Today’s strip show Bull reverting back into full-on caveman mode, ready to beat the piss out of whoever is smokin’ in the boys room. Good thing they’re already near a toilet, though Bull will probably finish with the American Standard Swirlee.
Tag: Westview High School
Never Forget. (That the Scapegoats Suck)
Ya know, a SMALL nod to the event that changed the course of America might be nice. This is the funnies, of course, it’s not like I’m asking Garfield to stare sullenly at an American flag for three panels but it’s a little off that a strip that deals in melancholy as currency would pass up the chance to remember what happened on this date in New York City over a decade ago.
No such luck. Instead, today’s strip is just a time-marking daily grind forward until the next real story arc. Even the telephone pole and goal post weigh in on the current situation with some of the most weirdly-spaced dialog balloons since Mark Trail!
Goodness Gracious
Lower your expectations! I’m left to swim in BeckoningChasm’s wake after his most excellent guest hosting duties. A tip of the Funky Fedora to you, BC!
Now, onto the snark.
Quick, Les, take a seat with the rest of the class so we can pick *someone* we know out of this sea of unknown students. Cody, Owen, pressed into service as one of the only two students we’ve been introduced to in this gaggle of malformed, floating heads, does his best with the predictable but bad news he’s been given in today’s strip.
Hoo-boy. I hope this strip doesn’t indicate we’re in for a cycle (recycle) of “The Scapegoats are terrible” knee-slappers. That could make for a long snark fortnight for yours truly!
“BC”=”Before Cthulhu”
NB: BC does not stand for BeckoningChasm! Let’s just swat those rumors down right now!
Now, as for today’s thing…whoa, Les is straying from the Moby Dick/“Snows of Kilimanjaro” syllabus! Let’s be generous and say he’s only brought this particular work into his class in order to point out its shortcomings compared to those two works…”bullying it,” in a sense. Now, I confess my knowledge of ancient texts is pretty weak, so can anyone tell me what this work might be? The Satyricon, maybe?
Given the sorry state of the Westview educational system, Owen’s answer seems to be a genuine one, not borne of his own personal ignorance. There’s no evidence of a typical religious presence in Westview, although I seem to recall a priest performing Les and Cayla’s wedding. So Jesus Christ (no matter your personal view of him) would not be an item that anyone in this benighted town would discuss openly, and hence the meaning of “BC” wouldn’t be common knowledge among the community’s teens. (It’s not BeckoningChasm so stop asking!)
In fact, seeing the evidence of how the characters in this comic regard the endless and instant hostility of the cosmic fate that continuously observes and judges them, I suspect that the only gods known in Westview are those theorized by H.P. Lovecraft…
–okay, that was a jokey aside, but in all seriousness, it suddenly makes the undercurrents behind this strip much more interesting. Did Lisa really die of cancer? Did Susan Smith really leave town? Last year’s high school class…have they really gone on to college somewhere? Where are Jinx, Chien, Crazy Harry’s kids, Rachel’s son, Wally’s son? Why aren’t they mentioned at all? Did you notice we didn’t have a “senior prom/graduation day” arc this year–what happened to last year’s entire junior class? And maybe Khan isn’t “Khan,” but the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred? Maybe “Citizen Khan’s” isn’t a deli at all!
Now I really want to see a Sunday strip showing the Westview folks attending mass. I want to see a priest facing the crowd and saying, “Okay folks, repeat after me–Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”
*cough* Well, rather than end on that dark thought, let’s take a closer look at panel two, where Les is at his most punchable.
There you go. As our friends at Mad magazine once said, “Suitable for framing or wrapping fish!”
(Credit Where It’s Due Department: image of Cthulhu created by someone who calls himself Somniturne1)
I thank you for your indulgence, fellow snarkers! As Fearless Leader says, stay Funky!
Despica-Bull Me 2
Oh God, another terrible, terrible pun. About an issue that’s received quite a lot of serious treatment, both in the strip and in the “real world.” I’m not sure how to react about the constant reporting about the rise of bullying incidents in our schools, but it seems at the very least to be a subject requiring some sensitivity. A terrible pun made at the expense of the victims seems pretty low, even for Tom Batiuk. The “bullying arc” with Alex, earlier in the Spring, actually seems to have handled this issue better. …Uh, I’m guessing it did. I really don’t want to go back and read it again.
And let’s just skip over yesterday’s episode, wherein you’ll recall that Bull used a bit of the ol’ bullying himself, in order to receive his gruel in a more timely manner. Just like we’ll skip over the fact that lunch is being served at all, given that it was cut from the budget last week. I think someone must have given continuity a wedgie!
Okay, this post might seem a bit of an overreaction to an awful pun, and I’ll admit that. The thing is, when you proclaim that your work “is a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner,” making an insensitive joke like this makes it appear that the words in quotes above are just a cheap slogan, to be swept aside by the first dumb wordplay that saunters down the street and winks at you.
Son of Stuck Funky 