While waiting for tonight’s strip to update, I’d like to point out the Urban Dictionary definition of sponge.
Sponge: A lazy, workshy tosser who would rather let his friends pay for everything than put his hand in his own pocket
Well, heck, I know people like that, and while amazed at their gall when it came to the “I forgot my wallet” routine when out to dinner in a group of friends, I never thought these people were individually amazing.
Oh, the strip is up! Oh, it’s a writer thinking outloud about writing. I can’t snark funnily on this. Apologizes to all.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Yeah, this is so true. It really sucks when a comic goes from light-hearted to tragic just for the sake of generating attention and…hey, wait a minute!!! Nice try, Tom Ban, but this is one FW reader who’s not falling for this blatant troll attempt, sorry. I mean come on, there’s no way he wrote this one with a straight face. So I’m not going off on some lengthy rant detailing his long legacy of bullshit, as that’s exactly what he wants. When he brags during his annual Sunday supplement interview about how he “fooled them all” with his little inside gag, it’ll be another lie. A+ for effort though.
I do like how a miserable Pete is dreaming about what a retro-proto-Pete would be thinking about if he was miserable too. It’s so warped, just layers of misery all collapsing upon themselves in a big heap of lousy writing and weary expressions of woe. And the way he just leaves the dialog hanging there in the air makes it even weirder. “Insects buzzing in his brain”, eh? Well at least they’ll have each other for company.
I’m noticing a pattern here. Both Les and Pete, when their beautiful, pure, pristine, too-perfect-for this-fallen-world creative visions are altered in the least, instead of making a single argument for their own ideas, just sit around and passive-aggressively bitch about it and daydream about the olden days. Last year had poor Les being lynched; I wonder if this Sunday’s strip will be Pete on the cross saying “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”, looking down on Baldy Cigarsworth cackling over dead Absorbing Junior,
@Epicus:
Considering Sunday’s strip was a maniac cackling about how he was going to drive the internuts and twitter tots crazy, I’d say he telegraphed his intent pretty well. I wonder if the insects buzzing in his brain are centipede doctors. CentiPhDs, if you will.
I, too, am unable to snark today. This so-called “wordplay” is just too painful. It’s embarrassing, that’s what it is.
I’ve often thought that Batiuk aims to displease. This arc goes a long way to proving me right. Damn. I thought being right about Lynn Johnston sucked.
“When he brags during his annual Sunday supplement interview about how he “fooled them all” with his little inside gag, it’ll be another lie. A+ for effort though.”
It stopped being gag a day long ago and it is now a battle to the 50 year point between B’hack and the SOSF/Disqus gang…………………….
My editor’s words buzzed around like insects in my brain: “Mwa ha ha! I’m taking you to the Flipside! You’ll be my comic book slave… FOREVER!”
I question the writing ability of anyone who thinks his own personal narative like this.
(Damn, Chryon, and here I thought I was the only one who remembered Kidd Video…)
@TheDiva – You, me and Ted Forth.
If this strip was any more maudlin, Bobby Bittman and Lola Heatherton would be in it…
Epicus Doomus:
“Yeah, this is so true. It really sucks when a comic goes from light-hearted to tragic just for the sake of generating attention and…hey, wait a minute!!! Nice try, Tom Ban, but this is one FW reader who’s not falling for this blatant troll attempt, sorry.”
SpacemanSpiff85
@Epicus:
Considering Sunday’s strip was a maniac cackling about how he was going to drive the internuts and twitter tots crazy, I’d say he telegraphed his intent pretty well.
Seriously! The sheer hypocrisy on display here by Batiuk regarding his indignation that a comic book killing off a character is unreal (I mean really? of all people HE has the gall to complain about this???) and obviously that Sunday strip was him brazenly saying he full intended to troll and irritate folks with this. I don’t read a lot of comic books outside of Spiderman and the classic Uncle Scrooge/Donald Carl Barks and Don Rosa series, so a lot of comic book news flies over my head, what character death is he so insulted by that he’s doing this?
Wow – even if this is just troll bait – someone who’s gifted the comic section of the daily paper with grim hopelessly bleak stories about cancer, date rape, PTSD, and then played someone with a stroke for laughs has a lot of gall writing this.
Granted his view of comic books is deeply strange, linked to a disturbing infantilization of his male characters who read comic books who are catered to by mother figures bringing cookies or hot chocolate and the like. It’s a very creepy and disturbing image of the recovery of ‘innocent times’ and would probably make Freud gag a bit.
Given this I can see why he would object to the darker comics world of today and yet not have the self awareness of a rabbit about how weird it is given his own work.
@Professor Fate: You just made me flash back to having to listen to “Old Days” by Chicago….and also having to listen to them complain about how they hated having to sing about Howdy Doody because that sort of thing wasn’t their bag. The reason that I mention that is that Old Days is probably the alpha and omega of Batty’s playlist.
It HAS to be troll bait, there’s no way he’s THAT oblivious. Now I can’t pretend to know what set him off or what the goal was with this, but it has to be deliberate.
So, Tom Batiuk’s sole purpose in doing this strip has evolved from “get to the 50th anniversary” to “insult my critics.” I’m not sure if that’s a step up or a step down…or, if we phrase that in Batiukian, “You can step on the ladder, or step off the ladder, but the ladder is still there.”
Hell, I might as well draw one of my cat avatars dressed as Robin and have her claw a copy of “The Complete Funky Winkerbean: 2012-2015” to shreds.