching to us (through Jim the Science Guy) about climate change (I don’t call it global warming), I’m going to vent a little “greenhouse gas” here myself: I’m one of “those people” who  do not believe that the planet is irreversibly heating up, even after the just-ended record-warm winter (which I, not being a winter sportsman, enjoyed the hell out of). There is at least as much credible scientific opinion to disprove climate change as there is to prove it.

That’s my opinion, and you, dear reader, are welcome to your own. On to today’s strip. We find Cory actually awake and paying attention in class (because even Cory is concerned about Global Warming). He shares that he “heard someone on the radio” (these kids and their radios these days, am I right?) call Global Warming “a hoax”. Cory gives a sly, demure tilt of his head, as if to say “Gee, Mr. Kablichnik, that feller on the radio can’t be right…can he? Say it ain’t so, Jim.” Jim wearily throws up his hands; he’s heard the deniers (such fools!), and sets Cory, and the rest of us, straight.

For your pleasure: previous strips dealing with the “fact” of Global Warming:

May 25, 2008: Same premise as today’s strip (and how long has Rana been in this class?) But I gotta give props to Jim for mentioning a classic Randy Newman song.

December 5, 2010: “Of course Global Warming can actually mean we get more snow. That doesn’t make sense to you?”

June 23, 2011: Principal Nate is on board with the whole global warming thing, to the point of inserting it into random conversations:

Whale Meet Again

Oh thank God, no basketball.

I strongly suspect that today’s strip was originally supposed to run last September. Mainly because Mr. Moore is assigning his language arts class their “first book” of the year…a week before the beginning of spring? Also because said book is Moby-Dick, which you’ll recall figured in Maddie’s plagiarism arc six months ago. I’ll let this go, though, knowing how much Batiuk hates it when his readers pay more attention to his strip than he does.

Hoop-la!

Well, you knew the Westview girls were going to the State Championships…TB himself spilled it in an interview five months ago. So today’s strip is anticlimactic. No matter; there’s plenty to goof on here. The girls’ penultimate victory seems to be celebrated by only two players, the coach, and four fans (one of them wearing UGG Boots®!). Assistant coach Fishstick Annie, ostensibly the reason for their remarkable success, is nowhere to be seen. Maybe that’s her,  standing out of frame and bellowing “WE’RE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME!!” at the top of her lungs (and in big, bold, Dr. Seuss letters).

Up Against the Wall

Beanie Wanker
February 21, 2012 at 3:07 am
What the Hell is the band going to do? March on the court and do a halftime show?

I searched in vain for a YouTube clip of the homecoming parade from Animal House; specifically the part where Stork grabs the drum major’s mace and directs the marching band down a blind alley. There’s a great overhead shot of the trombones bending as they mindlessly march into a brick wall. That was the image that came to mind as I imagined the Marching Scapegoats attempting an indoor “script Westview” (two mentions of “script Westview” within a week?). Wanna bet that Owen was one of those band members that were “shaken up”?