Westview High School – Page 43

Owen to Circumstances

I think we have another first, folks. I think this is the first time Les has been rendered with anything other than loving detail. Look at that grinning death’s head in panel two. I’m thinking his jaw is about to unhinge so he can devour that poor woman.

Panel three makes this another strip wherein I wonder what kind of audience Tom Batiuk thinks he has. In order to get this “joke” you have to know who Owen is and you have to know that he wears that stupid chullo at all times. That means you have to be a regular reader who enjoys the strip enough to know the cast…the very sort of reader that Tom Batiuk has driven off with pointless, boring characters like Owen. Seems like one of those unsolvable puzzles. Could there possibly be such a thing as an Owen fan? It seems scarcely credible. And since that’s the case, one would regard an episode like today’s as another example of a strip perfectly designed to appeal to no one.

Is there anyone out there who thinks it’s hilarious that a son would wear the same headgear as his father? That’s the joke. I guess it’s supposed to indicate that Owen is following his dad’s fashion sense?

I don’t know about you, but when I look at Owen he doesn’t strike me as the sort who has any respect for his parents…or anyone else, for that matter (except comic book characters of course). He looks like the kind of lazy slacker who wonders why achievement isn’t handed to him, because he’s so deserving and all. He looks like the kind of kid who smokes dope at every opportunity…and maybe that’s what Chullo Senior does, too. The sloped neck, the half-lidded eyes…yeah, I guess dad prepped for a meeting with Les Moore in a very practical manner, by raiding his son’s stash.

Maybe I’ve got this backwards, and Chullo Senior is actually following in his son’s footsteps. Or maybe the lesson here is that I should get totally baked. I bet if I did, this strip would be the height of hilarity.

The Batiuk-Signal, Robin!

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings fellow snarkers, BChasm back for another stint in the chair. Congratulations to HeyItsDave for giving us an exemplary two weeks on his first time out. Well done indeed!

As for today’s offering, there’s one thing worth noting:

Wedgeman’s back! There he is, near the center of panel one, burnt orange t-shirt, arms angrily crossed as if he’s been assigned to read Funky Winkerbean. What tales he could tell us! Like maybe, what the heck is Alex doing with her hand? Stifling a yawn? I’m with ya there, Alex. Note that Glasses seems to’ve lost a lot of weight, and behind him is some kind of creature I think I saw in a scary YouTube video. And right under the dialog there’s a girl who is fading out of existence! Wow, someone could use that if there was a space movie filming nearby!

Other than that, ho-hum. When I was in high school, any excursions off the school grounds did not require a face-to-face meeting with the parents. Usually, a permission slip had all the information my parents needed (itinerary, what to bring, etc), so I brought it to them, they read and signed it, and I turned it in. Are there now actual after-hours meetings for this sort of thing? If so, my next question is “Why?”

I’m going to pass over the comic book stuff and point out the awful overly-spun dialog we’ve got today. Always a problem when you draw your word balloons a year before you know what to fill them with. Wouldn’t panel one read better like this:

On the other hand, maybe we should just go with our inner Batiuk:

Papers, Please.

Link to today’s Sensible Chuckle

It’s an Act I-style high school gag, and not too bad in it’s own inoffensive aw-shucks kind of way. Notice that the intern must be drawing Alex again today because she’s back to being a chubby goth cutie instead of the horrific middle-aged fat nun who regularly graces the dailies.

I am sorta dreading the reappearance of Professor Shlabotnick or whatever the hell name Bats gives Mark Twain there. Seems we just got done with a week of crappy jokes from our old paisan’ Tony – I’m not up for a series of gags that were rejected by Henny Youngman for being too stupid.

Going Unsteady

Aw, check it out, a sight-gag! Much like a exploding vacuum cleaner or face full of chimney soot, at least this is a comic I understand. Today’s comic still has those rascals obsessing over Wedgeman’s ring. It’s unhealthy. And hopefully Wedgeman’s main squeeze finds a better way to support that massive chunk of metal or coach is going to have to come over to rehab her back.

Who’ll Stop The Rain

Link to today’s strip.

Gah, six panels to extol some piece of software–not long after Harry decided that software was worthless for anything human beings do. Tom Batiuk must be really impressed with some app he’s recently downloaded, because otherwise this episode would end with a smirking Dinkle saying something like, “Well, you could just look outside,” or “My system of yelling at them is better,” or some terrible pun. That’s the best thing about today’s strip–Loathsome Dinkle doesn’t get a single line of dialogue.

I recall (from comments here) that the Battle of the Bands was always rained out. So we’ve gone from showing a running gag every year to just talking about a running gag? Huh.