Today’s lesson from the Cartoonist’s Studio: how to turn one unfunny gag into two!
Seriously, Mr. Batiuk? Seriously? Groundhog Day isn’t ’til tomorrow, dude.
Tag: silhouette
Unlike
It was like Facebook but in the real world? Has Tom B ever been to Facebook? Unless Crazy’s idea of chatting up the staff or other customers included begging them to join his mafia or showing random strangers pictures of his neice, I doubt it was much like Facebook.
I wonder if the real Village Booksmith sells DVDs or CDs, or just old back issues of Readers’s Digest. Either way, getting accosted by my weird mailman at a bookstore would be enough to drive me away, or go nuclear on his butt.
Crazy Harry: “So what book did ya get?”
Me: “The joys of animal sex! I’ve always heard about it and was kind of curious. Lots of horse stuff in it. I’m more of a marsupial man myself but kangaroos are hard to come by in Ohio…”
'Roids
“It’s-a meeee, Ton-eeee!”
“…and speaking of Asteroids, I think I’ll go downstairs and lose myself in my collection of vintage arcade games.” The harangue continues into Day 4, and yeah, folks, I peeked ahead because I have to: the theme continues through Friday and Saturday. As I pointed out Tuesday, Darin has, over time, lost his Pinocchio nose and become less “cartoony”, while Tony is just a red cap and pair of overalls away from going into the plumbing business.
SoSF would like to note the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a genius entrepreneur and inventor whose vision changed the world (while unfortunately giving rise to smug know-it-all technogeeks like Darin). Rest in peace, Steve.
De-lighted
The Pay-to-Play arc concludes (hopefully) today as Les and two of his harem witness yet another cost-cutting measure. I’d wager that even with the lights off, the visitors hand the Scapegoats a whuppin’.
Daddy, Darling
I’m trying to find her dad too. For a comic strip that ran for eleven years, there’s not a lot to be found on the web about John Darling (and I don’t mean Wendy’s brother from Peter Pan).
There are entries on Wikipedia and Toonopedia. There’s an out-of-print collection on Amazon ($40 used!), and if you’ve got time, a YouTube clip where somebody pans across some JD strips collected in a scrapbook (!).
But there aren’t a lot of strips to link to online, probably because the comic ended its run before the internet got underway. JD certainly appears to have been better drawn that TB’s other projects (the art was mostly by Marvin cartoonist Tom Armstrong) in an appealing, chunky 80’s fashion. Most of what can be found on the web mentions that Batiuk was in a dispute with North America Syndicate, and decided to kill his character so that the strip could not be continued.
I mention all this because, if Darling was a real-life figure, a talk show host who was shot to death on live TV…would there not be a pretty fair amount of material to be had online and elsewhere, even 20 years later?
Son of Stuck Funky 