Tag: Valentine Theater

All the King’s Horsesh!t

Link to today’s strip.

I’d like to think that scream of terror in the last panel is someone snapping from the sheer disregard of continuity.  “This theater” was responsible for none of what you claim for it, Mason.  You, Pete and Cindy were the ones who brought Cliff out of his self-imposed hermitage.  Vera just happened to show up at the Silver Grille.  (I guess she had one of those decoder rings before she was engaged with one.)  And I know it galls you to admit it, but you met Cindy because of Les Moore.

Once again, Tom Batiuk seems to be making it up as he goes along, disregarding his own history while he expects his readers to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every minor character who appeared for a panel or two.   It’s amazing how those two contradictions don’t collide and annihilate the whole strip.

Speaking of a panel or two, it’s sure unfortunate that Cindy had to run off between panels one and two.  Because I don’t know who the Hell that’s supposed to be in the second panel; it looks very little like Cindy.  I mean, she’s not even wearing the same dress.  I guess, maybe Cindy tripped and looked foolish doing so, so the people in charge said, “Quick, we need a hot blonde who doesn’t look anything at all like she’s fifty years old!”

Either that, or the new artist is definitely getting Funkyfied–“Hey, whatever fills the panel, man.”   Gotta wonder if, when he told his fellow artists that he’d landed the Funky Winkerbean gig, there was this long, uncomfortable silence, followed by expressions of sympathy, pity, and many hands on the shoulder with the words, “We’re there for you, man,” and “You’ll get through this.”

Just Say No

Link to today’s strip.

Well, Jff, I guess your tongue-tied nature might be explained by the fact that this is a huge surprise to you, unaccustomed as you are to public speaking…except that all of this was your idea in the first place.  As Mason points out, the whole reason everyone is here because of you.  Given the fact that this strip goes out of its way to praise its characters for the slightest reason, did you really think you’d sit in the back and be ignored?  Sure, sure, that’s what we wished would happen, but that never counts.

I have to hand it to Tom Batiuk for his optimism–every time he brings in characters from Crankshaft, I imagine a mythical Funky Winkerbean reader saying, “Wait, there’s a whole other comic strip full of characters like these?  Where can I find this magical realm!”  And, since Mr. Batiuk never names “Crankshaft” in these cross-overs, said mythical reader is left saddened by the fact that he will never find this other strip.  Why, it’s a two-for-one!

Shooting Gallery

Today’s strip

Greetings, folks, BChasm temporarily in the captain’s chair for the next little while.  What’s this?!  The viewscreen shows a sea of hostiles–ready photon torpedoes!   We must annihilate this threat before it spreads across the galaxy!

I’m going to skip over Mason’s “movie we filmed here,” comment, because while I don’t think any of the film was shot in Centerville, I honestly don’t remember the “school bus drives into shot” bit well enough, and–Tales to Astonish–I have no desire to look and see.  So I’ll give him that.

What else?  Well, we’ve got a crowd shot of almost everyone, including Les–which sets our Les Watch back to zero, damn it.  At least he’s not saying anything, and is both poorly drawn and partly covered by a word balloon.  Funny, though, I’d have expected both Comic Book John and Imbecilic Harry to be there, but I guess they got their exposure in at Comic Con, so no need to feature them any longer.  But who is that between Jim KibblesNBits and Marianne?  It looks like they flew Marianne’s mother out there after all!  I guess?

The fact that so many of the cast and crew are in the audience–and sitting right up front, too–makes me wonder if Tom Batiuk believes that the first time anyone involved with a movie actually gets to see the finished film is at the premier.  In the real world, the director would have seen the film dozens of times by now, and there’s almost always a screening for the cast and crew.  So all these people would be backstage, or at the back of the hall, gauging audience reaction–pacing, room for laughs, people getting bored at certain parts, and so on–and looking for “oohs” and “aahs” for the cast members.

But not in the fantasy land that is the Funkyverse.  Here, everything happens the way a five year old imagines that it happens–it’s all just magic, and friendship, and comic books and pizza, and it works every time!  In a way, that sounds like an attractive world…for a few minutes.  But after those few minutes, I’d want something of substance, something that would stir the imagination rather than just “be” everything forever.

Poorly thought-out as the Lisa stuff is, it’s at least an attempt to address adult concerns–something that a comic strip aimed at “contemporary problems of young people” should attempt more often.  Because I’m pretty sure the contemporary problems of young people aren’t that they wish there were more comic-book movies.

How Blue Was My Astra


Maybe I’ll update this post later on and maybe not, but in the meantime please enjoy today’s strip without dislocating your neck. BeckoningChasm will be heckling the Starbuck Jones cast and crew from behind the velvet ropes starting Monday. Thanks to BC and to Team SoSF and most especially to you, the readers!

Your genial host,
TFH