Happy New Year from your pals at SoSF!
And 2020 kicks off in typically grand bland FW style. The Atomik Komix gang are slaving away in the comic book foundry on New Year’s Day instead of watching meaningless college football bowl games like normal people. I suppose Boy Lisa would prefer to be anywhere but at home with that grouchy kid of his, but the rest of them really have no valid excuse.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Good to see Che is back.
Rubella’s right about one thing: they get something done. They don’t keep real artists and writers from working for real publishers.
Who works on New Year’s Day? Lots of people – in retail and food service, for example.
It’s a glimpse into Mopey’s prejudices, and it’s not very flattering. Either he doesn’t know anyone who works in those jobs, or he thinks they don’t count when he’s assessing who works on New Year’s.
In this particular situation, it’s really only one of two things. Either these dopes couldn’t get the job done during their regular hours or Chester has them working unconscionably long hours, including holidays and nights. Considering that Ruby’s supposed to be pushing her mid-90s and neither scenario is really acceptable.
I hope the enraged face in the banner means Mindy is about to kill Mopey Pete for cheating on her. It will probably turn out that he offended her by forgetting part of Wendy Wayback’s backstory.
That’s the face she should have made when Pete proposed marriage to her with a stuffed animal from the carnival instead of a ring.
“‘Wendy’? Did you just call me ‘Wendy’? What kind of sicko mistakes me for a little girl?”
Like Pete has any involvement in Wayback Wendy. I’ve noticed that only Ruby and Mindy are shown working on that, while Darin and Pete are only seen working on the superhero titles. You’d think, in a small office of people with specific skills, everyone would have to work on everything. But that would mean Pete has to write for a girl comic, which goes totally against the rules of Batiuk’s tree fort.
Given their long long long track record, I would describe Pete and Durwood as more likely “work-adjacent” than “working”.
Happy New Year, ya filthy animals! Keep the change!
Happy New Year, everyone!
I’m guessing the kind that keep missing deadlines. You know, like “the artist ‘Turtle Thompson’.”
By the way, when will you nerds realize that you can work at home instead of an office,like the vast majority of real-life comic book creators do?
Even more remarkably they still appear to be AK’s only employees. Perhaps that’s why they’re there 24/7, working the mail room, answering phones. unloading trucks, doing the custodial work and etc.
Similarly to Paul Jones says below, the comic book industry works the way Batiuk thinks it should work in his fantasy world. And that means no managers, no directors, no accountants, no human resources – artists and writers only. Lord knows how the books get printed or the bills get paid, but there you go.
You’d think Batiuk could at least hint there are other workers, by drawing some bored men in sunglasses and Atomik Komix overalls. But then he’d have to draw something outside the sacred precincts of The Bullpen, and even worse, give them some dialog. Now how do you put bored, surly people in the most joyous business in the Funkyverse?
You know what’s a funny thing? Here’s a funny thing! Batiuk still thinks that Stan Lee is a lying huckster because he told him to his face that the Marvel Bullpen was a bit of an inside joke because even back then, most of the people worked from a home studio. He was expecting something like what we see here, not what actually existed.
What it says is you can’t make a deadline to save your lives.. So much for getting things done.
And of course this means they have to heat the building so these four losers won’t freeze.
Type A nerd – Right.
Yeah really. Does Batiuk know what “Type A” means? Because these characters are not it. They’re constantly goofing off, and then rush to meet deadlines. Which is pardonable, but not when the strip insults “Turtle Thompson” (possibly a real person) for being the same way. Ugh, these characters are the worst.
Ruby’s here, we’ll send out for coffee today.
If you make komix, OF COURSE you work New Years Day! And Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the day of your mother’s funeral. Do you even have to ASK? Making komix is the bestest and most importantest job in the whole wide world! It’s not even a question. Police, fire, hospitals, NORAD, and komix! People are waiting for their BOOKS! Been saving allowance and paper route money. Counting the days. We need our BOOKS!!
This is just how efficient Tombat is. We get a year’s worth of BS on day one.