If you’re serious about decluttering then it makes sense to part with clothes that no longer fit. Holly’s suggestion to Funky is neither brutal nor mean. What’s brutal and mean is reducing the titular character of your fifty-year-old franchise comic strip to a peripheral character who mainly shows up to provide comic relief.
For all of us who tell Tom Batiuk “write what you know!” Who doesn’t know what a pain in the ass it is, having to enter your login credentials using an onscreen “keyboard”? For once, we feel the Funkman’s frustration at being randomly required to sign in, even if his overreaction spoils their relaxing evening.
Signing in tomorrow (if he can remember his %#*@$$ password) will be the Silvio Dante to my Tony Soprano, Epicus Doomus. Epicus makes the trains run on time here at SoSF, and devotes much thankless effort to managing the guest author rotation and flagging the occasional errant spam comment. He’s done more than anyone, myself included, to keep this blog going for 12 years. We stand in line.
I like how Harry’s reaction upon seeing someone who was famously brutally murdered on live TV alive again is just “hey, an old console TV” and not “HOLY CRAP JOHN DARLING, THE FATHER OF JESSICA DARLING, WHOSE FATHER JOHN DARLING WAS MURDERED IS STILL ALIVE!!!!”. If you wanted a good example of what makes this strip “special”, a guy travelling back in time and his main reaction is “wow, the TVs are old in the past” is hard to beat. I also can’t think of much worse to play on TVs you’re trying to sale than a news show talking about taxes.
Here is today's strip Is it worse than we all feared Or simply as bad If I was popcorn I would be quite offended By this portrayal Les hated this film Why would he even watch this Was happy it failed In this case, "writer" Would not describe Les as he Did not write the script This deserves more scorn I'm a skink, I can't rant, so I'm counting on you Rip this thing to shreds Kill it with all of the fire Or just acetone
Yup. It’s just a neighborhood covered in billboards. Due to Botcons and TFcons in the area, I’ve been to Hollywood four or five times myself. Because every time I went, there was someone else in the group who hadn’t seen it. It’s certainly a place. I’m glad I got to see it once. Point at the stars on the Walk, go to the pavement of the Chinese Theatre, and put my own hands where Harrison Ford (and literally thousands and thousands and thousands of foreign tour groups) have put their hands before.
But I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite place to go in LA.
Because it’s a street lined with desperation. Every person you pass that isn’t a tourist is an uncomfortable sales pitch waiting to happen: smiling with their mouth but not their eyes, scanning every fanny-packed stranger, hunting for the barest indication of eye contact to swoop in. Its not the kind of place for the untrained midwesterner who is used to benignly waving with all five fingers extended at strangers when they pass them on the highway.
Everyone in the comments has been shocked by the survival of the Chateau, and most of Hollywood proper. But I’ll remind you that there have numerous Southern California wildfires since the hotel was built in 1929. I pulled up my old map I made of the fire last year, just to confirm that Hollywood was probably spared, while Cindy and Mason’s Malibu McMansion went up in smoke.
So yeah, it would have been a near thing. If I was the owner, I would have been nervously sniffing my dinner plate of cocaine, and making calls with promises of bribes to the Fire Chief.
But the REAL non-sequitur today is the Starbuck Jones billboard. The premier for that movie was supposed to be going on during the fires last year. Were we supposed to have some pandemic related delay? Those things aren’t cheap to rent, and Hollywood regularly repaints itself in the trappings of whatever the next big blockbuster will be. When I was last there, every billboard, bus stop, and park bench was painted with the Hellboy 2019 movie that bombed.(#notmyHellboy.)
So, we have two options. One, the movie’s release was delayed an entire year and I’m just forgetting. I mean the 2021 Comic Con badges were Starbuck Jones too.
Two, this is a Tommy Wiseau The Room situation. The movie’s already bombed, but they’re hoping to drum up interest in the DVD sales. So they’ve paid for a single Hollywood billboard, month after month, year after year. Four years from now, Masone Jarree will still be staring with his black soulless eyes through his fishbowl helmet out at the drivers on Sunset Blvd.
Son of Stuck Funky 
