those stupid tapes – Page 3 – Son of Stuck Funky

Can’t Wait For The Blu-Rays

The image of Summer hanging out at home while surrounded by her Lisa videos is one of the more disturbing FW scenes I can remember, right up there with those faces you can sometimes see when TomBan draws gigantic asses. No wonder she’s shunned by the cool kids (and apparently everyone else too). I especially like panel two, where she’s literally watching a DVD in the truest sense of the term. Simply groundbreaking.

And it’s “fireworks factory” syndrome again as BanTom shamelessly draws out his “story” with a few profound silent panels. Everything involving Lisa is treated with such intense gravitas and profoundity with all sorts of seriousness and pondering. And I guarantee when he FINALLY gets to whatever it is on those DVDs that merits all this angst it’ll be the sappiest bunch of crap you’ve ever seen.

“Hey Cayla, got a minute?”. That’s up there with “hey Funky, you hungry?” or “hey Owen, wanna read comic books?” or “hey Les, wanna act like a smug annoying jerk?”. I mean of COURSE she has a minute, especially if it’s to remind everyone that she’s just Les’ second insignificant wife and not the one who died. This is already hands-down the most annoying arc of the year and they haven’t even played the f*cking DVDs yet.

Lisa: The Complete Box Set

Link To Today’s Strip

Well, that was certainly worth the wait. Batiuk uses his favorite tool…the rehash…to draw out the “suspense” regarding the “other woman” premise for the first of what promises to be many, many, many days. Sigh. The idea of these two idiots watching these DVDs together makes me queasy, so I hope Les at least has the decency to watch them in another room or something. The way Summer’s sitting there with them like they’re Pokeman cards or something makes me feel very, very uneasy about her future. Didn’t she used to play basketball or something?

Leeese-ter Eggs

Link To Today’s Strip

OK, color me baffled. I have no idea what THIS is supposed to be but that last panel is definitely shudder-inducing for a whole wide variety of reasons. Lisa is back and this time, it’s with a vengeance! Seriously though, having her suddenly popping up all over the place again is definitely not a good sign. In all likelihood, this will merely be some drippy Lisa sap aimed at whatever lucky gal managed to reel in Dick Face after her very tragic drawn-out death, but then again you never know with this BanTom guy. And hopefully the “For Les” DVD features Lisa explicitly telling Les that he is under no circumstances to ever write a book about her, as THAT would be funny. Which of course means that you can safely rule it out.

Why doesn’t he just tell her what’s on the stupid tapes instead of being all weird and cryptic about it? What the hell are “practice tapes”? WHOSE “senior year tape”, Summer’s or Lisa’s? I guess it’s supposed to be for Summer, but was a separate tape for each year of college really necessary? Seems like overkill and honestly, a bit domineering too. I wonder how long they go on for? Does she cover the bases right up to retirement? When he first introduced these VHS tapes I thought oh no, he can conceivably mine these tapes for Lisa material forever and damned if it isn’t happening right now.

But all this idiocy is totally overshadowed by Batiuk’s greatest artistic achievement in quite a long time: that disembodied, lifeless Summer head with the AV cables sticking out of her neck. They really should be connected to a copy of “Lisa’s Story”, as it IS the only thing keeping her alive right now. But nonetheless, it’s a chilling image.