Crazy Harry shows us all that he never took a sales class in today’s strip, shilling for Atomik Komix by dumping on the comic book industry’s far more popular, far more established, and far more successful giants while Creepy Pete creeps about like a creeper (but not the comic book character, who has appeared in *gasp* multiple universes!). Maybe it worked, though we don’t actually see Komix Korner’s first sale since the Obama administration. This, uh… child (I think) actually seems interested in wasting $2.99 on a copy of Atomic Ape and its single universe of simian shlock. Sorry, the gray shading on that kid’s hair is throwing me off, he looks like a tiny Tom Batiuk.
This gripe about multiple universes that is shared by maybe 0.001% of all comic book fans that I have ever met is especially rich coming from TB, a guy who writes two comic strips that share a universe together and with a 3rd defunct strip, one of which is set 10 years ahead of the other even though both are depicted as taking place in the present day. So much less confusing than multiple universes…
Have a safe, healthy, and happy Easter Sunday SOSFers!
Son of Stuck Funky 
No, Mopey Pete, Atomik Komix put the eunuch in comics. That’s how you landed your job.
Looks like that open-front android is designed for the next Barbarella revival. Meanwhile, I’m confused*. Is that Crazy Harry or Cliff Anger shilling for Atomik Komix?
–Hi, Confused!
Next Sunday’s strip will be another Atomik Komix crossover: Inedible Pulp and Rip Tide Scuba Cop. I’m not even kidding.
The fact that “story considerations” caused Batiuk to push back one of his comic covers is the most hilarious thing he’s written in the past ten years, by far.
If you’re trying to sell comic books to people who don’t really like one of the simpler concepts that’s common to most major comic books and science fiction, that’s a very niche audience.
Also, Crazy Harry pushing customers away from DC and Marvel and not even trying to get them interested in it so he can shill his friend’s product seems terrible for Komix Korner’s business.
Oh yeah, Batiuk LOVES his multitude of poorly-developed sub-universes within the Funkyverse, which itself is part of the larger Batiukiverse, of course. Starbuck Jones, Batom Comics, Atomik Komix, Olde Hollywood, Current Hollywood, the Lisaverse and probably hundreds more I’m conveniently forgetting, all sort of interacting and barley intertwining with one another in almost imperceptible ways. Sometimes time flies right by in huge ten year jumps, then other times it doesn’t move at all for months and even years at a time. Our earthly physical laws have no relevancy in the Batiukiverse. Dead people reappear to interact with and make out with the living, dementia patients miraculously regain their faculties, men find Linda attractive…anything can happen, no matter how wildly improbable or stupid.
Man, I bet DC and Marvel are really kicking themselves that they passed on hiring Todd, huh?
Hey, Pete, if you need a slogan, how about “Atomik Komix – We Won’t Confuse Your Midget”? Seriously, what is that…entity Crazy Harry is shilling to? It can’t be meant to be a child, can it?
“No multiple universes”? So AK’s outer space primates and the time-travelling grade schooler and the Super Scuba detective rip-off are all part of one shared continuity?
Look, I’m a Silver Age codger who’s been reading comics non-stop since the age of six, and even back then I understood that “Justice League of America” and “Sugar and Spike” weren’t meant to be in the same universe. Even today’s comics readers–whatever few are left–can differentiate between DC and Marvel realms without being overwhelmed.
The most ironic aspect of today’s fanboy self-love exercise is that it’s running at a time when comic book stores are closing hand over fist thanks to the Pandemic on Infinite Earths, and the entire industry is itself on a metaphorical respirator.
More like “supremely p*ssed off” at the proliferation that requires even more investment to complete a series and how one arc isn’t even completed in one before you find out the resolution in another.
But Todd’s whining about Marvel and DC’s multi-uni’s here is just more of the old waa-waa of “they didn’t hire me and I bet they’re sorry now because I went off and created pure comics! Well, not really – I mean, I never actually published any, but they’re all in my head and I have the covers right here!”
The covers that someone else drew and coloured.
And it’s odd that he’s so down on multiple universes since his beloved Flash introduced the concept to the comic book world with the story The Flash of Two Worlds which re-introduced the golden age Flash. This was published in 1961. That’s a long time to be grumpy about something
And really with the idea of multiple universes being given serious consideration in scientific circles (for example Quantum Many Worlds
or the idea of bubble universes) and having been a feature of science fiction since for ever (the Mirror, Mirror Star Trek episode) to suggest that the kids an idiot. Well this is Westview so that’s not entirely out of the question. Still it really makes no sense. It’s like some one complaining about the use of the tempered scale in music.
We are dealing with someone still throwing a tantrum because they changed the bullshit reason Flash can run at Ridiculous Speed. Taking a creamy dump over multiverses (and Pete stealing someone else’s idea) is just par for a very stupid course.
In my universe no one ever says into their phone reminders that begin with “Note to self. . .”
I’m glad Tom Batiuk doesn’t like multiple universes, because he can’t even create one good one.
What is Mopey Pete’s suname?
Rattabastardo
Eh, it’s actually a good part of what keeps me from reading comic books, this “lots of worlds and people keep getting resurrected” stuff. From my point of view, it’s a valid complaint. But Atomik Komix’s “just ordinary stories about a scuba cop and a living trash heap” approach doesn’t attract me either.
Todd never learned that the negative sell just isn’t productive. If the only way you can push your own work is by taking a shit all over what the competition (that refused to hire you) is doing, then basically you’ve got a product with no selling points whatsoever. “One one universe” is no recommendation at all when the characters that inhabit it are dumb, lame and derivative.
You know what would be a good sales pitch? “Try the Atomik Komix, they’re made right here in Westview! In fact, the writer’s right over there, why don’t you say hello and get his autograph?” That would have blown my mind when I was ten years old. Instead we get a reseller, a creator, a child(?), and a parent, all nodding that something Tom Batiuk doesn’t like is bad.
Isn’t it fun to watch people stand around and agree? With something ludicrous and hypocritical?
Also: isn’t Pete engaged to Mindy? It doesn’t seem to have changed his priorities much.