Tag: Roberta Blackburn

Book It!

Took me forever to realize that these lumpy headed monsters were supposed to be buckeyes. Makes Ayer’s 2021book festival art look like a a masterpiece.

As Y. Knott, Duck of Death, and our other Crankshaft correspondents have informed us, Lillian is currently at the Ohioana Book Festival, which is going on for realsies this weekend. I briefly had considered going, (seriously,) just for a wacky vacation road trip with a wacky destination. I’ve already forced my housemate, partner-in-crime, and heterosexual life partner, to promise that someday we’ll do a fun Funky tour. But we couldn’t go this year due to the very following crucial factors:

1.) Cows.

Still, probably would have been a low-key fun time. Especially since I’m pretty easy to please.

Continue reading “Book It!”

Thanks for Making Us All March in the Rain

Thanks to BillytheSkink for guiding us through “Wild Mort’s Love Life, Chapter XVIII”. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but seeing Dinkle in a strip on a Monday is the worst thing to me, since you know you’re getting (at least) another week of him. At least with Les there’s more to make fun of, and something might actually happen. With Dinkle all you get now is “isn’t Dinkle awesome?”, basically. And know you have the horror of Mort and Lillian popping up at any moment.
One of the weirdest things with how Dinkle is written is how he’s simultaneously portrayed as a maniac and borderline-fascist band director that everyone hated but also a beloved figured who improved the lives of everyone he touched. It seems like the majority of the actual band directing we see him do involves making people walk in hurricanes and risk their lives, so I’m not really sure why there’s a box of envelopes that’s stacked so high there’s no way anyone could have carried it. (Speaking of carrying, I’m very confused about how exactly Becky was handling that box, based on the arrangement in the first panel).
Oh, and Becky was one of Dinkle’s students and then became a band director. That’s the punchline for today’s strip.

That's Alls I Can Stands

Well now she’s just totally out of control, unilaterally making decisions that even Becky herself would not be authorized to make on her own. A high school that last year was nearly forced to cut its athletics somehow has money to order new band uniforms? Yeah, whatever. The good thing that happens here is that Roberta finally sends Becky right around the bend, changing her facial expression from yesterday’s utter deadpan to today’s look of…rage? Disgust? Agita? Whatever Becky’s feeling, she looks funny as hell. And if “Dad” is “filming”, that camera is even more archaic than it looks!

Crow's Nest

Rusty
August 15, 2012 at 2:02 am
What does a Band Mom do? I don’t recall them having an actual role in this strip. Do they help with selling the fundraising turkeys? Do they play in the 4th of July concert in the gazebo? Do they attend band practice? I don’t get it.

TheDiva
August 18, 2012 at 3:05 am
…Oh noez, Becky’s mom is going to be involved with the band! And that’s terrible! We haven’t seen her do a single thing yet, but we’ve just spent an entire week complaining about it so it must be bad!

Señor Tortilla
August 20, 2012 at 12:57 am
Right now, I don’t see any reason to really hate Roberta…

Now do you see it? What I’m seeing is how Becky’s lack of  a backbone enables Mom to turn her job and her life into a nonstop waking nightmare. That lift that the two of them are standing in: there’s no ladder or stairs. Becky had to allow Roberta onto the platform before hitting the “up” button. Becky’s “victim” status is hereby revoked.

The one tidbit of humor that can be gleaned from this strip is that the “young man” whom Roberta is picking on is, naturally, dopey Owen.