25 thoughts on “Sub Car”

  1. Thank you, veterans, for everything! To commemorate your service, here’s a mentally unstable manchild playing submarine in the car wash.

  2. This one is rather….uh…bizarre. The ideas are getting weaker and weaker this year: this premise might work if Harry was Calvin’s age or something, but a grown man playing submarine like that is just plain weird.

    Cory in basic training might have been a better choice for a Veteran’s Day strip, but that’d make too much sense I guess. Plus it’d involve actually following up on a story arc, too. Lots of ways he could have gone with this but as usual he took the lamest path possible. Lately this strip has been even more idiotic and feeble than is normally is, as impossible as that would seem to be. TB should seriously consider getting a CAT scan or something because something ain’t quite right there.

  3. I don’t know – I don’t think this is a veteran based strip. Crazy is still a kid at heart (and his nickname IS Crazy) so I actually found this one fun. Bizarrely, Batiuk did a strip that was well drawn and not depressing and no Les in site. I give him a pass on today’s strip. I’ve said it before but every so often, a slight glimmer of the former strip comes through. Good job Tom. Now bring back Kili the cat; we liked that little critter.

  4. Harry had to drive outside Westview city limits to find a car wash, as this business has never been shown in the strip before. TB continues to depict the world’s oldest-looking 50 year olds.

  5. With Wally and CW there could have been something notable and respectful for V-Day. But during Wally’s “return” we already learned that TB knows nothing of honor, respect or reality.

  6. Today’s strip was a quick last minute substitution. Originally showed Skunkhead and Owen playing “submarine” in a bathtub. Up periscope, indeed.

  7. I actually like today’s strip, but with Wally being a veteran and Cory being in basic training, there were ample storyline possibilities to celebrate Veteran’s Day. Oops, how silly of me to think that TB would do something logical with story lines.

  9. The closest Mail Boy ever came to serving in the military was wearing that army cap and jacket while smoking pot in the high school bathroom.

  10. So after a week long lecture about how comic strips are SERIOUS BUSINESS we are treated to a 50-something year old man pretending that a car wash is a submarine. I can only conclude that this is the first strip in a story arc depicting Crazy Harry’s descent into actual insanity.

  11. I want to like this one. It’s nicely drawn, the scenery is detailed, and it’s a little breather depicting some in-character whimsy.

    But, geez, can’t he smile a little bit?

  12. Here’s a serious question: If Batiuk were to go cold turkey and go back to a gag-a-day strip – with no smirking, how long would it take us snarkers to stop snarking on it?

  13. Rembrandt, that will never happen. When BatNuts decided he was A Very Serious Writer, he made an irrevocable decision that Flunky Wankerbean would never be fun again. This is a kind of guy who is incapable of admitting error, so why would he now admit Acts II and III were a mistake and return to the silly, lighthearted fun and simple artwork of Act I?

  15. In some kind of bizarro universe where Batuik did return to gag-a-day format, it would have to be a darned good one to escape from the snarking.

  16. @ Rembrandt…. TB has lost it like a fighter who lost his nerve. His creativity or humor ability is simply gone.
    But to answer your hypo question….. The snarking would indeed disappear.
    Want proof?
    Just take a look at other comics (can I say comics?) of today that are pure gag-a-day:
    Blondie, Beetle Baily, Nancy, BC, Wizard of ID, Hagar, Peanuts…..they do not attract a single comment less alone a snark.

  17. He wouldn’t even have to go back to the gag-a-day format to make the strip worth following again, just back to the entertainingly ludicrous melodrama of Act II. The strip was a lot of things back then, few of them good, but at least it was never boring.

  18. @Pookster:

    Just take a look at other comics (can I say comics?) of today that are pure gag-a-day:
    Blondie, Beetle Baily, Nancy, BC, Wizard of ID, Hagar, Peanuts…..they do not attract a single comment less alone a snark.

    To be fair, all of those except Peanuts do draw some (or more) snark from the Comics Curmudgeon and his commenters.

    As for today’s FW, meh. (“Meh” is high praise in this context.)

  19. I’m still reeling from that lecture last week, which I ignored. However, I did reflect on the whole “Comix Corner” thing. I’m guessing—though I could be wrong, that the Comix Corner (I think it’s C, not actually K) is an Act I remnant, where they could get away with the Xtreme Kool Letterz thing and still come off with a place where teenagers could hang out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t translate very well into Act III, where the comic book business is much different (which is lost on TB). More troubling is the fact is the fact that TB seems to have no idea how sketchy John’s whole shop is, and the fact that John himself fits the profile of one who would be arrested for child pornography.

    /rant

  20. I just checked and Funky had 3 pages of comments, Crankshaft had two comments total. So, something even a 1/4″ closer to gag-a-day may be much less snarkable.

  21. John’s a doughy middle aged guy with a 13 year old’s haircut. He wears batman tee shirts. If his fat ass could ride a skateboard, he would. How obvious is it to everyone but TomButt that John is trying to attract young boys?

    Must drive Shell Shock Wally crazy (crazier?) to think his ex-wife is with that perv. If it’s any consolation to him, I doubt he’s banging her.

  22. @ Withering…. very very little and very very infrequent….And never on the comment section for the daily on-line venue.

  23. Yeah, a tribute using Wally would just underscore how terribly he was treated when he returned. It would come off as insultingly false. I don’t think it would be possible to use a worse character for a tribute honoring our veterans. Maybe something from Ted Rall…

  24. John’s a doughy middle aged guy with a 13 year old’s haircut. He wears batman tee shirts. If his fat ass could ride a skateboard, he would. How obvious is it to everyone but TomButt that John is trying to attract young boys?

    In the process of trying to rebuild my library of FW strips, I Googled up this gem from 2009, featuring John at his creepiest…check out that gaze in the next to last panel:

  25. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

    Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!

    Skunkhead does everything but put bait under a cardboard box, propped up by a stick with a string attached to it.

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