Well! Who’s sounding like a “pedantic schoolmarm from a bitter hollow” today? I’m sure all you “hidebound literalists” in the audience, as well as all you beady-eyed nitpickers, feel duly chastised for dismissing Serious Storytelling Art as mere “comic strips”!
Epicus Doomus
November 8, 2012 at 11:03 am
…Is all of this some sort of attempt to justify the continued existence of comic strips or something?
Nope, just more of Tom Batiuk railing against us Philistines…
Son of Stuck Funky 
My…GOD…it’s…it’s SO BORING.
Uhhhhhh…. asphinctersezwhat?
Uh sure, Tom, THAT”S what happened. And if they had started referring to them as “bullshit strips” way back when, this whole week could have been neatly avoided.
If you want to get technical about it, “hidebound literalists” (good name for a band BTW) may have “infantilized” (I’m not 100% certain that’s even a word) the “genre” with their unfair, childish expectations, but doesn’t some (if not most) of the blame also fall upon the shoulders of the authors and their slipshod, simplistic, pedantic, inconsistent and sometimes unfinished “stories” and unlikeable, thinly-realized characters? Is it unfair for the reader to expect a fully realized piece of art with a defined beginning and end each day as opposed to a glacially-paced, uninteresting pile of filler masquerading as a “story” that drags on for weeks at a time with no payoff for that reader? Just asking is all.
Open Letter to Tom Batiuk:
Dear Tom,
Fuck You!
Signed,
Critical Thinkers Everywhere
That was uncalled for. However, I am disappoint.
I wonder if Swishy Tom had a bet with Ayrhead the Bear that he could do an entire week on something NOBODY would give a shit about.
Well, forget about being “hidebound.” It’s driving Skunkhead crazy that Owen is still shirtbound and pantsbound.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
I’m sure Batiuk receives complaints from folks who want the strip to go back to its more carefree past of talking autumn leaves, Les stuck on the gym rope, and Crazy Harry living in his locker. But I suspect he’s piling in that sort of complaint with people who resent the way he treats “real life issues” without any real depth. Case in point: the gay prom arc, where the two characters who were supposedly at the center of the story, the gay couple, appeared in one strip. ONE! And then ending the strip with a gay talking hand. While I’m sure he intended that to make people think, “oh, maybe a more prominent character is gay too,” the real effect was to put gay people back in the closet. But what do I know about writing, I just have a PhD in writing and rhetoric, teach professional writing, and have to publish my own writing to keep my job. The thing is, I have to have my writing peer reviewed to get published, whereas Batiuk can put whatever poorly drawn characters and ill-conceived plots out there without any editorial input. And when he does receive critiques, he gets to respond like a pretentious 12th grader with access to Wikipedia.
Seinfeld was the show about nothing, this is the COMIC strip about nothing.
But as least Seinfeld was funny.
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!
What a pathetic d-bag BatHack has become.
Is there a worse combination than a hippie curmudgeon? This is as bad as Little Orphan Annie bitching to Sandy about the New Deal for days on end or those mortifying fundamentalist Christian poems Johnny Hart used to put in BC. At least Gray and Hart ranted about ideas, all Batiuk rants about is what a misunderstood genius he is.
“Hidebound literalists?”
Dude. You turned a gag-a-day strip into a mediocre soap opera. Did you learn nothing from the FOOB revolt in the last original years of For Better Of For Worse? “Butthurt Douchiness” is not the best reaction to criticism from people who grew up with the strip and know the characters as well as you do. (Though, there might be room for argument on that last line.)
First, I must congratulate TB on his purchase of a new thesaurus.
Second, I actually agree with him here. It truly is unfortunate that hidebound literalists have infantilized narrative cartoon stories to the point that Funky Winkerbean strips are considered “comics” instead of “bloviating, pretentious baldercrap”.
Really? The guy whose primary character is a smug English teacher who loves to quibble about semantics is complaining about “hidebound literalists”? You can’t make this shit up.
I for one look forward to Batiuk’s week-long rant on why historical precedence and the quirks of evolving language mean that comic strips don’t necessarily have to be good.
Look, Bats, if you want to justify the existence of a serious comic, do a serious comic. Stop this crap.
Wait, they’re above Montoni’s? What are they doing in Darin & Jessica’s apartment?
Yes, it’s a total misunderstanding of the issue at stake when he gets criticism about his strip. If his serious strip was good, I assure you that not very many people would care that it wasn’t jokey. You can solve all your problems by being so good that no one can criticize the “liberties” you take with the form. But he isn’t.
I’ll acknowledge that part of the problem is that his critics aren’t very thoughtful when they’re talking about why his strip just doesn’t work. A lot of people mistakenly assume it’s a growing lack of whimsy and humor, but instead, it’s just a quality issue. Of course, people are also more willing to overlook a quality issue when there’s an obvious attempt to be funny. I, myself, cut plenty of mediocre comments a break because at least they seem to be trying. Batiuk just seems to be stroking his “genius” ego, and strips like this week’s don’t help that impression at all.
The “soft-spoken, somewhat modest” Tom Batiuk at the Medina County Historical Society; looks like we all missed a rockin’ good time.
