Tag: welcoming death

There’s an APB for that

The wavy panel border returns in today’s strip.

Again, I do not understand exactly what this is supposed to mean. In the visual language of comics, the wavy border should signal Marianne’s scaling of the H as a dream, but it really comes across like it is just signaling the shift in setting from the studio lot to the Hollywood sign. It’s like telling someone you “dreamed of Portugal” when you really mean that you physically went to Portugal.

Day five in grayscale, and I’m actually starting to appreciate it. Seeing Funky Winkerbean in black-and-white on my local paper’s color comics page is like watching an infomercial for an as-seen-on-TV kitchen product. You know how those ads always begin in black-and-white or muted color, showing a frustrated person trying and failing to use common kitchen utensils to measure flour, slice a tomato, take a bite out of a sandwich, or some other non-difficult task… then the ad switches to color to espouse the virtues of how easy it is to eat eggs or to prevent your children from choking on hot dogs if you just owned this amazing new product?

That’s what it feels like reading this week’s FW strips right next to a bunch of full color strips.

Does your comic strip ignore it’s own continuity, reasonable plausibility, and all good taste? What you need is the…

…overly broad Danish humor of WUMO!
…12 year old political and pop culture references of Get Fuzzy reruns!
…first world problems of Dustin!
…awkward innuendo that populates every conversation in Luann!
…hack-y mundanity of Garfield!
…Phantom‘s striped codpiece!

H-ku

Marianne’s long climb
Continues in today’s strip
Third straight climb panel

No wavy borders?
Is this really happening?
Do I really care?

Nothing quite captures
Los Angeles at sundown
Like black-and-white film

Hoodie and short hair
Marianne continues to
Look like Summer

Did that upset her?
Being compared to Summer?
How would the web know?

Still no police yet?
Seems to support my theory
Of her ninja skills

Plaintive Pale

The wavy bordered third panels continue in today’s strip, and they surely must be representing a dream, because what is happening is practically impossible.

According to the official Hollywood Sign website’s helpfully-titled “Why Can’t I Hike To The Sign” page:

Question: How can I hike to the Sign?

Answer: You can’t.

Why? It’s against the law. There is fire danger and your personal safety is at risk.

Additionally,

In the early years of the Sign, it was possible to climb to the Sign, though it was just as dangerous and inadvisable a trip then as it would be now. Even if you had the stamina to ascend the steep, slippery slope without falling, you could still fall victim to a lurking rattlesnake, be scratched by the rough brush, or be menaced by a mountain lion.

Also,

The security system for the Sign was developed in concert with city officials, police and fire authorities, park rangers, and the Department of Homeland Security, and it includes the following features:

• A tall perimeter fence with razor wire
• 24 hour electronic surveillance by City of Los Angeles authorities
• Infrared lights and cameras that can see equally as well in the day and on a moonless night
• Monitoring microphones and bullhorns
• Web cameras
• Motion sensors
• Regular patrol visits by city police and park ranger helicopters

Rigorous Enforcement, 24x7x365

Walking into the protected Sign area is trespassing and violators will be cited by police. Anyone who makes an attempt to do so will be buzzed by a park helicopter, ordered off the slope through the bullhorns, and find a police cruiser waiting for them at the bottom of the slope.

So, this is not reality we are seeing, nor is it within 1/4″ of an inch, not by any reasonable conclusion. Unless… Marianne is a ninja.

Well, no wonder people are threatening her.

Running on Empty

Link to today’s strip

Good news, everybody! Funky doesn’t need to get all meth’d up before pounding the track with Les! He’s tweak free! But just look at the poor bastard. All those drugs really took a toll on him – it looks like Les is jogging with Mort.

engrishI still can’t figure out what goes through T-Bats’ head when he coins a nonsense phrase or tries to force a new meaning onto a bit of the language. Does he think he’s so influential that his imagined meanings will sweep the language and the popular imagination? Does he look at his inked words and think to himself, “Yep. That sounds just like real life”? Or does he just kind of mindlessly parrot out phonemes that he thinks sound cool? He’s like an Engrish T-Shitsu Generator. Man, that is so nordic. Truly, I stand in line.