Previous >>151814626Today we'll cover 2011.Last time, Summer was having problems adjusting to Keisha's addition to the basketball team which led to her playing poorly. But some advice from her visiting half-brother and seeing Keisha get roughed up by her old Big Walnut Tech teammates turned things around for Summer. The next season, with both their star players, the Lady Scapegoats were able to win the conference title though got trounced in the state tournament.Things, in contrast, went poorly for the Winkerbean men. Funky had to move his increasingly infirm father, Morton, into a nursing home, the economy had done a number on Montoni's forcing the closure of all but the original location, and he got into a bad car accident that may or may not have actually resulted in him traveling through time where he met his younger self. Wally, meanwhile, returned to Westview after having spent ten years as a captive in Iraq, even more scarred than the first time. He was forced to accept that Becky had moved on and had severe PTSD that left him a virtual shut in. He did manage to get a job at Montoni's though where he connected with and began dating Rachel who seem determined to try and help him by getting him hooked up with a service dog.And then there was Les. Cindy managed to get him in contact with a literary agent named Ann Apple who turned out to be the formerly homeless woman who had found his original manuscriptt for his John Darling book. She found a publisher willing to publish his book and by the next year, Les was on a book tour for Lisa's Story where his life was saved by Lisa's ghost calling in a bomb threat so that his plane was grounded. He also began officially dating Cayla, Keisha's mother, but things started to become complicated as Susan Smith helped him with his book, taking up more and more of his time with her teenage feelings for him having been reignited.
Bull selflessly helps Summer rehab her busted knee. Remember this, because a certain someone surely will not.
The first appearance of Mallory Brooks. With Summer's class graduating soon, Owen and Cody's will need a new Cindy stand-in of their own and that's where Mallory comes in.She's also not all that important which is a sign of just how rapidly Batiuk is losing interest in the high school setting now that Les is a published author. This will reach its nadir in Maris Rogers, the last of the Cindy clones, who will basically be about as relevant a character as Marblehead Morton or Big Mac.
Cancer claims another one but "John" (formerly Jack) Stropp doesn't get the benefit of having a big Pulitzerbait story arc.
And a completely nonsensical retcon. Did Bull only do it this one time? If so, why would he go out of his way to protect Les like this and only this time? If not, then was it a constant thing? Because that would make Les's whining about being bullied largely overblown because it was all pro wrestling kayfabe.
Coach Stropp is laid to rest but will be revisited one final time around the time that Bull is forced to retire.
Summer might be the only person on earth ever excited to actually see Darin. Also, it's taken 3 years but Jessica finally shows up for the first time in Act III.
Remember how it seemed like a big deal was made about Khan coming to Westview? Yeah, a lot was done with that, huh? And in only a couple more years he's going to be written out.
Since this seems to be sinking fast for whatever reason, I'm going to take a break for a few minutes.
>>151844454nooo :(
And back
>>151844454>"John" (formerly Jack)This one isn't necessarily a mistake, Jack is a fairly common diminutive of John, that's actually how the name originated. JFK is probably the most famous example, his name was John but he was known as Jack to his friends and family.
The start of Les dealing with Hollywood (a singular entity) and his endless bitching about how it'll ruin the sanctity of Lisa's Story. This is basically going to play out throughout the rest of the comic's run as more and more dealing with the Hollywood Entity will basically replace teaching as Les's actual job.
>I screwed up.>Yes you did.Stuff like this is why Les is so hated. It's obviously just friendly razzing by people he know don't mean any ill intentt but at this point his ego needs to be massaged at all times unless, otherwise he'll act like a pissy baby and it'll be treated as everyone else's fault. The only time anyone can ever not kiss his ass is himself when he's being self-deprecating but done like that, it comes off as merely false humility because he constantly thinks everyone else around him is less competent, less artistic and such than he is.
>>151844907>Yes you didIf I were Funky I would turn 180 degrees and leave that porch and let Les be miserable the rest of his life without me. Fuck Les. I wish this series ended with Les getting shot in the fucking face.
