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August 23, 2007
Junk Bonds
This is certainly a unique situation here. Winslow and Carmen are reminiscing about events that happened outside the universe of the published strip.
Winslow issuing Winslow Bonds was never a published event, which makes this particular series not only unfunny and pointless, but also jarring and confusing.
I suppose one could congratulate Stantis for allowing his characters to live and breath outside the realm of what he sends to the syndicate. One could make a reasonable argument that this is conducive to character development in the creative process, as the characters flourish in his brain.
But screw that. We're talking my brain, not Stantis's. Carmen and Winslow live for exactly 3 seconds on a daily basis -- the time it takes to read the strip. Then they die a painful and horrible death as I fling the comics pages to the ground and stomp on it until I'm exhausted.
Comments
So in that last panel, since Carmen IS Stantis, isn't he basically saying that he knows all and is always right? What a dick.
Posted by: The Furnace at August 23, 2007 01:03 PM
"No one likes a know-it-all, Carmen. Especially when they do." Huh? I don't usually nit-pick about grammar, but the grammar in that punchline was horrible. The wording is too ambiguous to make any sense.
First of all, who does "they" refer to? Is it "no one", or is it "a know-it-all"? Both choices are singular, so the plural pronoun "they" is incorrect in either case.
And then, "especially when they do"... do what? The verb in the previous sentence was "likes", so logically, the word "do" should refer to the word "like". I'm sure Stantis meant for it to refer to "know", but that wasn't even a verb in the previous sentence. It was part of a hyphenated noun.
The way it is written, it seems like Winslow is saying,
"No one likes a know-it-all. Especially when one does like a know-it-all."
But he probably means to say, "... Especially when she does know it all."
You know a comic strip is really not funny when the readers start diagramming the sentences in the punchline.
Posted by: John at August 23, 2007 02:56 PM
You know a comic strip is really not funny when there IS NO punchline.
Posted by: FredN. at August 23, 2007 03:59 PM
But was there a punching-the-cornflakes-box line?
Posted by: Sacki at August 23, 2007 04:26 PM
Isn't this more or less how George W. Bush funded the war in Iraq?
Posted by: Marc Heiden at August 23, 2007 05:28 PM
To be fair, "they" is sometimes semi-acceptable as a gender-ambiguous singular pronoun, even though it's technically incorrect. It's still not clear if it refers to "no one" or the "know-it-all".
Also, maybe tomorrow we'll get the introduction to the "Winslow Bonds" story, considering Stantis' unique non-linear narrative style.
Posted by: Antenora at August 24, 2007 09:34 AM
