Chester’s Treasure

Hat tip to iansdrunkenbeard in yesterday’s comments.

I’m just so sick of that surprised expression that’s been on Chester’s face this whole week. Who the hell goes to the time and expense of buying up copyrights and setting up a “shell corporation” and then forgets all about it? And what was the point of this shell corporation, anyway? Merely to pad out this insipid arc for a couple few more days, I guess.

25 thoughts on “Chester’s Treasure”

  1. “I’d totally forgotten about it, except for all those plans, motives and details I just mentioned to you! I had no idea how and why I’d established myself as a nascent publisher of obsolete, brain-dead trash!”

    1. Well, see, if he weren’t being pitched hot new sure-winner character concepts like Rip Tide Scuba Cop and the monster made of pulp magazines, he’d have remembered that he has the rights to Rootie Kazootie and Gala-Poochie. The new ideas were just too good to pass up in favor of revivals.

  2. There, there, Chetty, I understand how you could forget about horrible things in your past. It’s one reason I’m in therapy. But how bad were things in your life to turn you into a schlock publisher?

    1. Maybe I’ve called it right about DID, and it will turn out Beldar Conehead is one of Chetty’s alters.

  4. After bungling his way through arcs about depression, suicide, homophobia, PTSD, CTE and child neglect, Batiuk turns his sights to Dissociative Identity Disorder. The DSM-V: collect the entire set!

  5. LOL he “forgot” about his entire motive behind wanting to start a comic book company. OK Tom, whatever you say.

    1. Why not just have Chester march into the office on Monday and say “Hey Ruby, I actually own the rights to your old work! Wanna do more?” instead of contriving these ridiculous events? Because that would move the story along in one day as opposed to dragging it out for nine weeks, which would mean a certain someone would have to exert a little bit of effort for a change. He’s such a lazy hack.

  7. Naturally everyone’s reaction to this is going to be “yay, we get to write old comics like they did in the olden days” rather than “holy crap, the guy who writes our paychecks completely forgot about a corporation he owned, we’re all incredibly screwed”, because these people are idiots and so is their writer.

  9. Chester forgot that he owns the rights to 7 entire CW programming schedules worth of comic book properties that only need murder and adult situations to be added to them? Sure. Sure.

  10. I just noticed that tweet about Batiuk’s letter in “The Flash” 121. I wonder whatever happened to that original art (either the cover or the splash page of the first story in issue 118) that Julius Schwartz sent him. Do you think anyone asked Carmine Infantino if it was okay to send his artwork to some kid in Ohio? Of course not. He might have responded, “No, that’s my single favorite piece of my work. Please, let me have it back.”

    Just imagine how different the world might have turned out if that request had been granted. Thirteen years later, Carmine might have been more understanding when a young Dave Cockrum asked for the return of the original art for the double splash displaying the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel from “Superboy” 200. His art returned, Cockrum wouldn’t have quit DC and gone to Marvel where he recycled ideas for a planned Legion of Super-Heroes spin-off when helping create the New X-Men. Without that series, Marvel might never have been able to hold on to the lion’s share of the market. More significantly, without the successful 2000 X-Men film, the still-ongoing super-hero movie boom might never have been.

    So, when you see Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and they start griping about super-hero movies, be sure to let them know it’s all Batiuk’s fault.

    1. I think you just found the plot Warner Bros. should use for Ezra Miller’s “Flashpoint” movie.

  11. And yet if you were to ask “What other helpful things has Baldy McStupid forgotten”, Batiuk would have a sock-puppet whine about being bullied on-line.

  13. Agh so now I remember meeting with my attorneys, signing all kinds of paperwork, shelling out tons of cash.
    This is classic Batty: wall after wall of text, but no action, and no progress to the plot.

  15. Reading this all I could hear in my head was Steve Martin’s voice going “I forgot armed robbery was a crime” – that routine was funny because it was so stupid but it knew it was stupid.
    This is just stupid, stupid, and stupid with a bit more stupid as a side order.

    1. “that routine was funny because it was so stupid but it knew it was stupid.”

      Exactly. Steve Martin crafted the material and his delivery so that the audience was pulled right in. The problem with what’s presented in FW is that no thought or planning goes into the work. This arc could have actually worked had the entire joke been done in the Sunday strip over five or six panels. The check could have been delivered to Ruby in Panel 1. Panel 2 and 3 could have been the question about additional artwork with Ruby responding that she didn’t own Miss American but that she found out that CH LLC owned it. Panel 4 could be Chester’s shocked expression. Panel 5 contains the “CH LLC is me” punchline.

      A lame joke but in that one day timeframe mildly amusing.

      1. yes among other things the author routinely butchers the whole concept of timing or pacing is bludgeoned senseless in this strip.

  16. Someone who is smart/savvy/disciplined enough to be a self-made millionaire before 40 and who spends every waking hour indulging in hardcore comics geekery simply just “forgot”? I can fertilize my lawn with that one!

    Batiuk, it isn’t too late to steal my “CH Holdings LLC is a tax dodge or a front for something else illegal” -idea….

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