Grate Expectations

 

Today’s strip is just chock-full of dialogue, all of it loopy and stilted. At least someone uses a little tact when speaking about the late John Darling: his daughter. “A great self-appreciator” sounds much kinder that “egomaniacal jerk.” And it’s easier to accept that he used to “grate on people” versus “making their workplace a living hell.”

But…Darling’s murder “still a mystery”? Les wrote (and somehow published, despite losing the manuscript) a goddam book about it. Did he leave the last chapter out?

Daycarelessness



I so love how Jessica’s gone from zero to sixty on her “documentary” project…Shrimp Sauce can only stand there looking pathetic, cradling their infant son. “So are we going to get daycare…?” As if they could even afford daycare. What’s even more professional than enlisting an unpaid college intern as your production assistant? Why, schlepping along your months-old baby as your “sound man.” WAAAAAA!!

So What If It Never Happens?

So seemingly out of the blue, documentarianne Jessica informs her husband that she’s getting back to work on her long-delayed project about her dad you-know-who…as she packs up her camera and heads out the door. Darin asks her a perfectly legitimate, if clumsily phrased, question: do you really want to do this? And it turns out that she does not, since it requires her to revisit a difficult time in her life (which, having been a baby at the time, she couldn’t possibly remember).

And The Cradle Will Smirk

Link to today’s strip

BAAHHHH! Oh, don’t mind me, I was just startled by that weird pacifier-sucking baby head floating around in the first panel. Absolutely haunting. As are those snow-covered stairs leading up to that apartment, a real death trap if I’ve ever seen one.

I don’t know about you guys but I never get enough of Boy Lisa MBA cracking wise about the technology these kids today something something what who cares. Oh sorry, I meant to say “Never get. Enough.”, sorry about the mix-up. And that side-smirk Jessica throws him, are women supposed to be smirking like that so soon after giving birth? Or at any other time? And what is that eerie glow in the room? That baby’s head looks strangely translucent today, doesn’t it?

Oh well, it’s been a blast as always but now it’s time to turn things over to the next young firebrand on the SoSF team…the always snark-tastic Beckoning Chasm! Until next time…stay Funky!

Gimme Little Sign

Sometimes I wonder why we go to all of this trouble every year

…said Funky yesterday. I wonder too, since Montoni’s patrons will have three days before Christmas to enjoy the festive fruits of the gang’s labor. What’s interesting about today’s strip (besides the fact that Jessica’s hair has doubled in volume) is how much loving care has gone into that “Closed” sign. That’s a professional job. Compare that with the childishly scrawled oaktag poster that heralded the arrival of breakfast pizza. Tells you all you need to know about where Mr. Chamber of Commerce’s priorities lie.