traveling green shirt – Page 25

Missed It By That Much

I guess Mason chartered one of those super-low altitude private planes all the hot celebrities are into these days. I mean seriously, the thing is maybe forty feet over Les Moore’s house and judging by the change in the house’s perspective, doing a cool 50 miles an hour or so. Talk about a gratuitously unnecessary detail. Seeing a plane cruising over Moore Manor with no flames or bomb craters in sight is such a tease, man. And wasn’t that stupid tree cut down months ago?

So they’re going to film the SJ “earth scenes” in Cleveland of all places, instead of somewhere better or more practical. Sure they are Tom, sure they are. Mopey Pete is in rare form again today, as now he’s pissing and moaning about having to leave Hollywood, as he sits in a private jet no less. Unbe-f*cking-lievable. And what the hell is Boy Lisa going to say when he pops in on his wife…”hey hon, how was that long economy-class flight with our toddler aged son? Oh, me? Private plane”. A quarter-inch from reality my ass, any real wife would have bailed on the hapless Boy Lisa long ago. And who the hell is Andy and how much of the blame does he deserve?

Tonight There’s Gonna Be A Failbreak

Link to today’s strip

Yay! Another excuse to ditch the worst, most difficult and most demanding job of them all…writing for comic book characters! Somehow the star of the white-hot (and perpetually unfinished) “Starbuck Jones” feature film “heard” that Jessica and Skyler (who just moved to California a few short months ago) were inexplicably heading to Ohio to visit Skyler’s grandparents. And, incredibly enough, Mason just happens to have a private chartered flight to Ohio this very week! Unbelievable. And quite stupid, too.

So what the hell is this all about? Air travel gags? Fred Fairgood’s always-hysterical mutterings? John Darling? If Mason “heard” that Jessica was visiting Ohio, why didn’t he offer to fly her out there as well? How does he know Jessica and Skyler at all? How can Boy Lisa, who just a few months ago was using garbage as furniture, afford all this air travel back and forth to Westview?

Damned if I know. But apparently it made sense to Batiuk at the time, which of course means nothing, but still. At this rate Mason will be as old and washed up as Cindy is by the time this SJ movie hits the big screen.

Why So Blue?

Link To Today’s Strip

What the hell went wrong with the inking here? Why does it appear that Mopey Pete is wearing some sort of blue veil and glove combo? That crack Batom Inc. quality control team is something else again, eh? Nice work, you boobs.

I assumed they’d be jabbering about Jupiter Moon all week, but nope, instead it’s yet another remarkably clumsy segue into yet another pointless retro-pseudo sepia faux-flashback, this time featuring Cigar McBalding’s googly-eyed new car. I seriously doubt there will be ANY merchandise loot at all if these two imbeciles don’t finish writing that goddamned movie already. Now I’m no expert or anything, but I doubt the “Starbuck Jones” license holders will be too interested in sharing the wealth with a couple of whiny work-slacking goof-offs who wearily complain every time they’re given a task to complete. Just a few months ago Boy Lisa was slinging pizza in Westview, now he’s a Big City storyboarder working on a “red-hot” new superhero film, yet all he’s doing is bitching about it. Typical Westviewian, nothing’s ever good enough.

Deja Doom

Link to today’s strip.

Oh good heavens…are we all trapped in Hell, where we have to relive things over and over again, until we’re forgiven and allowed to pass into purgatory? Didn’t we just go through all this “back in the day” stuff? In fact–isn’t Pete’s dialogue in panel two an exact repetition of what he said before? (I’d look it up, myself, but I’m starting to feel a distinct aversion to going through old Funky Winkerbean strips. Life being short and all.)

How much padding does Tom Batiuk need to get to that 50th anniversary? Wait–don’t answer that!

Well, since we must, I’m guessing the answer is…a lot.

As for today’s day-old bread, again, I posit thus: that Pete here is merely a clerk-typist, tasked with putting the real screenwriter’s handwritten notes into proper script format. After all, he’s never been to a script meeting, and none of the producers have ever come by to chat about the project, even though he’s in the same building and everything.

I think he was hired because Mason wanted to do Cindy a favor, and CME thought Mason was valuable enough that he could be indulged a bit. But when they got his first draft, things went sour (“What the hell is this about sponges? And clones of sponges? And why does Starbuck Jones have so many soliloquies railing against short-sighted editors?”) and he was quietly moved out of the writer’s chair into something more attuned to his abilities.

As for Darin, I have no idea why he’s even here. Storyboards are typically done when there’s a reasonably final version of the script in place; there’s no point in paying someone to draw out sequences that may never be passed out of committee, let alone see the light of film. (Particularly for a firm that produces cable-TV movies, most of which are cancelled.)

That sort of thing is nowadays called “pre-visualization” and I think it’s beyond Darin’s abilities–after all, you have to imagine something that works, rather than assuming failure right out of the gate, and no one from Westview has that talent.

Stop Or Boy Lisa Will Shoot

Link To Today’s Action

Hey gang, it’s Epicus again, ready to steer the good ship SoSF through the treacherous waters of Boring Bay. Whenever I see I’m doing a Boy Lisa arc I shudder. Not a Les Moore shudder (shudder), of course, more like an “oh no, not THIS dullard again” sort of thing. He’s truly the Least Interesting Man In The World. And Mopey Pete isn’t exactly a bag of fireworks either, mind you. But when you see Darin you immediately know you’re in for a seriously boring ride, as pretty much every other FW character is like Action Park compared to Lisa’s bio-son. I’m surprised to see him getting this much “screen time”, as usually his infrequent appearances fizzle out after three days or so.

Anyhow, Jessica is in town to (guffaw) break the monotony and give these two idiots a respite from their incessant complaining and all-around dreariness. Good luck with that, Jess. Good thing she didn’t pop in on them while they were expressing any sort of satisfaction or happiness about anything, as it would have no doubt confused and disoriented her (as well as all regular FW readers). I assume she left that kid of theirs back home with the former Mrs. John Darling or maybe with those loveless frauds Ann and Fred, not that it really matters, as that kid is clearly destined for the same scrap heap where Rachel’s son, Wally Jr. and Crazy Harry’s missing brood currently resides.