Sunday’s strip was not immediately available, so have at it, early snarkers!
Update: Oh look, a health-care joke. I can think of several Westviewites and a Medinoid I’d like to launch into the Sun.
Today’s Starbuck Jones faux cover tips its funky felt tip to Norm Breyfogle, so feast your eyes on this pastiche from Batominc. Or, you know, look at the real thing.
Update 2: Erich reminds us that it’s no pastiche.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I just saw it. Gag barf puke.
That is SO TRUE Holly. In fact, I know of one comic character who NEVER stays dead for long. Seventeen years of storyline time and she still pops up ALL THE TIME in one form or another. I forget her name, but she’ll be back again soon enough methinks.
This begs for a political commentary…. but that’d be too easy.
I just hope that “death” isn’t considered a preexisting condition
Well, today’s isn’t really bad except for Batiuk forgetting that Holly shouldn’t know much about comic books and their character killing/revival tendencies. Might call it nitpicking but if you had a character who’s an expert in Roman history and a character who’s only seen the movie Gladiator, which one do you expect to cite the Gallic Wars?
You think so, Holly?
You think Wolverine probably still qualifies for Canadian health insurance even though with his healing factor he doesn’t fucking need it? What about Superman…does Clark Kent having his pay deducted for insurance he doesn’t fucking need? Come to think about Superman is an illegal alien too.. he’s getting insurance that he doesn’t need and isn’t qualified. What about Deadman? The guys fucking dead yet he probably still has to get insurance under Obamacare lest he pay penalties. And don’t get me started on Spiderman. Peter Parker is freelance and probably doesn’t get health care from the Bugle. So does that mean every time he gets beaten up by the Green Goblin…tax payers are paying for his medical costs.
So come to think of it Holly the superhero world be fraught with even more health care problems than you have. So thank your lucky stars you don’t live in a Superhero world, you ungrateful bitch!!
Is this the foreshadowing that at long last the zombie Liza arc is about start?
I thought Starbuck Jones was like Downton Abbey on steriods, whatever that means.
Enough of this unbridled jocularity! How’s Funky’s fitness regimen going?!
Somewhere, Tom Batiuk is thinking, “Hmmmm, I’ll bet nobody has ever discussed the tendency for comic book characters to come back from the dead, ever. Well, I’m just the man to put things right!”
It’s been pointed out before, but it bears repeating: Batiuk uses the exact same accreditation (“A tip of the Funky Felt-Tip”) for these guest artists as he does whenever he copies the work of long-dead artists. Part of me wonders whether this isn’t some sneaky way for Batiuk to tell the other artists “Of course I’ll give you credit! See, there’s your name right there!”, while still allowing casual readers to think that he drew (read: “traced”) the artwork himself. But then another part of me figures that Batiuk probably didn’t put that much thought into it…
Ah yes! I had forgotten that these Jones covers were guest stints, not Batominc “homages.” And yet the presentation and credit make no mention of the artwork’s origin. As the works appear to have been done for hire, there is no legal irregularity, but would it kill him to make the distinction?
Erich and oddnoc–yes, that’s exactly what jumped out at me. If you do 90% of the work for Batiuk, he’s willing to give you a small shout-out in the corner. Eight-point type. See, he’s giving you as much as he gave classic Superman artist Curt Swan!
Still, Breyfogle’s a pretty strong artist, glad to see his work here.
To be frank, I actually kind of like this. As amazing as it sounds, there are very few jokes about serialized comic books in the newspaper comics. And even when they do dip into that territory, it’s very broad Batman/Superman/Spider-Man and/or Imagination-Projection (I am a superhero! Rar!) parody. I think the most original superhero lampooning was Bill Watterson making fun of the dark age of comics with Napalm Man and that was like over two decades ago.
So if Batiuk actually wanted to stand out (in a positive way) from other gag-a-days, making fun of the tropes and silliness of newspaper comics is a pretty rich vein of snark.
Unfortunately, as shown by the stupid Lord of the Late comics and his completely artless lampooning of the DAoC with the whole Speedball/Bleedball thing, he’d probably manage to screw that up, too. Oh, well. At least it’d be an original way of screwing-up. Which is pretty much the best that this comic can hope for.
Mrs. Funky’s line sounds like something Dolly from THE FAMILY CIRCUS would say. Yes, the humor in this strip has sunk that low.
These comic book cover Sunday installments are excruciatingly dull to folks less-than-enamored of comic books, but I’m sure Batimaniaks everywhere are loving it. It’s called “preaching to the choir”. I suppose it’s OK to write to your audience, but its difficult to see how any of this is of pressing interest to young adults, or whatever that useless phrase was.
Here’s some nightmare fuel.
I don’t think Holly actually wears clothes. She’s naked and the black/dark violet cardigan/pink shirt ensemble she wears literally everywhere is a protective shell that she has grown over her squishy, vulnerable body.
She even looks like a turtle when she’s not looking like Funky in a wig!