Today’s strip is finally up.
I was desperately hoping that my return to the writer’s helm after months of this meandering nonsense would be the magical talisman to break this unending inanity. I was there when this plot started in February, and maybe now it could end.
No such luck. Pete is plodding along on his Cosmic Treadmill…using awful word association to come up with cut-rate characters. I’m sure that the Floodlight, or the Floodmaster, or Floody McFlooderson the World’s Wettest Woman, will be nothing more than a name, a costume, a gimmick, and an even worse arch nemesis with drought powers. No Batman or Captain America levels of backstory, built in angst, creeds, and psychological insight. Just a stupid idea, personified.
Floods of biblical proportions can’t drown shallow characters. They’re hollow and insubstantial rising to the top and clinging together in a choking mat of garbage.
Yes I am comparing TomBat’s idea of ‘comicbook characters’ with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Gott im Himmel, week eleven of this stupid Atomik Komix arc begins…
That’s no way to walk on a treadmill, dip shit!
Again, this arc began on February 12th. I can’t remember any FW arc that ran for three straight months without a single break. It’s like he’s taunting us now, daring us to keep snarking on this thing while being fully aware of how awful and plodding it is.
The Mighty Depends Man.
And thus, the concept for the film “Waterworld” was created.
A character inspired by flooding? Hmmm. Tsunami? It’s been done. Old Man River? Sounds too much like something Marvel is publishing. Hurricane Katrina? Still too soon. Noah-Man? Man-Ark, the Master of Earth After Disaster? Captain Flood Plain? Harry High-Waters? For some reason, I suspect this week is going to be very, very painful.
Oh, I hope the publicity tour for this new flood-theme comic hero takes Pete to Houston, New Orleans, and Bangladesh…
I just hope Pete breaks a hip on that poorly designed treadmill. Are those supposed to be balancers in the final panel, or does this treadmill double as one of those old-time exercise machines with the vibrating cloth?
I think they’re supposed to be motion lines and the treadmill is carrying him backwards.
Hopefully it’ll hurl him out a window.
For someone who claims to love comics as much as Batiuk does, he’s got a really odd way of showing it. We’re about to be subjected to a slow-witted first grader’s idea of a superhero and expected to like it.
“I’ve got it! The Wet Blanket!”
This from the clown who was so disillusioned by the idea behind “The Prime Negatron”, that he covered his ears and shrieked in disbelief… like I’m about to do if this “story” arc continues much longer!
Yeah, I was going to mention that, too…
Of course recognizing hypocrisy has never been fashionable in the Funkyverse; for example look at pretty much *everything* Les Moore has done in his life…
the Return of Sophomoric Sightings finds Pete conjuring up a flooding-based dude – Insurance Inspector Ignatius and his cute, bosom female sidekick Fema.
Why can’t Pete and Darin be circumcised?
Because there’s no end to these pricks!
Imagine that scene from the Saw movies, where that woman has to dig through that a pit full of used syringes. Now imagine that each needle is a Funky Winkerbean character…
Just pricks for days…days and days and days…
Funky Winkerbean, more pricks than a trip to the allergist.
According to The Author’s blog, Rana is to make a return appearance in the Fall. Maybe she’ll be hired by Atomic Komix to bring in milk and cookies to Pete and Darin.
I don’t know who Rana is and I’m almost afraid to ask…
This sounds like a job for….. BILLY THE SKINK!
Let’s sound one note of optimism: We have steadily reduced the number of characters on panel to one (two if you count Holtron, which as has previously been noted, you probably should). What’s more, Pete looks as though he is about to be flung into a wall at speed, hopefully precipitating grievous and gratuitous injuries.
Best case scenario? Even if we are still mired in this plot, there’s at least a chance it will further devolve until it is just three panels of gridmarks and or bricks.
1. Why even show the LOTL yesterday with all that elaborate art only to see he’s having no effect? Why is Pete getting a cookie for doing his dream job, while getting obscenely compensated no less, might I add?
2. What the hell has Pete been writing on his laptop all this time when he doesn’t even have a character yet?
3. It’s funny because every single scene Darrin is in only serves to highlight just how worthless he is to any project that doesn’t immediately require sketching something… Yet he keeps getting hired and raking in huge stacks of cash…
4. Why has Chester not hired anyone else yet? Does he REALLY plan to singlehandedly save the industry with just a one-man creative staff plus a sketch artist? I guess the final product will be minimalist black-and-white Japanese style?? Why even lease such a big-assed building only to house two employees? Are we supposed to believe these two assholes are literally the only ones on the planet who know comics?
5. If this entire “MAKE COMICS GREAT AGAIN” campaign is 100% dependent on Pete’s original creativity, then why the hell doesn’t Pete demand a 50% ownership stake or god forbid just go into business for himself and keep ALL THE MONIES instead of just a piece?
Yes Pete is no longer a victim of the lord of the late – one wonders if this is an unconscious admission from the Author that writing about cancer and death and other prestige arc topics (have we had one since the gay couple and the gay hand by the way?) was not really something he was any good that? That one of his author avatars, is now happily producing shallow two dimensional comic books in direct opposition to characters with any depth at all, is suggestive.
I suppose The Flood will be the archnemesis of the Amazing Mr. Sponge. And somehow riches (and hilarity) will supposedly ensue.
Just out of curiosity, is it possible for me to somehow meet the World’s Wettest Woman??
It’s just amazing how he takes the one subject he’s most obsessed with and presents it in a way that not only isn’t interesting at all, but also surrounds it with these repellent characters.
Speaking of flood – I remember when I was oh 10 I think I drew my own crude comics – one of the heroes could mimic the forms water took solid, liquid, gas. He dripped a lot if memory serves. yes it was dumb but I was 10 – I shudder to think what rough beast will crawl out of Pete’s suddenly massively active imagination.