18 thoughts on “Com-Icks”

  3. I bet tomorrow’s strip will have the imaginary flashback Pete and Darin wonder if drawing comics was this hard for the guys in the late 1800s who drew the first newspaper comic strips. And then Batiuk will have two sets of dumb photo album corners.

  4. What I like in this strip is Darrin’s expression in panel 3. That wide-eyed innocent expression that says “Wait, what? There is hope in this life?’ Because it’s certain to be snuffed out by Saturday.

  5. Casual (chortle) FW readers are probably wondering why Cory is working with Pete and Darin while wearing old-timey garb, but the more savvy FW reader immediately understands that it’s just that crazy old Batiuk going off on yet another one of those weird comic book-related fantasy trips of his. As usual, it’s “artist = martyr” as Batom’s fantasy includes a mean nasty old boss who lives to squelch and tamp down the creative aspirations of the truly talented. I just think it’s pretty funny how whenever these characters fantasize about something it’s always at least just as dreary as their actual lives are, if not more so.

    Coming next week: Les fantasizes about Lisa again, imagining what it would have been like if she had died in a variety of other ways.

  7. Yet again, I risk condemnation by the thin-skinned by noting that Batiuk has the stupid idea that having to consider what people might actually like to read is insane and stupid. Reason: he actually likes the idea of being persecuted and misunderstood for his art. If he were beloved and popular, he couldn’t be a cool martyr and that would not be a life worth living.

  8. Strip Setup

    First panel: Introductory “here’s-the-story” dialogue.
    Second panel: A question.
    Third panel: Complete gibberish; usually unfitting, unnecessary, or inappropriate.

    It’s enough to drive you mad, isn’t it?

  9. It’s always kind of weird to me how much he rides these “mean boss” tropes, for a guy who’s been essentially self-employed his whole life.

  11. It occurs to me that he isn’t writing for a readership at all, but at his presumed peer group. Probably thinks Stan Lee is gonna call him up to congratulate him on nailing exactly how it was back in the days of the merry Marvel bullpen…

  14. “Just direct your aquarium to the sunny side of the sanitarium” – makes more sense than today’s punchline.

    Anyway, I guess we’re seeing the sepia flashback strip as a way of exposing the sweatshop-like work conditions that Pete Richards and Dooron are being forced to endure out in evil Hollywood. There’s two big problems with this – 1. We haven’t seen any indications of what their actual work conditions are, and 2. WHY DID THE STUDIO FLY THESE GUYS OUT TO HOLLYWOOD AND PAY THEM HANDSOMELY IF THEY DIDN’T EXPECT THEM TO PRODUCE SOMETHING??

    Derwood may be a neophyte in the cut-throat storyboard business, but Pete Rose is a seasoned veteran. He should know that endless revisions and rewrites are part of the job.

  15. Remember Durwood went away
    ‘Cause Pete got on his knees
    And begged him to come help
    Storyboard Starbuck Jones

    Well Dur left his family
    And then the job got worse and worse
    And now you see TB’s gone
    Completely out of his mind

    And he’s going to take us away ha-haaa
    TB’s going to take us away ho ho hee hee ha haaa
    To the sepia tones
    Where life is sorrowful all the time
    And we’ll be happy to see these nice young men
    In their clean white shirts
    And he’s going to take us away ha haaaaaa

    TB thought it was a joke
    And so we laughed
    We laughed when He made
    That gag about artists’ mental health

    Right? He knows we laughed
    He heard us laugh. We laughed
    We laughed and laughed and then we left
    To enjoy Crankshaft’s latest gag

    And he’s going to take us away ha haaa
    TB’s going to take us away ho ho hee hee ha haaa
    To his salad days
    With inks and pens and chomped cigars
    And comic artists who sit and smirk
    And idle their brains and wills
    And he’s going to take us away ha haaaaaa

  16. C’mon guys. We should be thankful. At least in this Mopey Pete daydream he doesn’t have boobs.

  17. SpacemanSpiff85: “I wonder if it was this hard for prehistoric man?”…then cut to Caveman Pete and Darin etching stick figures into the wall of a cave as their caveman supervisor stands over their shoulder, chomping on a mastodon bone.

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