Six days of Ruby telling of her struggle as a woman in the male-dominated golden/silver age of comics. Then Mindy shares some hurtful online comments that she’s received, and even Ruby, who’s seen it all, is taken aback. The plot is just starting to move into “contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner” territory. But hey, it’s the Sunday following a Mindy and Ruby week, which means we get a Wayback Wendy Sideways Sunday Comic Cover.
Everyone Knows It’s Wendy
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
It’s a good thing they don’t put dates on their covers, because it might call attention to the fact that they’ve only put out four issues in the last seventeen months.
…eh, I don’t really care. I was just looking for something to post about. And who knows how much time has passed in the Funkyverse anyway?
Bitching and moaning about only young girls being in comics (and Amanda Waller says hi) wouldn’t be so funny if Batiuk wasn’t still portraying Cindye Sommers-Jarre as some 24 year old sexpot when she’s much closer to Ruby’s age than Mindy’s…
“But where are the older women in comic books??” Said the older woman who has worked in comics her entire life and has complete creative control to draw up any storylines she sees fit… Yeah, better let Mindy do it instead.
And Mindy’s cover and presumed storyline is uninspired and derivative as all fuck…
I guess Mindy is a writer now, even though she was hired to be a colorist. And they already have the highest-paid writer in comic books on staff. Who is also her boyfriend, and is oddly unthreatened by this. And Ruby Lith would have no authority to invent new titles and appoint people to work on them.
And yet, that’s pretty much what happened two years ago:
* 2019-09-04: Ruby spots Mindy’s concept notes for the Wayback Wendy character.
* 2019-09-05: Ruby tells Mindy that she should write WW instead of Pete.
* 2019-09-06: Mindy tells Ruby that she should draw WW instead of Darin.
* 2019-09-06: Ruby is hired on the spot, despite Chester being nowhere in sight. Handshakes all around.
Oof, sorry about those italics. Messed up my closing tags, and the WordPress preview is all italics by default.
And, Tom Batiuk has just broken the world record for the longest distance of being up his own asshole! An amazing 31.9 inches! Almost all a full inch past the most recent record holder, M. Night Shyamalan.
Ma Kent: Am I a joke to you?
Aunt May: Am I a joke to you?
Boo hoo, most characters in comics are young super heroes. Almost like young people are the target demographic. Almost like it’s more believable for people in their teens through 40’s to be fighting crime rather than the post menopausal.
And despite that, there are plenty of examples of older women in comics IF YOU ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION TO THE MEDIA YOU’RE CRITICIZING.
Case in point. In December 2004 Geoff Johns reintroduced Ma Hunkel, the Golden Age Red Tornado, to the Justice Society. She went on to be a supporting member of the team even though she was a regularly powered elderly woman. Taking care of the JSA team building and fighting off invaders with a frying pan.
When she was reintroduced, she punched out a burglar while crossdressing as Santa. It was EPIC.
https://markperigard.com/2015/12/14/have-yourself-a-merry-jsa-christmas/
Tom, read a comic published after 1979? Fat chance. He’ll critique modern comics, sure. But don’t expect him to actually read them.
Tom is also completely blind to non-superhero comics. What about Archie Comics? Miss Grundy is a major character, and there are a huge collection of mothers and teachers. They’re older women! They’re in comic books! They count, Tom!
To say nothing of manga and its variations, which can be about almost any topic. Or romance comics, a genre that died out, but obviously featured women. Or Watchmen, which had a whole generation of older superheroes, some of whom were women.
Ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant.
Once again his lack of research trips him up. It does raise the perennial question: How much time does he actually spend working on this strip?
But of course in his next puff piece interview he will drone on about all of the painstaking research he has done and how he got people thinking about this important issue.
Or share the cover art (almost always without attribution) on the FW blog.
I guess this shows us why Batty never got hired to work on comic books.
Meanwhile, over on Mary Worth, things are getting good and Moy actually advanced the story on a Sunday!
The current MW story is quite a departure. Sure, it’s goofy and predictable, but it’s unironically fun to read.
Ashlee (spelled Ashley the other day) has to be Arthur’s daughter. That pigsty house of theirs is hilarious!
And wasn’t Arthur sometimes Arther? I guess ambiguously spelled names runs in the family.
Ruby laments the lack of older woman characters, so Mindy gives her a clone of a young woman character. How does that even help?
It’s Tedious Tom, the superhero who tells plodding meandering stories that never go anywhere. In this month’s edition, Tedious Tom thwarts some bank robbers by lulling them into a bored stupor. In the final panel the head bank robber begs the police to take him to prison, as at least they have a reasonably well-stocked library there.
A) Wayback Wendy from the Future looks nothing like her past self, but uncomfortably close to Captain Marvel’s predecessor from the recent movie…
B) “Did every woman over 30 die in a plague?” He wrote this LAST YEAR, folks.
C) At least Mindy found something to do with her life that isn’t actually all that related to “Radio Ranch.”
D) Can Wayback Wendy only go backwards through time? How did she get back (forth?) from her trip to save Abe Lincoln? Is her older self now going to die in the past?
Golly geriatric superhero! Come quick! Some villains are robbing the central bank!
Ah, maybe later. My knee is acting up and Matlock is on in ten.
That’s the future? Triangular lenses and a Benedict Arnold overcoat? Kill me now! And where’s Retro, the dog whose presence somehow enables Wendy Whatsit to time-travel?
Retro has been returned to Jay Ward Productions after Mr. Peabody sued for custody and was awarded it when the genetic test came back showing Retro was his inferior clone.
Hey, kids! Look!
It’s yet another Sunday comic cover where the underlying theme is about the misogyny and lack of female representation within the comic book medium, and the cover itself is not drawn by a woman! Yay!
Keep on preaching to us from your ivory tower, you ignorant hypocritical jackass!
Beyond ditching the cape (“No capes!” – Enda Mode, fashion designer to superheroes), I don’t understand why future Wayback Wendy would alter her costume so radically. Her nonfunctional shoe choice is particularly perplexing.
Don’t be fooled, Wendy. That’s not your future self. That’s just your gram gram visiting from Boca.
Future Wendy wears a similar costume but in darker hues. She also wears a leather jacket (with lots of pouches on it) and an eye patch. Also, she has a biiig gun.
And, while lamenting the lack of women in comic books, Tom Batiuk hires a male to draw his latest fake comic book. Which just goes to show that Tom Batiuk is All Talk to the nth degree.
I suspect he doesn’t know any women artists personally, and thus wouldn’t be willing to ask any to do this sort of thing. With the exception of the whole Starbuck Jones yearlong extravaganza, I think it’s pretty much the same few guys doing these.
Not that it excuses him. If he really cared about female artists and writers, he could very easily get to know a few.
Batty Whack doesn’t realize that the scene depicted in this strip can never happen, because it is impossible for one to co-exist with oneself in time.
Bad timey whimey stuff can happen when you cross your personal timeline. You could blow up reality or end up married to Queen Elizabeth I, both good things to avoid, or so I’m led to believe.
Hey Batiuk, it’s not a crossover unless there’s another series of comic books focused on old Wayback Wendy, you dope. It’s just a special guest appearance.