And the winner is...Job Interview!
The nominees for The Golden Flash (Most Mystifying Panel) are:
- Job Interview (Post) - There's no joke and it's really unclear just what Mallard is complaining about.
- Status Quo (Post) - Change, represented by the caveman, is really the status quo...or something to that effect.
- Laughs (Post) - I am supposed to believe T.V. Audiences are watching, let alone laughing at Moammar Khadafy? Bonus: Mallard is giving advice on being funny?
- Bailout (Post) - Something goes awry when Mallard decides to try for a bailout metaphor instead of complaining about the BCS.
- Hi-Def (Post) - Mallard is either being deeply, deeply ironic or just mystifying. As he has never shown any depth, I think it's the latter.
8 comments:
Hi-Def might have been a good candidate for unintended self-revelation: I can see where the Tinsh would worry about people knowing what he was thinking.
But the job interview just rates a giant HUH? Still, as someone pointed out at the time, the applicant does sort of look like Shrub from the back. But even so, why?
Job interview. I mean, seriously, what the crystallized fuck?
WV: bleoand, bland in a blechy way.
Since 3/5 of the strip already consists of wretched, slack-jawed, cross-eyed caricatures staring at me with tediously explanatory thought balloons, I'm apparently already getting Hi-Def Mallard.
I wonder if I could pay extra and get the Lo-Def version sans thought balloons, which would be at least 40% more entertaining.
"Job Interview" has a weak joke, but I can see the logic of it. The artist's penchant for drawing the backs of people's heads weakens the strip further, since we can't tell if the applicant is supposed to be George W. Bush or Alfred E. Newman or the kid with the narrow-screen TV set from the other week.
In lieu of a joke, "Status Quo" presents a definition of the titular term, but it is the art direction that's truly baffling. There's no apparent reason for the character to be a caveman, no reason for him to be wielding a club, no reason for him to be thinking his lines instead of speaking them aloud.
"Laughs" is simply tasteless, offering Superfly Jimmy Snuka making jokes about wives, when he was suspected in the death of his girfriend in 1983.
The writing and artwork of "Bailout" are both merely mediocre, rather than aggressively awful. It's one of the best strips of the year.
I can sort of see what the attempted joke was in "Hi-Def", but it doesn't work. Why would a sheaf of paper's thoughts be any more visible in hi-def than standard? Or is the thought bubble coming from that guy's crotch?
The big mystery is whether anyone's paying Tinkley for this stuff, and if so, why?
The "hidef" one looks like what Tinsley would write if he were stoned, but that can't be right--we all know that his anti-drug is alcohol!
I suppose that one really ought to win, but I voted for "status quo," because WHAT?
Man, there's no justice. I won't say the "job interview" thing is great or anything, but what's so mystifying about it? It's just a joke about platitudinous, unfalsifiable recommendations. What's the confusion?
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