Spode
March 6, 2013 at 6:58 pm
The thing I hate most about strips involving DSH John and Funky:
DSH (the most repulsive character in all of comic strips – I can almost smell him) is raising Wally Jr, who is the son of Wally, Funky’s nephew. Does TB even think about the inter-relationships among the characters in this claustrophobically incestuous little world he has created?
Why are these two shown talking about anything and everything except their most obvious, normal, natural human connection? Wally Jr: DSH’s adopted son and Funky’s great-nephew, who grew up in the same town Funky has lived all his life.
Spot on, Spode. John explains to Funky that he intends to circumvent his wife’s efforts “to get us to eat a little lighter.” “Us“? Becky, with her huge head and scrawny frame looks like a walking lollipop, Rana is a svelte cheerleader, and Wally Jr., well, maybe he’s a little husky, but he’s only, what, 8? 12? 16? Surely Becky just wants to keep her second husband from turning into an even fatter fat slob.
John’s creepy countenance in panel 3 makes me wonder what the other occasions are when he chooses to ignore his conscience…
Son of Stuck Funky 
Suddenly I’m reminded of a line from the musical Rent: “I’ll just get fat–it’s the one vice left when you’re dead meat.”
Well, hey, good for Becky! It’s about time someone starved this skeevy sack of fat. Maybe she can get Les next.
So, in addition to being the slovenly middle-aged owner of a dingy little comic book shop, John is also an undisciplined, scheming, disrespectful lying little shit as well. Yet somehow he’s married to the hottest one-armed woman in Westview. Go figure.
“Lighter eating” in Westview = you blot your greasy Montoni’s pie with a paper towel before you shovel it into your fat face. Yeah, it’s John’s “chance” to eat whatever he wants, as opposed to the other seven hours a day he’s sitting there directly above Montoni’s. What a moron. I can’t believe Batso ruined Grab Bag Week to focus on this pathetic bloated weirdo again. Goddamned hidebound literalist.
There have been a lot of comments here about Dead Comic Book John’s predilection for young boys, and while he looks creepy enough to be a pedophile, are there any strips which might cause this impression?
I’m just wondering. It’s easy (way too easy, actually) to accuse Tom Batiuk of many, many things, but I’m wondering if there are strips that really come out and say that Dead Comic Book John is the Jerry Sandusky of the comics pages.
Strips showing Funky is an alcoholic are out there, as are many showing Les is a douchebag and Crazy Harry is a nostalgia-obsessed ass. What are the Dead Comic Book John ones that give evidence?
Again, not defending Batiuk, I’m just curious.
Right. That’s it!
It has to be said! It’s the grey-walled elephant in the room!
Skunk-Head’s assholian haircut is strictly by design! He specifically demands that the poor (no-doubt untipped) girl at Great Clips cuts his hair that way, and then has her dye the goddamned fountain of idiot-hair on top of his skull black.
I HATE Dead Skunk Head. HATE, HATE, HATE!
@BeckoningChasm: I think it’s just a combination of his generally sleazy appearance and the fact that he spends so much time with teenage boys in his store.
I can’t deny that I get creepy vibes when he hangs out with them, but I get creepy vibes when he hangs out with anybody.
[img]http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u624/Inkwell-F/willpower_zpsf4f1197d.png[/img]
*Shudder* DSH is about the last person you want to hear talk about not listening to his conscience. How tone deaf can Batiuk be?
I’d love to see someone rip the $29 toupee off the top of his head.
A guy with a haircut nobody over the age of 14 should have? Who dresses like a ninth grader? Runs a hole in the wall comic book store? What about this creep DOESN’T scream “I’m one of you! Come on in?” I wouldn’t let my kids within a mile of a guy like this.
Draw your own conclusion.
He was accused of being a smut peddler to his customer base of teenage boys (“smut” being edgy comic books, the kind TB now ignores). Act II John was just the fat guy in a batman t-shirt parked on a stool and stuffing his maw with pizza, he didn’t have any other known characteristics.
“Yeah, what’s she gonna do — wrap a tape measure around my belly and check? She’d need TWO arms for that!”
Porn-dog Johns’ reference to “US” does not seem to include any sort of family unit beyond Lefty and himself. Didn’t Rana graduate HS… where’d she go..CalState to be a cheerleader?
@BC…. DSH has been portrayed to be an adult male whose entire life focus is spent in a juvenile existence by choice. His attire, hair, mysterious disappearance of his young step-son and cutey step-daughter?…sorry, he’s creepy.
“I made the same deal with Child Protective Services! Beady eyed-nitpickers with waving their ‘Megan’s law’ around. Now we’ll see what ‘batching it’ is really all about!”
