Get ready for a showdown between a Great Depression-era science fiction hero and an ineffectual villain whose evil superpowers nobody can understand. And in the middle of it all is “Pro-Crastinator” Pete, whose superpower seems to be his ability to shape-shift from pencil necked geek, to man with boobs, to today’s Chris Christie-like proportions.
31 thoughts on “Lord of Alliteration”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Ya know….it isn’t fun nor polite to make fun of people with special needs/handicap/retards……and this strip has truly hit the retard level.
There’s nothing left to even snark. Was this Batyucks overall goal?….to make this strip as lame as Possible?
Even “Nancy” is more creative…..
That is some full-on “Ambiguously Gay Duo” action going on in the body positioning of that panel. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Why would the LOTL live in space? Why would he use a watch to see things? And why would he call it an “orb” when it is clearly not an orb at all? This is what happens when you stop trying for too long: you forget how. He had a chance to get really “zany” with it and maybe “zazz” this thing up for a day or two, but he instead elected to go with the tried & true: feeble jokes, annoying banter and stupid wordplay.
This arc is full of fascinating details. I for one never knew Flash Gordon was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
i think i see why Bathack didn’t get his dream comic job
Espied? Really?
But, like, it really is just a giant watch, for some reason I can’t figure out. Why is it a giant watch? And why is…. Forget it.
I take solace in the fact that this arc will eventually end. I mean, even the universe itself is scheduled to end in some kind of heat-death, right?
Pete, wearing stretchy lycra with balloon boobs inserted into the chest, is now squeezed in a tiny ship while some muscular Flash Gordon type all but rides him like a horse.
Maybe *this* is supposed to be the actual gay storyline we were promised last year?
Five shots of whiskey and a pair of joints later… and this still doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.
“Espied?!?” Chiuaua! I think I’m gonna espew.
The ONLY possible explanation for this garbage is the woeful state of Ahia, after years of being embarrassed by BatDreck, has evicted TomButt and his characters, so the strip must continue in outer space.
TB is limited to tracing old Flash Gordon strips for this arc, so some of the character positioning may not make a lot of sense.
You know, if not for the accumulated years of dreck, this arc might actually be entertaining in a goofy sort of way. I mean, I could see it being fun…if not for those accumulated years.
As it is, it’s like watching a joke being told by a comedian who, you happen to know, regularly beats his wife and gives her cancer. Doesn’t matter how funny the joke might be, the teller has drained it of any chance of a laugh.
I’ve got a bad feeling that TB’s gonna find a way to drag this into next week just to give him time to bring Jungle Jim Toppers into the fray.
Don’t Blue Peter’s hallucinatory battles against the Lord of the Late usually result in him brainstorming a “brilliant” comic book story? What’s he going to come up with this time, “Superman meets Flash Gordon?”
DC Editor: So, Pete, your script is, uh… interesting. But our lawyers might prefer it if Superman teamed up with, maybe, Adam Strange?
Pete: What? Who? I’ve never heard of him! Have you even read a DC comic before?
I hate Comics Kingdom’s layout, and I have a feeling that today’s is not even worth reading. Take the fat suit off now, Pete.
I suspect Pete’s storyline will be “Mr. Sponge meets DC’s The FLASH! And they go on a tour of valleys and DALES!”
Also I actually suspect that what I just wrote above is better than what will eventually be evacuated into the comic. That thing about the “silver cloud” last time was just utterly uninspired.
Batuik jettisoned the charming quirkiness of Act I (Crazy Harry living in a locker and playing pizzas on record players, megalomaniac marching band director, Les stuck on a gym climbing rope, sentient school computer) for THIS? I just don’t get it. If Batuik felt like he had to get rid of those ideas so he could be all deep and serious, why does he think this bizarre 1940s hallucination is okay?
“Tom Batiuk Talks ‘Funky Winkerbean’” at the Comic Book Resources site.
You know…The reason we all loved the Spaceman Spiff strips and Snoopy’s
Red Baron adventures was because despite it being a fantasy..the stories were
really interesting enough to be an actual story idea.
Spaceman Spiff’s adventures could easily have been made into a
serial of adventures about an intrepid young space pilot fighting
bad guys across the galaxy.
Snoopy vs the Red Baron had all the tragedy, glory and adventure of
a war story. Snoopy’s adventures seemed like they came out of an old
WWI novel.
Tom Batiuk captures none of this is Mopey Pete’s fantasies!!
In fact I don’t know why I should read these strips when I could easily
read the Flash Gordon Strips on Go Comics!
I knew that the whole “Fred in a coma” storyline would lead back to Frankie, though I didn’t expect it would involve more filler than 9CL.
Lord of the Lewd.
in a way I guess that does involve Lisa. We find a journal of hers and we’re reading her journal so she kind of speaks to us from the grave.
Umm, isn’t that the point of her retconned VHS tapes? Can an Ouija session be far behind?
Lisa’s journal. Great. Cue the Wall ‘O Text.
More like she won’t shut up from the grave!
This latest interview really is classic TB. He manages to work in everything: KSU, ” a quarter inch removed from real life”, his “lead-lined” studio, Charles Schulz…
Wow. Reading that CBR interview, Tom comes out and says that he’s scared that he admitted he’s in good health, because that means a car will hit him.
….ugh. Oh man, he shares his character’s messed up fears and values! This is now canon to RL Tom!
That storyline with Holly running around finding comic books for her boy overseas in Afghanistan sounds like the worse thing ever. Vanity press comic books for a character TB invented.
Reading that interview TFH just posted makes me dislike Batuik even more, if that’s possible. He comes across like a clueless, smarmy, egotistical person. And he STILL doesn’t get that readers don’t care if the strips are “not funny” – they care if they suck.
I always enjoy how his interviews make FW seem far more well-thought-out, interesting and coherent than it actually is.
—Five shots of whiskey and a pair of joints later… and this still doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.——
It would if Batiuk was the one drinking five shots and smoking a pair of joints. Sorry Mrs Reagan, but some Some people really need to just say YES to drugs.
It’s probably just me, but I actually liked the interview. Of course, I have to put every thought of what “Funky Winkerbean” has become nowadays out of my head, but once I do that, Tom Batiuk sounds like a thoughtful craftsman who genuinely likes the strip and the characters and wants to see that the fans have a good time, as well as a challenge or two.
It’s so weird to read an interview like that and then see the actual strip.
BeckoningChasm: Although I can’t lie and say I “liked” it, I know what you’re saying. There’s a complete disconnect between the FW mentioned in these TB interviews and the actual comic strip.