Buckets of Lame

Linda is on a roll this week, isn’t she, folks? Apparently, since Sum’ Mo’ and Special K moved up to Kent State (currently 3-23), the Lady Scapegoats have reverted to their own losing ways. Linda comes out with yet another idiotic idiom that no one’s ever used. Cayla gamely provides the straight line here, trying to make sense of what Linda means by “empty the bucket time”.  I was kinda hoping she meant the old Harlem Globetrotters bit…now that’s funny!

…Said Nobody, Anywhere, Ever

Charles
February 26, 2013 at 7:27 pm
…in contrast to Les, [Linda’s] appearances don’t really do anything. At least with Les you have this often hilarious negative reaction. With Linda, it’s much more tiresome, with the primary reaction usually being boredom.

Holy Toledo, am I starting to hate, hate this comic strip. Having failed to get laughs yesterday with a stroke gag, Batiuk ratchets up the level of discomfort considerably  by equating the away team’s “good state of mind” and competitive spirit with… hemorrhagic fever?

Kerry On, My Wayward Daughter

Minutes pass as Darin stands in the doorway, all agog. The stranger clears her throat and repeats her introduction. “I’m Kerry. I’m Fred Fairgood’s daughter.”

While we wait for the ground to stabilize ‘neath Darin’s feet, we are treated to a confusing and unnecessary flashback. Bull, who would go on to become a teacher and then a school administrator, is sitting in Principal Fairgood’s office because his poor grades threaten to prevent him from playing football. Coach Stropp has made it clear to Fred that his perennially losing squad can not afford to lose Bull (I guess we’re to take Fred at his word that he’s “just kidding” about his daughter being kidnapped).

Having recently acquired and read a couple paperback Funky Winkerbean collections, I get the feeling that Batiuk has redrawn an actual Act I strip, and in the context of Act I it was probably mildly amusing. Shoehorned into today’s comic, it’s disconcerting, and not just because Batiuk’s sepia-toned the panels, instead of deploying the “photo album corners” he typically uses to denote flashbacks. Bull’s got nothing to do with the current storyline. It’s more like Batiuk’s playing this card to defend against accusations of retconning: “See? September ’79! Fred clearly states that he has a daughter!”

See Ya Vader

As the last brown leaves flutter over Westview High, while a few green ones inexplicably cling to the tree, the nerds are already at work , improving “our robot” for next year. In the aftermath of Robo-Goat’s slaughter at the hands of Tech’s massive mechanoid, Cody thinks that WHS needs a “more intimidating”, rather than, I dunno, say, a bigger and/or stronger robot.