I swear, in P2 Funky could be talking to his mother-in-law. Or Becky’s mom. DSH looks more like Becky’s mom than Roberta.
As creepy and pedo as DSH John is…I actually feel for him here…..no wait, that’s a poor choice of words!!!
I’m impressed that DSH was able to understand that the Godpigeon said “So your conscience doesn’t bother you?” Usually Bobby has to translate for others.
[img]http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/5125/496206-the_godpigeon_box_art.png[/img]
On a pair of FW-related notes:
– I ran across a copy of TB & the Bearded One’s first collection of Crankshaft strips. Aside from Shaft being a thinner, pointier-nosed, spectacle-less version of what he is today, these strips from 25 years ago provide an interesting insight into the Batiukverse timeline.
Crankshaft, a WW II veteran who still holds down a job driving school buses and whose now adult grandchildren were quite young in these early strips, is honored as Centerville’s oldest resident… This results in a brief attempt by the Centerville government to redraw their city limits so that Crankshaft becomes a Westview resident and they don’t have to give him an award for not dying.
– It looks like the Milford Lady Mudlarks’ playdown-deciding game against Tilden will have to be rescheduled now that Cyndi Canty AND Mia Meeks are injured. That’s how these things work, I’ve read.
“Well, the other night a little voice was telling me to not look at furry-bondage-child porn, but I ignored it and went ahead! P.S.: Don’t tell the cops about the pictures I downloaded.”
^^ Seriously, if there was a storyline where John is arrested for this type of thing, it’s edgy, unique, and not character-derailing. Which is why Batiuk won’t do it.
Is it me, or does Funky look thinner today than yesterday? he looked HUGE in yesterday’s strip, but then again I’m a beady eyed nitpicker.
I’m wondering if there are strips that really come out and say that Dead Comic Book John is the Jerry Sandusky of the comics pages.
Of course not. As for any that suggest it, there was that Sunday strip where Gross John praised himself as offering a “safe haven” or some such shit for the outcast children who get bullied. It had a really weird vibe to it, especially when you remember that many pedophiles don’t believe that they’re doing anything wrong. He just loves the kids so much, those kids who nobody else would love, because everyone else in the world is awful.
The guy’s entire character seems to be designed as a guy who’s trying to appeal to teenage boys (since GIRLZ aren’t interested in that comic book/video game thing unless they’re weirdos like Maddie – (About that line regarding outcast kids, Batiuk….)). He dresses in a way that a guy who thinks he’s approachable for teenage boys would dress. He fraternizes with his young customers in a way that storekeepers generally don’t. He simply doesn’t exhibit the boundaries that the other adults do with regards to teenage boys.
So yeah, there’s that.
It doesn’t help that back in the big “Evil Roberta Porn Sting” storyline, it was revealed that John apparently displays his XXX-rated comics right on the shelves out in the open, in between the latest issues of “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Batman”.
While I’m not an advocate of censorship, I’m familiar enough with the very bad, sickening garbage that passes for most “Adult Comix” that in the very least I can pinpoint John as being irresponsible as heck, deliberately damaging and clueless in his approach to his chosen vocation.
It doesn’t help that Tom (as usual) oversimplified the issue. Many times it’s not parents advocating censorship, it’s them advocating awareness. Many more times, it’s comic stores being too casual and too thoughtless about their inventory and presentation.
The fact that John spews out false, candy-ass garbage in order to seem wise and attractive to the few sorry, lost teens who inexplicably frequent his store (despite the fact that teens DON’T shop at direct market comic stores these days. That was over TWO DECADES AGO.) is worrying at best.
Also, if John had grey hair and a sweater in today’s strip, I’d totally think he was Fishstick Annie after a mega-calorie binge.
This is the same deal that Batyuck made with Bredan Burford the King Features Comic Editor…. “you don’t bother me Brendan and I don’t release the pictures of you & the Komic Korner staff from the last holiday party.”
Something else suspicious: Skunk Head has video games for kids to play in is, um, COMIC BOOK SHOP. Unless the games are for sale, and the kids are trying them out, methinks he’s put out BAIT.
If you think Gutless Tommy would actually show Skunko seducing a kid, you haven’t been paying enough attention. He did an entire “groundbreaking” series on gay kids signing up for the prom, but didn’t have the guts to show the kids actually show up together, sit together, or, God forbid, dance together. So he doesn’t have the gonads to show Skunkoid doing what we’re pretty sure his type would at least try to do.
On the other hand, could be that Tone Deaf Tommeh doesn’t even see that side of his character. He doesn’t recognize creepy because he IS creepy, and thinks John is just another Kinda Quirky Guy.
Sooooo, not enough to convict Skunk Head in a court of law, what what signs of his perviness AREN’T there? Other than the fact he’s such a family man. (Kidding. Big time.)