Tag: wryness

Porch Wry-rates

Cue the laugh track for today’s strip… because otherwise there’s just this long, awkward pause between non-jokes. It’s like a newsprint manifestation of those “sitcom without the laugh track” videos, only more more cringe-inducing. Why are these two ostensible friends (one of whom is terminally ill) being insufferable to each other? This kind of thing works when you establish that the two characters have some type of relationship and that unbearable wryness is their M.O. As far as I know, Crazy and Lisa never had much of a relationship of any kind (he was Les’ weirdo buddy), much less a whole Gilmore Girls thing going on.

Lisa really let Harry slide on that face after saying she didn’t feel as bad as she looked? Sure, she’s dressed like Crankshaft, but she’s also sick and at her own home. He’s the one who went out in public dressed like Gallagher wearing a Paul Simon Halloween costume.

Social Disinteresting

Link To Today’s Drip

Once again I am baffled. I assume this is a social distancing-based gag (timely as ever) but the idea that he’s sharing this incredibly mundane anecdote at an AA meeting just boggles the mind. At least the other alcoholics appear bored and disgusted by Funky’s wordplay-based mutterings, which I gotta admit is pretty damn accurate.

The less said about the gag the better. That one had to have been rattling around in that delightfully sincere head of his for ages. In fact I’m stunned that he never used that one before. It just seems so obvious.

Fourth Wall Frown

Link To Today’s Strip

Sure looks like Dinkle is ALWAYS ENJOYING giving piano lessons here. In panel two his face looks like it’s about to melt right off from all the pleasure teaching this child has given him. He stares out at us, his droopy face limp from all the aching joy coursing through him.

Kids today, amirite? What with their lazy ability to access nearly the sum total of the world’s knowledge through advanced pocket sized electronics connected to an invisible network of radio signals wirelessly transmitting nearly instantaneously across the entire nation. How annoying, that they can use this vast storehouse of information to interpret things they encounter that they don’t completely understand.

Back in Dinkle’s day, if someone purporting to be an expert told you something, you believed him. If you didn’t know the answer to a question, and you weren’t within arms reach of 100 pounds worth of encyclopedias, you lived with your ignorance. You didn’t get to instantly know why the sky is blue, or why mules are sterile, or when The Pet Shop Boys released the single, “I’m in Love with a German Film Star.”

So no, you snot nosed brat, you can’t ‘google’ it! You don’t get to know about Mr. Piano’s Mr. Middle C key until Mr. Harry Dinkle, The World’s Greatest Band Director, tells you!

And don’t you dare ask where my potted piano plant went!

Fun Honeymoon

Whee, more patented, beloved Tom Batiuk Women Talking About Their Relationship Humor. Can we please get back to Les being smug or whiney? Or Dinkle typing at a computer?
Here’s a fun tidbit that I really hope I’m not the only one who noticed: Cindy’s cleavage has been featured in 4/6 of this week’s strips. I have to imagine Batiuk included that in his notes to the artist: “Make sure you showcase her nice boobs”. And yet she’s going on and on again about how lucky she is to find Mason, despite the fact that she’s a successful attractive woman who looks thirty years younger than she actually is. Those are literally the only two character traits Cindy has “I’m a hag whose beauty has faded” and “I’m so lucky a man finds me attractive”.

I also notice how the art has made sure to showcase Cindy’s “sexiness” this week (despite how it conflicts with the dialogue of her mourning her faded beauty) but not Cayla’s.  I thought that was odd at first, since Cayla is Les’s Wife and you’d think she’d be drawn as the prettiest woman ever, because Les deserves nothing less (humor!) but then remembered she’s Secondary Wife and can’t look better than Lisa.