And thus ends the time in the strip of that EVIL WHORE SUCCUBUS Susan Smith, nobly sacrificing herself for Les and removing herself as a hurdle for his and Cayla's relationship. This will get a brief follow up to the immediate afermath of her leaving in a flashback in the 2022, probably done because people semi-seriously thought that Susan was leaving the strip to go kill herself.Also, heck of a kiss? The last thing Les ever says to her is a pithy one liner about the thing that destroyed her job? But I finally figured it out. There's a way that Les is written in regards to his various love interests and the way he talks to them, like this or calling Lisa "kid" and "kiddo" that's bugged me and I finally figured it out. Batiuk writes Les, when dealing with women, like he's suddenly Humphrey Bogart. He fucking loves Casablanca and writes Les as a smarmier, whinier Rick Blaine.
>>151844100Cool reference
The "chemosabe" joke is something Batiuk has said he heard someone say to him at one off his book signings and liked it so much he used it. He will, in fact, use it so much that you'll get sick of it and of course it'll be retroactively credited to Lisa.
Jessica starts work on a documentary about her father, John Darling, who if you are unaware was murdered when she was just a toddler. Now you would think this would be setting off some stories about Jessica and Jinx doing things related to this and connecting since they both seem to want to be involved in filmmaking and documentary journalism and shit. Well, as usual, you'd be wrong and Jinx will effectively disappear from the strip after next year.
Is this the first instance of actual reused art? Usually things like this are redrawn which is something I'll give Batiuk and Ayers credit for. Straight up reusing old art is a lot more rare.
Les and Cayla become engaged.Also I should mention that with her straight hair Cayla has almost reached her final, full CauCayla form. She still has a little to go but eventually the last vestiges of her being African-American will effectively disappear and she'll instead look more or less like a melanated Cindy.
>>151845289And the return of "I stand in line".
The reveal of Cayla's parentage. Smokey's arc was, I believe, around 2001ish or largely before what GoComics has in its archive. I would have guessed back then he would have been similar in age to Les, Funky and allthe others but I guess he's supposed to be older? Because I get the impression that Cayla is at most not all that much younger than Les so even accounting for the timeskip and time differences between Funky and Crankshaft... yeah it's confusing.
Also that's where you'll get another sin of Act III in it calling back to/referencing shit from Crankshaft without any real context because it assumes that you're reading both strips and thus know who all these Crankshaft characters are.
And here we have a straight up re-run strip from the arc that Byrne drew, since this Sunday just happened to run on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Fuck off Cory. Don't insult Maddie.
Very rare Maddie focus week... that's wasted on it being another "student gets bitched out for pulling a paper from the internet" story. This won't even be the last one either.
>>151844784>The book will still be there>Implying people read the book
>>151844228>Still bullying flashbacks.Let it go, you old fart
Two debuts in this week. First we have the first physical appearance off Wedgeman, the requisite jock bully. Second is Owen's chullo hat.I leave it to you to guess which of the two will have the most appearances.
Apologies for this looking like shit. It's yet another GoComics screw up. At least it's just another dull and unimportant "Jim rambles on about science" Sunday though.
>>151844859Even Funky can't believe this shit.
That's another year in the books.Next year will cover 2012. Looking to help his struggling team Bull decides to bring in a new assistant coach in Ann Fairgood. Les and Summer climb Kilimanjaro, there's controversy when some zesty boys try to attend the prom, and the Funky Kids graduate from high school. Of course the big story, though, is Les's wedding to Cayla.
>>151845641Stop being mean to Les!
>>151846346Fuck Les and fuck you and fuck his dead wife.
>>151844642All must succumb
>>151845452In my head Tony sounds like Martin Balsam in Murder on the Orient Express. (And Dinkle sounds like the guy who says “Unhand her, Dan Backslide!” in the Dover Boys cartoon.)
