Tag: Westview H.S.

Piqued in High School

I do not even want to know what Lefty and Dinkle were doing in the band office prior to today’s strip that alumni band practice so rudely interrupted. Whatever it was, it was surely negative amounts of interesting, and we are better off having missed it. If only that could have continued for three more panels…

I’m amazed that TB hasn’t hatched this alumni band thing before. It is full of his favorite FW comfort foods: Dinkle, Lefty’s pinned-up sleeve, old old old people, wistful reminiscence about high school band, petty high school grudges, more Dinkle… Just throw in cancer, comic books, and Les smirking a couple times and you’ve got the complete FW meal.

I suppose it is too much to hope for an appearance by Jon Glaser’s “Score Settler”.
ScoreSettler

Alas, there is no gold to be found here… there’s not even a creek.

Boresday, February 1

Today’s strip was, again, not available for preview.

So, let’s look back at the 1983 introduction of the goat that so disturbed Buck back in the day, Billy the Scapegoat. Or was his name actually Billy? The answer may surprise you… but probably won’t interest you.

First, the whole thing was Dinkle’s idea, including the name “Billy”.  Unfortunately for the Westview football team, the goat did not possess divine power.

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“Billy” was under the impression that Westview had the only terrible high school football team in existence.  Though this might explain why he ran onto the field hitting players.

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He also didn’t care for the uninspired name Dinkle gave him, preferring his own uninspired name.  No ever called him Paul, of course, because he couldn’t talk.

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While called a “scapegoat”, Billy-Paul was more like an oracle, his heavy-lidded ennui a prophesy of things to come for this strip.

Doomsday, January 30

Today’s strip was not available for preview, but it is easy to speculate on what it will involve based on yesterday’s “hat”-focused anti-humor. Bull will be there, Buck will be there, and a retcon may well show up too…

Bull’s football career has been one of the most heavily-retconned aspects of this strip in recent years, with much of this re-written continuity in the service of the super-serious CTE story arc. Bull went from simply being contacted by a St. Louis Football Cardinals scout before he hurt his knee to actually trying out for the team (presumably during the 1982 strike) after suffering a major knee injury in college. The recently and incessantly-discussed goal line officiating screw up game was originally said to have been Coach Stropp’s final game against Big Walnut Tech, not Bull’s. This goal line play situation’s only actual roots in Act I are a 1980 “Casey At The Bat” parody arc called “Westview At The Goal” (much thanks to SOSFer Don for pointing this out a few weeks back) which was nobody’s final game against Big Walnut Tech. Heck, even the backward-facing emu seen on Bull’s college helmet in yesterday’s strip was originally forward-facing.

Frankly, I wouldn’t comment that much on these retcons if they weren’t being used to try to punch up the maudlin nature of a story that doesn’t need any re-written history to be maudlin. Are we supposed to take everything in this strip seriously except its continuity? Please.

Cana-duh

Oh look, someone let Les put the message on the school sign in today’s strip. Or maybe Kablichnick put that up. Or Linda. Among the Westview High faculty, the possibilities are endless…

So, I’ve been assuming this is Logan Church, who was introduced in early 2016 as a white girl with an ABC News-endorsed business blog, and I stand by it. A change in ethnicity? That’s an established common occurrence in the Batiukverse. A successful business blogger who suddenly dresses like an extra from the opening scene of Austin Powers and jokes about not knowing basic high school geography? Wouldn’t be the first time.

And with that, I hand the keys back over to the governor himself: TFHackett. After this week’s clip show, one can only assume we will back to regularly scheduled programming. Good luck… you’re gonna need it.

Quiz Bowel

It is comics like today’s strip that remind me how good I have it. I’m not taking high school English from Les Moore. I never had to take high school English from Les Moore. It is as if he is intentionally trying to be the opposite of the teacher that successful people so often cite as the inspiration that got them to make something of their life. What a miserable experience in every single way this strip is.

Les’ senior students did poorly on their quiz last Monday and now his freshman students have done poorly on theirs… I see a common denominator here. I bet these students would too if Westview High had a math teacher.