Tag Archives: tiny trees

by billytheskink | August 18, 2022 · 10:30 pm

The Les He Knows, The Better

More word zeppelins in today’s strip… Not as bad as yesterday, but still, get your bookmarks out, folks!

You know, this is actually one of TB’s tidiest retcons, probably because it is one of the very few intentional ones he’s ever undertaken. It takes the original scene and changes its context (slightly) by depicting a previously unseen scene. Tidy. The pieces actually fit together. There are no loose ends, deleted original context, or unresolved conflict with the originals scene. See? That’s not so hard.

Heck, as a bonus it even (unnecessarily but adeptly) explains a silly detail from the original scene, why Les has a camcorder and this Hari Seldon story readily at hand as if he was waiting for Lisa to lament about all the things ~~Summer~~ she will never get to experience. Turns out, he pretty much was just waiting on the chance to whip that camera on out.

Tidy as it is, this retcon was no more entertaining or less irritating because of it. In fact, it makes the origin story of the Lisa tapes tremendously off-putting. The focus shifts away from the impending reality of Summer growing up without a mother seen in the original scene to the needs of Summer’s nogoodnik parents… First, Lisa wants to record the tapes so she can live vicariously through Summer’s adolescence in her imagination. Then, Crazy and Lisa hatch this cockamamie plan to let Les take credit for the idea to record the infamous tapes, which only soothes his ego and bolsters his hero complex. These people are awful and I hope I never wind up sitting next to any of them on an airplane.

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Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, bad ideas, cancer, cancer films, character death, Crazy, Crazy Harry, death, enraging facial expressions, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, hatchet face, horrible ideas, ideas, impending doom, Isaac Asimov, Les, Lisa, non-pizza foodstuffs, obsolete video technologies, pop-culture references, porch swing, raging egoism, references no one gets, retcon, retcons of retcons, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, Star Trek, Taj Moore-hal, terrible ideas, the lisa, the Lisa tapes, tiny hands, tiny trees, trees, unnatural hand gestures, welcoming death, word zeppelins, wry banter, wry self-deprecation, wry weary snideness, wryness

by billytheskink | May 26, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Modest Louse

I neither understand nor care what Les is droning on about in today’s strip, though I do find it hard to believe any student would invite him to a graduation party… including this one. Les was invited to Montoni’s alcohol-free graduation party in ’98 (not by a student), it was about as well-attended as you would expect.

^{If the party is alcohol-free, then why are they switching from present to past tense mid-sentence?}

Cayla, for her part, is a strange combination of scandalized by a swimsuit style that has been fairly common and quite popular for half a century and nonchalant about seeing her younger self galavanting merrily beside the (time?) pool.

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Tagged as anon-o-students, balloons, bottled water, Cayla, comma eyes, dull stories, flying music notes, graduation party, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les. Cayla, music, poor female characters, sad-sackery, smug inept bearded jerks, Squick, sunglasses, swimming, tiny trees, trees, uninteresting stupid anecdotes, water, water bottles

by billytheskink | March 16, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Stolen Valium

In today’s strip Les, appropriately, puts all of his stolen Hollywood paraphernalia in same place.

Marianne doesn’t appear to understand the concepts of opacity and walls.

Cayla plans to monetize this display even though presently no one seems willing to visit the Moore house for free (and people are willing to visit Dinkle!).

Why am I blandly narrating this strip in lieu of hard-hitting commentary and rapier wit? Because I know my limits. Why is Les blandly narrating his actions in the first panel? Because there is no limit to his disdain for even those that worship him.

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Tagged as Academy Awards, awards, BatiukButt, books no one will ever read, boredom personified, cancer films, cancer movie, Cayla, Cayla's pink turtleneck, dumb props, hatchet face, how things are NEVER done, ID badge, inadequate Lisas, insufferability, insufferable assholes, it's called "writing", knowing smirks, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' blue sweatshirt, Les. Cayla, Lisa's Story Movie, Lisa's Story-The Movie, Marianne, Marianne Winters, not how the world works, not how things work, Oscar, Oscars, rewarding the worst, silly awards, smirk, smirking, smirks, smirks exchanged, smug inept bearded jerks, smug poses, theft, tiny trees, towel curtains, unbearable smugness, unearned awards

by billytheskink | March 13, 2022 · 10:30 pm

You’ve come a long way, baby

Ah, the classic tug-of-war between privacy-invading exuberance and false modesty… who wins that race to the bottom in today’s strip?

Les’ false modesty does, of course. For one thing, it’s coming from Les, which makes it an additionally off-putting version of an already off-putting behavior. The biggest reason, though, is that Cayla’s desire to “let people know” is essentially moot, everyone already knows. Anyone who cares saw Marianne tell the television cameras that she was coming to give her Oscar away to Les this week. Yeah, if she’s trying to organize a mob to meet Marianne then that might not work if by “on the way” Marianne means that she’ll be there within the hour… but with Marianne’s very public announcement of her planned visit and the relatively specific time frame she gave, the Taj Moore-hal should have been descended upon by pushy celebrity obsessives and Starbuck Jones fans days ago. Where are they? Where’s Lenny and Frankie and (ugh) DMZ? Why am I asking you?

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Tagged as Academy Awards, awards, bare trees, Cayla, Cayla's pink shirt, Cayla's pink turtleneck, cell phones, cellphone, dead tree outside window, dead trees, disembodied hand, hatchet face, huge hands, insufferability, insufferable assholes, jazz hands, knowing smirks, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' blue sweatshirt, Les. Cayla, Marianne, Marianne Winters, Oscar, silly awards, smirk, smirking, smirks, smug inept bearded jerks, smug poses, Taj Moore-hal, tiny hands, tiny trees, travelin, trees, unbearable smugness, unearned awards, unnatural hand gestures

by billytheskink | March 9, 2022 · 10:30 pm

My mother, the car

Quite the crowd on hand in today’s strip, with the first panel serving as the Batiukverse equivalent of the semi-famous crowd reaction photo from the 2017 Academy Awards’ wrong envelope incident. While the crowd of stars watching Marianne are not quite of the same wattage as those in the 2017 audience, I still spy some big names.

OK, I don’t know who this is, but his mouth is huge
The shirtless Nazi who gets shredded by a propeller in Raiders Of The Lost Ark
George Foreman
Dorothy Hamill (what’s with all the sports people?)
The giraffe that stole David Cassidy’s hair
A Dilbert cosplayer
General/President Ulysses S. Grant
Who invited Creepy Pete?
Christopher Columbus (not that one)
Soft-serve ice cream
SHEMP!

Quite the menagerie present to hear Marianne call back to the time she went AWOL, nearly committed suicide, and then quoted her mother quoting an actress who was one of Hollywood’s most famous suicides. Anything to fulfill your parent’s dreams. How inspiring!

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Tagged as Academy Awards, Anon-O-Character, anon-o-character with oddly-shaped head, Anon-O-Characters, Anon-O-Dork, awards, Batiukmobile®, boredom personified, California, crowd, crowds, disgust, enraging hair strands, Hollywood, Marianne, Marianne Winters, Marianne's mom, movies, oddly muted squiggly lines, Oscar, Oscars, Pete, real places in California, silly awards, smirk, smirking, smirks, squiggly "L"s, squiggly lines, squiggly lines used to denote texture, statues, stupid cloud bubble panel border, suicide, tiny trees, trees, unearned awards

Tag Archives: tiny trees

The Les He Knows, The Better

Modest Louse

Stolen Valium

You’ve come a long way, baby

My mother, the car

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