Silverfiche

OK, which one of you yutzes bet Tom Batiuk that he couldn’t put together another strip about Bernie Silver’s senior pictures? I suppose we have you to thank for today’s strip

The good news is we can all boot up our Packard Bells and our MS Paints and join Bernie out in Tinseltown, where we’ll be paid handsomely for our rudimentary green screen skills (citation needed). Here’s a blank Bernie to start with:

Now go forth… The possibilities are endless!

History!

Sports!

Economics!

The deaths that built Gordon Lightfoot’s house!

Cheaper By The Gram

Link

Bernie is already graduating? Alas, we hardly knew him. This generation of Act III WHS students made even less of an impact than Owen and Cody did. At least they, you know, did stuff sometimes.

Why would Bernie need actual photos for his Instagram page? I mean I’m no Insta-whiz or anything, but it’s not like you have to mail your photos in. Thus the gag makes no sense and fails on every possible level. Which sounds about right.

And on that note, I’m passing off to Billytheskink, our Senior Funkstorian. No spoilers, but man, 2022 just keeps getting weirder. At this rate, it’ll devolve into total surrealism by September at the latest.

Dej-UGH Vu

We can only hope that today’s strip marks the end of this story arc and the depiction of this unhealthy and unsettling Melinda-Holly relationship for some time (infinity is a time, right?).

With that, I will focus my commentary on Holly’s use of term “EMS Vehicle”. So, did TB just not like the way “ambulance” fit in the word balloon or does he have a thing for using awkwardly bland language? I mean, its not an incorrect term of course, but if Holly calls an ambulance an “EMS Vehicle” then Melinda ought to have said “medical facility” or something like that yesterday instead of “hospital“… y’know, to maintain this strip’s reputation for exceeding consistency.

Grosstalgia

As someone who has ridden in an ambulance with a parent after breaking a bone while competing in a sport, I found there to be nothing at all redeeming about today’s strip. At least yesterday we had some America’s Funniest Home Videos visuals, solid work from Chuck Ayers for once, but today… today… just get out of here with this tripe!

No one wants to see Holly apologize to her mother for, um, for breaking her ankle?! What?! No one wants to see this whole cruel and miserable experience turned into a nostalgia trip. No one wants to know what kind of hairspray Holly uses that has kept her terrifying hair claw intact despite spending extended periods in a driving rainstorm.

It’s The Way They All Became The Batom Bunch

Link To Sunday’s Strip

Here’s the story

Of a hack named Batty

Who was busy with two comics of his own.

Both of them had stupid puns

And lots of wordplay

And bad dialog for girls.

Why the f*ck is there a soda can in the header panel? What does that have to do with anything? So BatYarn wanted to parody Zoom, but didn’t really know much about it or have any serious ideas for doing so. Naturally, he decided to plow ahead anyway and this floppery is the result. This is just bad on a visceral level, the kind of FW strip that firmly convinces me that mocking FW every day is indeed the right thing to do. What a hack.

And on that note I am done. What an ordeal that was. There’s been entirely too much Les lately, too much cancer too, at least for my tastes. Stay tuned for a Special Guest Appearance by Our Fearless Leader himself, the SoSF King Of Kings, TFH!!!