Con-stipated

(Source) This week is really washing the taste of last week out of my mouth... although, it simultaneously has affirmed that last week was a lot of nonsense, story-wise. Cole (And he doesn't seem to have fallen far from the Richards tree, judging by last week) is not a smart man -- but, hey, neither was Forrest Gump. The story this week picks up an ambiguous period of time later than last week. The devil is in the details, and they've been awfully sparse: Seemingly, Mr. Richards has literally no idea as to what's going on. But for them to have a booth and to have booked his appearance (Both at what seems like a really fair-sized, if not huge, convention. And he's the top draw, according to last week's flyer! Was that a home-brewed ad from Cole?), Cole has had plenty of time to teach his father about the pros of cons. And hasn't -- or else he has, but his dad has Alzheimer's (Which would explain a lot, but would also suck the humor right out of everything). I don't really want either of those to be the case. Panel 2: "heh! They saw you coming from a mile away." -- I'm stumped. I have no idea what Mr. Richards is talking about, which enforces the impression of senility I'm getting from him. Panel 4: "This is why were [sic] here." The emphasis is odd and the sentence makes it seem like Cole took Mr. Richards to the con without any kind of warning or explanation (Yet he seems exasperated, so that's doubtful). Why not, "This is why we're here, remember?" Also, Mr. Richards' cheek lines don't look as good when they're seen from the side and go all the way down to the collar -- it makes his mouth look like a marionette's, or a nutcracker's. So, right, my point is that the jokes are really decent this week... but the setup is lacking something. A little half-flashback-of-advice and half-current-disregarding-of-said-advice would have made Cole look more sympathetic, for instance. This week is bringing good ideas (Unless you are really tired of "let's imagine an old guy who doesn't 'get it' talking about nerd stuff" scenarios. That does bring a certain PVP "character" to mind), but they're not flowing smoothly.