Tag: writing

Things Changed Somehow

As Ann continues her recollection of her life with Fred, the picture she paints is far less rosy than we’d expect. It was only one year ago that TB brought Fishstick Annie back to Westview High to inspire the slumping girls’ team with the story of how she defeated the status quo on the way to coaching her team to a division title.

More recently, the senior Fairgoods shanghaied Darin and Jessica to take them on a tour of places they lived earlier in their marriage, and reminisced about how much fun they had in their old apartment. Now with Fred laid low, Ann confides that “somehow,” becoming Mrs. Fred Fairgood forced this feisty female to forfeit her ambition? Does the fact that their marriage turns out to be devoid of romance make this storyline even sadder, or less so?

Post-Grammatic Stress Disorder

In the hands of any other writer, Les’ remark to Cayla would be taken as sarcasm. Your high school English teacher (and high school was how many years ago?) wrote a single comment (and not a very scathing one at that) on your paper, and you’ve been scarred by that? Well, clearly she has been: to this day, Cayla can’t sit down and compose an email to her daughter without being seized by flashbacks. “Careless”? This from the most careless “writer” working in comics today. Can you imagine the withering critiques that Les must give to his students?

You’re Fired, Kurt Vonnegut

“Increasingly painful” is a pretty apt description of this week’s arc. Crazy Harry doubles down on the imaginary CEO concept, and is compelled to give the old heave-ho to a raft of brilliant authors, any one of which, on his worst day, could write circles around Tom Batiuk.

It’s unseemly enough to have a suddenly unemployed adult decide to sell his books instead of searching for another job. But this whole transference thing, with the displaced worker assuming the role of CEO in his mind, and summarily issuing “walking papers” to his prized possessions, is just weird. Funky had best break down right now and offer him that Montoni’s gig, because this is getting to be re-God-damn-diculous.

My Snark Will Go On

Not to sound too dire, because I don’t know how this will turn out…

This week King Features Syndicate finally wised up, and went to some kind of dynamic coding scheme that generates a crazy, non-human-decipherable link to the FW strips; replacing the old format in which a human could easily edit the date string to view past, present, and next weeks’ strips.

The old format allowed me to preview each week’s story arc, and write and schedule each days’ posts in advance, scheduling them to go live each day (ok, the night before each day; maybe that was asking for trouble).

I don’t think this affects the availability of  FW strips already on the web. However, it’s likely that the daily strips will now “go live” only at midnight or even later every day. I’m going to have to post “on the fly”, and that’s not going to be easy, what with having to be at my real job every morning.

In order that the snark may still have a home, I will continue to schedule a “placeholder” post each day. You all collectively create the bulk of the content here anyway (as well as the funniest). I’ll add my own daily observations as time permits. On the bright side, my newspaper carrier delivers my Sunday funnies with my Saturday Bergen Record, so even though I won’t be able to link to the strip, I can lay eyes on it first.

So this kinda sucks, but SoSF is still my favorite place on the web, and hopefully one of your favorites as well.

Thanks as always, and stay Funky!

TFH

For Cryin' Out Cloud

sourbelly
September 13, 2012 at 1:14 am
So…Black Cloud vs. Good Cloud. Superman helps Good Cloud (he’s the good guy, I’m guessing, based on his name) defeat Black Cloud (bad guy) with The Silver Lining (what?). That sounds really stupid, folks!

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Oh, wait, it gets even better! The Silver Lining appears from out of nowhere! In a flash of light! Now that’s what I call “writing!” Incredibly lame, puerile, crappy writing. Even the Lord of the Late is appalled.