John
March 13, 2013 at 5:57 pmPete: “Well, I’d better go before the combined totality of my neurotic loathing of my own chosen vocation chooses to manifest itself as a sentient, malevolent recurring hallucination!”
Too late, Pete! You know, it’s a fine line between a hyperactive imagination and chronic hallucinatory psychosis, and it looks like being called upon to actually earn his paycheck has sent Pete around the bend yet again. Hey Pete, maybe women instantly dislike you because you can’t get their names right? Don’t feel bad, though: I thought she was supposed to be Elaine from Seinfeld.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Batiuk should just get fired and do this shit on a blog. There is absolutely no market for this nostalgic comic book frippery. Does Flash look like Darin because he can only draw a few different faces, or is it the Darin of his dreams?
According to my Google searching, Mopey Pete is writing a comic about waterproofing. Also, Batiuk thinks Dale Evans is a contemporary reference.
I looked up Dale Arden on Wikipedia, and…I got really bored, really fast. I don’t think I’m part of the target audience for this…stuff.
Flash Gordon, Dale Evans/Arden…these kids today and their zany dreams, amirite? Based on his cultural references, when 1999 became 2000 Batom started counting backwards…using dog years. Pete dreaming about comic book heroes of the 40’s is like me dreaming in newsreel form. Someone seriously needs to tell this clown to either get on the damned trolley or 23-skidoo already.
So why are these (trademarked) characters visiting this little-known and poorly-regarded FW character in his boring dream? Are they there to help him score with those notoriously loser-adverse NYC babes? Or are they there to help him in (sigh) another LOTL arc? I gotta (sigh) bet the latter (sigh). LOTL: a running “gag” that amuses exactly one person…I think.
I thought Dale Arden WAS Dale Evans. Has Durwood even heard of Flash Gordon. And THE AMAZING MR. SPONGE? What comic book company would write a comic with that name?
Oh, that’s why Tom likes corny old superheroes. Stilted and unnatural dialogue!
You know Mister Batiuk, when you decided to go all serious because that makes you a SRS ARTST, you kind of sacrificed this kind of whimsy. When you decide you want to write SRSLY about stokes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s, and narcissistic personality disorder, you can’t just suddenly pretend that psychosis doesn’t need to be taken as seriously.
I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who started this week wondering how Mopey Pete was doing and hoping that we’d get an update.
So, if I understand correctly, we’re back on comic books again, right?
Looks like we’re about to see some “Jungle Jim Topper” action!
Ha ha, just kidding. We’re about to see nothing. Nothing at all. I can only assume that the Amazing Mr. Sponge’s superpower is that he sucks the life from everything, leaving it grey and drab.
“I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who started this week wondering how Mopey Pete was doing and hoping that we’d get an update.”
Want to see another impossible story?
Go over to CRANKSHAFT, watch the tale of the rotted tree.
Two things suck here… The Amazing Mr. Sponge and The Less then Amazing Mr. Batiuk
Considering the facts that this is Funky Winkerbean and that Dale Evans died 13 years ago, is it really surprising that Pete thinks he’s seeing her?
Prediction:
In this exciting issue! The Amazing Mr. Sponge teams up with
Gail HeavensMardin and Slash Jordan to battle the sinister coalition of The Lord Of The Late and The Skyping Blond Smirk!Who was it that said that no matter how boring you might think a FW arc will be, it will maze you by being even more boring.
I thought we might see Chien again too–but no, we have a flash back to a 1940’s comic.
Bill Watterson hated comics that used golf jokes. Well he would love golf jokes compared to what’s going on here.
Most guys when they have erotic superhero fantasies usually have
themselves in the role of the superhero, with the love-interest alone to themselves.
The fact thet Mopey Pete’s “wicked” fantasy includes Flash Gordon, Dale Arden & himself as third party…just raises the squick factor a hundred fold!!!
I guess the whole skype sesion was just Pete’s way of “warming up” for the nights main festivities.
Whoa now, Pete! Keep your threesome fantasies to yourself, buddy!
The current comic header cracks me up. “Cory” graffiti spray painted on the defunct Post Office. Buddy the dog now a stray… Good work TFH.
When BatNuts looks at a crowd scene in a movie, does he assume EVERYONE he sees is a writer and a everyone loves comic books? Yeah, probably.
“Better it would be…”
The heck?!? Tom, if you’re trying to invoke Flash Gordon, don’t invoke YODA.
Yeesh. 😛
A HREF: I’ve said that multiple times: no matter what you think will happen, your idea will be 100x more exciting and entertaining than what actually does.
Pete couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison with a fistful of weekend passes
It’s a paradox: For all of Batiuk’s insistence that the comics medium should be taken seriously, not to be dismissed by “hidebound literalists” as frivolous escapist entertainment…when he praises the medium, the only examples he uses ARE frivolous escapist entertainment.
Of course, if Batiuk acknowledged the creators who ARE doing serious comics outside the super-hero genre (Art Spiegelman, Craig Thompson, David Mazzucchelli, the late Harvey Pekar, etc.), it would only draw attention to how superior their work is to his. But then, even the escapist books he DOES reference are superior to his.