Tag: Starbuck Jones

You Sneeze You Lose

SosfDavidO here and awww c’mon, still with the sneezing thing? If this were any other comic it’d be semi-mirth provoking but now today’s strip has even the most optimistic of faithful Funky Fans wondering if Mason has a brain tumor or something. In any case, gear up for more sneezing, followed by either an attempt at hilarity or a trip to an MRI machine.

Blessing in Dis Guy

What’s up fellow funky fans! SoSfDavidO here with today’s strip , which only time will tell is a one-off dumb gag or the start of something much more serious for Hollywood’s hottest leading man!

I must say, the new artist is going to take some getting used to. Gone are the days of the severest of hatchet-faces. Mason actually looks somewhat like he could be a leading man in the first panel instead of a human tomahawk. Could it be? Now I miss Tombat’s old, classic style!

Fruit of the Doom

Link to today’s strip.

I rate today’s episode two “Meh”s.   It’s a good example of “Batiuking it.”  It’s not terrible enough to be irksome, nor is it insensitive enough to provoke anger.  It’s like something the dog left on the kitchen floor–he didn’t really mean to do it, it just happened by accidental instinct.  Though at least the dog has enough self-awareness to look guilty about what he produced.  Luckily, I have some paper towels.

Nice freeze-frame on that “Starbuck Jones” image.  I assume someone hit the “pause” button, so that Mason and Cindy could chatter on brainlessly, but it’s entirely possible the scene is still running and consists of characters just chattering.  That seems entirely Batiukian.

I wonder if that’s a workprint of the new film, or just Cliff and Vera again?  I find I don’t really care about the answer.  But, isn’t it funny that the characters here went out of their way to find the cast of the Starbuck Jones serial, but anyone who worked on the original comic book has been completely ignored.  Who knows, they might still be alive, too!  But then, artists and writers might want to do something creative (“This is not my vision!”); actors, on the other hand will just read the lines given to them.  Whew!  Dodged a bullet there.

As far as today’s “content” goes, let’s not forget that Cindy’s “going out on a limb” was not, repeat not, because she had great faith in BuddyBlog or because she believed in her own abilities to deliver stories.  It was so she could seize Mason in her mandibles.  That’s all.  Mason’s either fine with that, unaware of it, or worse, pleased with how his personal magnetism snared his new paramour.

So, we’re not talking about someone striving for excellence in a new frontier.  We’re talking about someone indulging her urges to keep her insecurities at bay.

Still, she did manage to find a nice piece of fruit.

Nominated for Best Imbecile in a Supporting Role

Link to today’s strip.

Every time a character says something exceptionally stupid–and Mason here is a shining example–I have to remind myself that, despite Tom Batiuk’s repeated assertions, this strip has nothing to do with the real world.  There’s no quarter-inch between there and here.

What this strip is, is a Wish Fulfillment World.   This world is how Tom Batiuk believes the world should work.  Here, the highest form of art, and the most valuable commodity, is the comic book.  Second most valuable is the comic book’s consort, the movie based on a comic book.  Here, Mason’s idiocy makes perfect sense.

Now, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a Wish Fulfillment World.  Some of them can be quite entertaining.  At the risk of ticking people off, I’d put JRR Tolkien’s  works in this category.  But Tolkien made sure that his world was consistent, and that there were rules that governed his world, and those rules were not to be ignored or bypassed for convenience.  Consistency is PRIMARY if you’re going to go down this path.  Because of you ignore consistency, you end up with Funky Crankshaft Island.

To wit: Here, the greatest comic book of them all, Starbuck Jones, is both extraordinary evocative to its hordes of fans, who treasure every moment it gave them, and yet it sold so poorly that it put its creators out of business.  Here, a peck on the cheek drives the internet into a frenzy, and drives a young actress toward suicide.  Here, said actress is simultaneously a naif making her first film and a hot property that can boost a film’s stature into white heat.  Here, an actor whose main credit is “Dino Deer” lives like royalty, bathed in luxury.  Here, a loathsome prick can make his mark on the entire world by writing about his dead wife, yet he toils in obscurity in a small Ohio town.  I could go on; there are thousands of such…Funky Crankshaft Island rides.

And movies are an art form, not a commercial product.

Now don’t get me wrong–movies can be art, and as such can be very enlightening.  I have thoroughly enjoyed every Ingmar Bergman movie I’ve ever seen.  And most of those made by David Lynch.  But every movie ever made by a film studio has one primary goal: to make money.  To pretend otherwise is to ignore the real world.

Which this strip does splendidly.

PS: I’d agree that most awards are stupid and entirely ignorable.   Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Cary Grant never won Oscars?  I’m thinking, though, that Pulitzer nomination letter must really burn right now.