Tag: retcon

Hammett Up, Cliff

Today’s strip gets a “time travel” tag and a “retcon” tag, because both of those things appear to be happening!

This is lifted wholesale from the Fatty Arbuckle case, by the way. Dashiell Hammett actually was a Pinkerton man in the late 1910s and early 1920s and he did claim to be a part of the Pinkerton team hired by Arbuckle’s defense attorneys, though some historians doubt his involvement was significant if it even happened at all.

How this squares with the timeline of silent film star 1940s icon Butter Brickle Brinkel’s trial is unclear… but all timelines in the Batiukverse are about as clear as an oil spill.

The Right to Hug Arms

Link to today’s strip

The internet has been a wonderful breeding ground for all kinds of new dialectical terminology. Whereas before we had things like Ockham’s Razor or Pascal’s Wager. Now we’ve got Godwin’s Law, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” The Bechdel Test, “Whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.” And Poe’s Law, “Without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views.”

Here we have an inverse Poe’s Law. A sincere expression of a view so obviously exaggerated it is indistinguishable from parody.

Also. Is this all of the students who walked out? That must have been some editorial.

Did someone break the windows?

Link to today’s strip

No Les, for either one of them to be jokes, they would have to be funny. And kudos to all the commenters who wondered if Batiuk would remember far enough back to reference the machine gun. Turns out it was cardboard. What is funny is that bringing a fake gun to school these days is likely good enough to get you suspended. Ah, the good old days, when Batiuk still had the balls to use guns for humor.

There is something funny in this strip though. That kid carrying the ‘We’re Still Here” sign looks like an immigrant from another strip entirely. I’m guessing Archie. He’s either got freckles, acne, stubble, or a tiny tattoo of a flock of migrating geese on his cheek. That coat looks like he murdered Chewbacca to wear his pelt, and the orange scarf isn’t so much a fashion accessory as some terrible noose he’s broken free. He’s got a nose high and sharp enough to use as a can opener, pointy ears. And all of this with a receding hairline hiding under cowlick reminiscent of the infamous scene in “There’s Something About Mary.”

Forget everyone else in this strip. We should make it all about Cowlick from now on.

Passing The Batom

Funky’s succession plan is coming together in today’s strip, which is a good thing I think, seeing as he lately can’t remember that Wally already works for him.

Rachel, frankly, should be furious with this nepotism. She has worked at Montoni’s since the Clinton administration, surely she knows nearly everything there is to know about the place. Shouldn’t she be considered for a management position? Is it because she doesn’t have a college degree and Wally is about to receive one? Perhaps that is why Funky ultimately ignored Wally’s request to apply for the manager position that Durwood vacated in 2015.

But Funky had no real qualms about letting Cory and Rocky run Montoni’s back in August, when he and Holly drove to Florida. Cory has no college degree, he joined the military right out of high school (where he struggled) and his only experience at Montoni’s was busing tables and dressing up in a pizza costume. Rocky’s experience is likely similar, sans pizza costume.

This is especially galling because Funky, even armed with his business degree, worked his way up to being co-owner of Montoni’s by starting as… a delivery boy. Rachel facing down Funky’s nepotistic patriarchy is a much better female-focused awards-fishing story arc than last week’s bit with Mindy critiquing comic book character clothing. It is almost amazing that TB didn’t realize it… almost as in not really.  Because comical books.

Also, Cory and Rocky are moving to Seattle after their wedding, as the young people do, so we have that to look forward to come 2022.

Cousin Effect

So long Atomik Komix! Not sad to see you go.

Today’s strip moves us on to the greener pastures of… *sigh* Montoni’s.

Yep, nephew cousin Wally is having one of those newfangled January college graduations. He is also too cheap to spring for (recently-increased) postage it would seem, having Rache hand-deliver invitations and putting the savings toward paying Wally Jr’s ransom.

Meanwhile, uncle cousin Funky is wistfully wondering when Wally, who began high school the year after Funky graduated from college, became an adult. Probably sometime during the the time he joined the military, became a POW, got married, volunteered with a minesweeping organization, adopted a child, had another child, became a POW again, spent over a decade in captivity, came back to the US, got a job at Montoni’s, started going to college, got a service dog, got married, and qualified to graduate from college.