Tag: Starbuck Jones

Cadet Collection

If you find reading Funky Winkerbean seven days a week to be an exercise in confusion and frustration, imagine what the reader experience must be like for those who only get the newspaper on Sundays. We daily readers at least have some sort of context, not that it helps much.

If Batiuk really cared about telling this story in a coherent manner, the extra real estate of the Sunday panels would afford him space to provide character and story development. Instead, he squanders precious ink and newsprint on another comic book cover. At least this one is an original (by DC and Marvel artist and fellow Ohioan Paul Galacy) and not some obscure title from a longbox under TB’s bed. So he’s able to work in some tangential connection to the “plot”: based on hair color, the “Lunar Cadets” appear to be stand-ins for Mason, Cindy, and Pete. Meanwhile, the real Mason, Cindy and Pete are relegated to a Family Circus-like bubble at the top, and most of that space is taken up by exposition and a reference to yet another comic franchise.

The artwork itself is fine; well, aside from the dull, muddy color pallette. But if the artist is going for a 50’s or 60’s feel, it would have been a nice touch to have the LUNAR CADETS banner hand-lettered, instead of using type that has clearly been digitally set and stretched.

Over a Cliff

HeyItsDave
March 29, 2016 at 11:15 pm
Gosh, if only there was a searchable database of movies available on the internet!

$$$WESTVIEW ONCOLOGIST$$$
March 31, 2016 at 1:07 pm
I know this has been said before, but a quick google search could probably confirm whether Cliff Anger is dead or not…

Partial credit is due, I guess: the gang has managed to use “that internet thing” to get a potential lead in their search for Cliff Anger. Not via IMDb, nor Wikipedia, nor the Google; any of which might provide fairly reliable info as to old Cliff’s status and whereabouts. But—hello, what’s this?— someone’s selling off a cache of SJ memorabilia on eBay or Craigslist. Perfectly logical, then, to assume that this mysterious seller would be the man himself, and reason enough for three people to fly to New York to go looking for the guy.

Angrily We Roll Along

Professor Fate
March 29, 2016 at 9:11 am
…And Mason unless your plan is to find the grave of the late Mr. Hanger and dig up his skull and drink wine from it while learning your lines, no you haven’t had an amazing thought.

No such luck, Professor. Mason’s just so pleased with his idea (and Pete hails it as “genius!”) to find a cameo role for the actor who played SJ in the “serial from the early fifties.” Well, in a comic strip universe where a WWII veteran still can find work driving a school bus well into the 21st century, this is totally plausible. In fact, I can almost see how that cameo might look:

Jarr Jarr Thinks

The gang enjoys some pizza (does Montoni’s ever serve a pie without pepperoni?) and continues their discussion of Starbuck Jones. Mason Jarr, the actor who is going to play Starbuck Jones in that new Starbuck Jones movie, appears to have experienced some kind of epiphany; he’s had…a thought. This incredibly amazing thought. Dot dot dot. Hope it’s a doozy, because you and I are going to have to wait a whole twenty four hours to find out. That’s a real “cliff’anger!”

They Don’t Write ’em Like That Anymore

Packed like sardines in Mason’s convertible, our pals hurtle through the inky blackness, snarking on the cornball dialogue in the Starbuck Jones serial. Pete can afford to laugh because he, being a newly minted hotshot Hollywood screenwriter, will craft a script that’s going to bring the franchise up to date and bring new depth and complexity to our hero. That is, if Pete ever stops dicking around back in his Ohio hometown…and as long as they don’t pressure him with any deadlines…and only if nobody dares to suggest any changes…