Starbuck Jones – Page 7 – Son of Stuck Funky

Holting On To The Past

RIP Phil Holt, the latest FW character to sadly bite the dust. Well, at least he didn’t suffer. Apparently he had no family or friends, so he bequeathed his career-defining original artwork to some jerk he bummed a ride from a few months back. Too bad Phil didn’t own a pizzeria too, as then EVERYTHING would finally be going Boy Lisa’s way.

Pete’s reaction here is totally baffling. “I would have appreciated them too”…what? Is he being hypothetical and merely commenting on how awesome they are or is he expressing jealousy, like he wishes Phil would have left HIM some original artwork too? Either way he looks like a dick, as most normal people in his position would probably say something like “holy shit, Phil Holt died and left YOU his career-defining original art???” or something like that. Or maybe express some sadness about the news, you know, like normal people would. And these nitwits are his FANS, mind you. Imagine what Phil’s enemies must be saying about him right now.

Wholly Predictable

Link To Today’s Strip

Wow! More comic book collectibles! Those will no doubt triple in value within a few decades and might be worth WELL over nine cents apiece by then! That Skyler sure is a lucky kid, when Boy Lisa kicks the bucket he’ll stand to inherit the ENTIRE Boy Lisa collection! That oughta be enough to pay for college AND a few pizzas too! Well, a good online college at least…IF he qualifies for some sort of comic book scholarship program, that is. Otherwise his path seems shaky at best right now unless he really, really likes old comic books.

Congrats to the SoSF snarkers who successfully predicted the contents of Boy Lisa’s Mystery-Pak. Although in fairness what else could it have been? After all, it was the wrong shape for a pizza box. I likewise assume that Phil Holt is dead, which makes him the shortest-lived FW character ever, assuming that Darin’s weird half-sister is still alive, that is. BatNom has spent countless weeks on Pete and Darin daydreaming about what it must have been like to work at ol’ Batom Comics, then he introduces a character that actually did work there only to kill him off after one appearance. Apparently the great comic book art master had no one better to leave his career-defining work to other than a guy he met and hung out with exactly once, which says a lot about the glories of being a comic book artist, at least from one perspective.

Oh No…It IS Mail

Link To Today’s Strip

Oh no…it’s mail…and it’s an entire package too. Sigh, this could take a while, given how Boy Lisa once needed six months to open a single envelope. I really hope it’s evidence proving that Lisa wasn’t his bio-mom (as if) and the entire Funkyverse implodes upon itself, but the likelihood of that happening seems, uh, slim. It’s a Boy Lisa arc, therefore whatever it is it’ll be dumb beyond belief, that much is guaranteed.

And get a load of Pete/Tom’s little “dig” at lawyers. I guess they’re the scum of the earth…unless some humble little blog makes fun of your silly little comic strip, in which case they’re your pals…ain’t that right, Tom? Pete’s whole world-weary act really gets my goat, I mean the guy lives a fantasy comic book lifestyle most overgrown nerds would kill for yet all he does is gripe, bitch and complain about it. Just shut up and write your little Xaxian stories, you mopey nitwit.

Define “Man”

Link To Today’s Strip

Mysteries abound today. “Our man”…yes, I suppose that biologically speaking Boy Lisa is indeed a “man”, in a way. I can’t imagine it being too difficult to track him down, just follow the trail of comic books, pizza crusts and his wife’s tears of disappointment and bingo, there he is. Seriously though, who the hell knows where this is going, although if Boy Lisa is involved it’s guaranteed to be duller than watching Montoni’s pizza grease congealing. Boy Lisa has never been in an arc that wasn’t a pointless slog and even the one “good” Darin moment (when he was gunned down after illegally boarding a ship) was just a dream, alas. Hopefully it doesn’t involve opening mail or we might be here for a while.

Can the Living Marry the Dead?

Link to today’s strip.

Apologies first off–I don’t know how Fearless Leader embeds these sideways things into normalcy, so you’ll have to suffer with strained necks for the nonce. Unless I reach beyond myself, and give it a try–

–hey, that worked! I think!

And check out that cast. Isaac The Robot (defaming Dr. Asimov’s memory), Moon Mile Meek (or whatever that bowel movement was named), the Space Cadets, the Black Ghost, the Amazing Mister Sp0nge and the (*Cough* undead) Absorbing Junior, and the latest ass-pull, the Blue Astra. I’d love to see a follow-up strip showing what gifts they brought (“a gift certificate for $10 at Best Buy? Who the hell–“) but follow-ups are definitely not this strip’s strong suit.

–Case in point. So, the Starbuck Jones movie world premier has come and gone, and we are no wiser as to how it fell on the world. Was it a hit? Did people enjoy it? Were the fanboys irate over how it changed canon? Did it rescue the Valentine Theater from foreclosure, and did it spring the careers of Mason, Marianne, Cindy, Cliff, Vera, Pete and Dullard into the stratosphere? Did it circle the drain on the way through the toilet? Is Cable Movie Entertainment now on the level of Marvel Studios, or are they instead competing with The Asylum for most horrible crap ever?

As the Residents once sang on their album Not Available, these are “Never Known Questions.” Because the only answer here is another question, “Who cares?” And the answer to that is, “Not Tom Batiuk.”

My theory on this is actually quite simple, and obvious once you hear it. The success or failure of the Starbuck Jones movie was something that–had nothing to do with Les Moore.

Think on that for a moment. Has this strip ever featured a creative, successful idea that didn’t involve Les Moore? I certainly can’t think of any. For the most part, it’s been “I need help, oh thank you for helping, [blink] oh it’s the next day and everything worked.” (I’m thinking of Pete Movement and his battles with the…sigh…Lord of the Late.)

The message of the strip has been pretty constant in Act III–Les Moore is the only person who can be allowed a creative success in the world. Everyone else succeeds only because they betrayed their ideals and settled for hackery. No one else has lost a wife…no one else wrote a best-selling book detailing how he suffered when losing his wife…no one else wrote about how he just damn kept on, after losing his wife…and found a woman willing to be doormat. That last bit is a little troubling, but, you know…Les Moore was once married to a woman, who…died.

It makes me fear what comes next week.