Tag: Starbuck Jones

Gravit-ass

Epicus Doomus
June 21, 2016 at 11:45 pm
So, is Mason all stupid again now or what? He was kind of douchey when Les first met him, then he became a beloved Westview fixture, then a benevolent student of lost films and now he’s an idiot again?

What do a percussionist Prince protégé, the Boss’ backup band, a lowercase poet, and mass–energy equivalence have in common? Besides the most commonly used letter in the English languages, not much at all. “Gravitas“? Does Mason even know what the word means? Sheila E’s a helluva performer, but is more famous for her musicianship than her “dignity, seriousness, or solemnity of manner.” As Epicus points out, for all the “strip time” Mason gets, we don’t know much about him besides the fact that he’s a handsome movie actor. Is he making a joke here? The guy who writes and draws him sure isn’t.

People Who Need People

[Dionne] Warwick, for years an aficionado of psychic phenomena, was advised by astrologer Linda Goodman in 1971 to add a small “e” to her last name, making Warwick “WARWICKe” for good luck and to recognize her married name and her spouse, actor and drummer William “Bill” Elliott. Goodman convinced Warwick that the extra small “e” would add a vibration needed to balance her last name and bring her even more good fortune in her marriage and her professional life. In retrospect, the extra “e,” according to Dionne, “was the worst thing I could have done… and in 1975 I finally got rid of that damn ‘e’ and became ‘Dionne Warwick’ again.”

Perhaps Mason’s sudden-onset name change mania isn’t a symptom of his bipolar disorder. Recall how Les fed him that story about Pavarotti’s superstitiously carrying a bent nail for good luck (before planting one for Mason to find, in order to give him the confidence to get through a table read for Lisa’s Story). It wouldn’t take much to convince such a gullible sap that tacking an “e” onto his surname could bring good fortune…or maybe even “a new interview with People magazine“! Because, you know, that project he was involved with the last time People mag came knocking? Les and his fucking “kill fee” put the kibosh on that.

J…E…R…K…E

Professor Fate
June 20, 2016 at 9:35 am
It had been established earlier that Mason was bi-polar could this be the start of a manic upswing? And since we are well into production of the SJ movie wouldn’t this require modifications to all the publicity material? And shouldn’t he be talking about this with his agent?

Mason’s supposed mental disorder, which he disclosed last fall and which has not been mentioned since, could indeed explain his impulsive desire to change his name. It’s certainly not a logical choice: for starters, the added “e” would change the pronunciation from “jar” to “jar-RAY” (or even “zhahr-RAY”). It would be only a couple degrees less confusing than when Prince changed his name to .

Wheel! Of! Torture!

Greetings, dear snarkers, hate-readers, and beady-eyed nitpickers. Please allow me to share with you my horrifying realization: with Cody, Owen, Wedgeman, et al, having finally graduated from Westview High, Tom Batiuk no longer needs to depict “contemporary issues affecting young adults”. After forty-four years, Batty’s decided to ditch the high school madness plotlines and focus full-time on what he really wants to write about: the Starbuck Jones universe. Brace yourself for strip after strip about how TB imagines Hollywood movies are made. At least he used to take the trouble of lurking around his old high school to glean details of “real” high school life (and he’d still get it wrong).

With such thin material from which to spin the Starbuck saga, Batiuk’s going to need to pad and plod even more than he typically does, which brings us to today’s strip, which starts out promisingly with a cameo from Pat Sajak. Turns out to be more of Batty’s bait-and-switch, and not to spoil it for you but I feel I must: this whole week revolves around Mason considering adding an “e” to his last name.

Double Shot of My Batty’s Love

I suppose we can’t blame Tom Batiuk for taking Fathers Day off and yielding the floor to a “real” comic artist. But we’re left with so many unanswered questions.

Mason Jarr casually  informs Cliff, on-set and in costume, that they are concurrently “shooting” Starbuck Jones and its sequel? Did Cliff not read and sign a contract? Or is he so delighted to have been rescued from obscurity that anything is fine with him? “I can’t believe they’re shooting two at once!” This from a man who became (obstensibly) famous as an actor in serial films. Do you suppose these were shot episode by episode, totally in sequence?

Let’s move on to the content that’s not drawn by Batiuk: a fucking Western? Because “shooting two at once”? Maybe this one of Batty’s obscure, beloved old comic covers that he tries to to bend the narrative in order to make it fit? We Google “comic book ‘arizona ranger‘”  to find the source…there’s Lone Ranger comics…Texas Ranger comics…there’s, um, this…

Turns out it’s not a vintage comic after all, but is instead another title from TB’s imaginary Batom Comics: he mentioned The Arizona Ranger in his blog two years ago (along with Charlie and Chuck and Mr. Sponge). So TB commissioned this “tribute” (from an artist who is old enough to be a contemporary of Cliff Anger’s) and really doesn’t care if it makes any sense.