[img]http://www.medinacountylife.com/content/articles/2012/10/31/writers/meandering_around_town/doc5091b0454f91c596468177.jpg[/img]
“A [somewhat] modest man who has much to be modest about.” – attributed to Winston Churchill about
Clement AtleeTom Batiuk.As has been noted before and above, it is not the fact that this strip handles serious subjects, but that it handles serious subjects in such a stilted, melodramatic, and ham fisted manner enough to make Edward Bulwer-Lytton blush with shame, that is the source of the critics ire. These hide bound types do not seem to have same problem with Doonesbury which has traveled many of the same roads and dealt with many of the same issues (and won a Pulitzer). Rather this strip’s sub-Mary Worth level plotting combined with the repellent aspects of the main actors of this strip (starting with Les Moore who if anything has gotten worse over the years) that goads the snarkers.
Comics have covered serious topics before: Pogo took on one Joesph McCarthy when it was a dangerous thing to do. However doing a gay prom story in 2012 , was not as cutting edge as the strip insisted it was.
As final note, this weeks worth of strips just to lead up to the “You don’t understand me you philistines!” climax are a perfect example of this strips story telling weakness – it was akin to watching actors in a low budget b-movie talk about things happening off screen becuase the budget wouldn’t allow them to be show “The Volcano! There was an enormous roar with billowing smoke, then it exploded!” as these are drawings, this choice to tell (and using the wall o’ text feature in the process) rather than show is a good example of the poor narrative choices this strip makes over and over and over again.
The whole gay prom storyline was badly handled. Much as I hate that type of storyline (promoted by left-leaning Hollywood types), the use of gay people as a one-sided story device to propel main characters really is dehumanizing.
For Better or For Worse, before it went into reruns, handled some touchy subjects but did it with some depth and good storylines and it was INTERESTING . Lawrence coming out of the closet, abusive dating, divorce, etc were well written by the author. It’s called “writing”! 🙂
I’ve been saying it for years: these so-called “serious issues” FW supposedly “addresses” are bad stories handled in the most meat-headed, simplistic and intelligence-insulting ways possible. They’re cotton candy stories: you go to take a bite and nothing’s there. They’re all written from the perspective of going out of the way to “offend” as few people as possible (like the gay prom arc). Simply writing a story arc about cancer, alcoholism, PTSD doesn’t matter if the story sucks: you get plaudits and attention if those stories are good, not merely for opting to use them as subject matter.
People don’t hate “dramatic” strips like FW and FBOFW because they’re not funny anymore, they hate them because they use pathos in the cheapest and least imaginative ways possible: for easy attention and self-congratulatory back-slapping. In other words, don’t spit on my cupcake and call it frosting. There’s nothing “daring” about doing a SSC arc in and of itself, it depends on the content. There’s nothing “daring” about having a major character die if you just keep trotting her out over and over anyway. I mean hell, if you really want to write a longform dramatic comic strip featuring characters I’m supposed to follow and get to know, then do it, but don’t tell me I’m wrong for criticizing it when it fails to realize its alleged goal. Most of FW’s criticism comes from a) the glaring lack of continuity and follow-ups to major arcs and b) the constant use of tragedy and human misery as a plot device, not the lack of comedy or jokes. It’s lazy, we all can see that and we’re not giving it a “pass” just because comic strips are some sort of venerable American art form. It’s really no different than the criticism leveled at musicians, movies, TV shows, books or whatever. In this day and age you cannot fly under the radar anymore…you have to deliver the goods or you’ll be picked apart mercilessly, sorry but that’s just how it is now.
So, did Batiuk run into a guy at his high school reunion who made fun of him for drawing comics? Did Dan of Kilimanjaro fame diss him somehow, so he’s feeling the need to defend his medium?
Cause nobody gives a damn about any of this. Les and Ethnic Lisa honeymoon? Did those crazy old people ever make it back to a nice neighborhood where the garbage cans are well hidden?
Duane – Lynn did handle a lot of things well as she evolved as a cartoonist. However, starting with the return of Deanna to Mike’s life and Elizabeth’s being yanked back home to wind up the creepy grown-up version of her grade school boyfriend, the perception was that events in her personal life were coming through in the storytelling, leading her to make choices that made no sense for the characters as they had previously been written.
In TB’s case however, it seems more a case of trying to do soap opera strip style stories in the traditional gag strip format where your theme/storyline runs 6 days and you’re on to the next one. Compare “Summer leaving home to go to K*nt St*t*” to the recent Arlo & Janis strips with the wedding of their son. A&J let the storyline breathe, honored the history of the strip and was a nice payoff for longtime readers. FW “emotional” storylines are so hamfisted they have not been read by the Orthodox Jewish community since 2003.
Let’s face it, this whole “drama” turn has been little more than an excuse to wallow in self-indulgence. You could tell with the gay storyline that Batuik wasn’t really into that one because it bore no relationship to his own life. On the other hand, the maudlin exploration of Les’s moping through widowhood has been portrayed in excruciating, if ultimately superficial, detail.
Case in point: we now know that because two years ago Batiuk drove past his old apartment in Elyria, last week countless gallons of ink were spilled on what I had thought until this week was the most inane plotline imaginable.
And by the way, I’m not at all surprised that he’s now promising some kind of creepy “crossover” with his real life. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that that’s been going on in this strip for a LONG time to a very unhealthy degree. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was a stash of “Tom tapes” in a cabinet somewhere in the Batuik household.
Sean, I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of FBOW towards the end. Elizabeth with her creepy ex with the pornstache was not a good ending.
“Who turned out the lights?” Owen asked darkly.