When you late post, it’s like you’re posting twice in one day…
These little Sunday posts are like hidden jewels.
John Stark for Sunday. Boy, do I hear ya.
Why
The gorram questions sits on your mind. It doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t poke or prod. It doesn’t strut around the room, waving its assets at anyone to get attention. It just sits there, doing nothing. Looking pretty. Looking to all the world like it belongs there.
But it doesn’t belong. You can’t let the question belong because that defeats the purpose of a question. By definition, a question cannot belong. A question is a transitory thing, a wanderer. Questions come, are answered, and go. But there are questions, questions like why, that stick around, that pretend to belong. They pretend that there’s no right answer. They don’t accept the reasons given.
They simply sit there. Like furniture.
Why.
Oh God, please no…
No… please… say it ain’t so…
Vin Diesel is Agent 47? No! Just… no! That’s like casting Danny DeVitto to play Don Corleone. Sure it’ll have an effect but… just… no!
Not a snark, I promise
Ok. Let’s talk about today’s Questionable Content for a second.
Now, it should be noted that this is strip number 500 of the entire series. Congratulations to Mr. Jaques on reaching such a high number and still maintaining the same consistent quality of funny, story, and character development from the beginning (and the art’s only gotten better and better.)
If you’re not familiar with QC, here’s a basic synopsis: Marten and Faye are 20-something Mutually Admiring Idiots(TM) living together in… well, some unidentified city. They live rather normal lives, except for Pintsize and the occasional appearance of a superhero (sort of) named Pizza Girl – whose only power appears to be the ability to deliver pizzas on time (a useful, if somewhat lacking, super ability). She could, in fact, just be a regular pizza delivery person in a funny costume. Who knows. There’s others involved in the story – Marten’s best friend, Faye’s co-workers, random truck driver guy – but the story is really a romantic comedy surrounding Marten and Faye.
And, holy shit, Jaques is actually cutting through all of the thinly veiled tension and drama and going right to the heart of the matter.
This can’t possibly end well for Marten. Maybe it’s because I’m a bitter, cynical bastard who has lost faith in the existence of happy endings. (Ok, maybe it’s only because i’m a bitter, cynical bastard who’se lost faith in happy endings… but that doesn’t make my opinion any less valid.) I can list the major reasons why I don’t think it’ll work:
I’m sure there’s more, and moreover I’m sure Jaques is aware of them – which is the whole point, really.
Nobody likes to see people happy. It makes for much better viewing if, after a period of happiness, you thrust everyone into the depths of hell. It’s a common theme in literature and drama. But, as I’ve mentioned, this is the 500th strip. Jeph has said in the past he’s not going to do QC forever, and he has other ideas for spin off projects in the back of his mind. It’s possible he’s just now going to tie up all loose ends and leave everything with a nice tight loop.
It’s possible.
But I still can’t see this ending properly.
Because if it did, it’d be too much like a season of Friends. And that really is kind of depressing.
Oh, also
Tomorrow I’ll talk some about Questionable Content. Tomorrow, of course, because it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about it today, as the strip is really tomorrow’s, just up incredibly early.