Could Ruby and Flash be any less excited than they are in today’s strip, the big reveal of their hall of fame induction? I actually think they could, in theory… if they had to read this comic strip.
Despite Ruby’s wry response to being honored before she and Flash go the way of Phil Holt, the real life Eisner Awards Hall Of Fame is more than willing to honor comics icons who are no longer with us. Four of the six 2021 inductees announced thus far are no longer living, including legendary American political party mascot creator (and 180 year old) Thomas Nast and Swiss proto-comic strip pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer (who passed away when Thomas Nast was 5 years old).
One inductee who is still living is Lily Renée, who turned 100 back in May and is most likely one of TB’s biggest inspirations for the Ruby Lith character (big kudos to our own ComicBookHarriet for making and elaborating on this connection). Given that TB is known to work about a year in advance of the publishing date, the Ruby Lith-Lily Renée connection makes this story arc remarkably prescient… or it would if TB had not revealed his eerie precognitive powers several times before in both Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft. At least this time he used his powers to predict something good.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Yup, good thing they’re finally getting that CCCBHOF nod, as they’re old and they’ll probably die soon. Oh, the hilarity. Or maybe they’ll just get dementia and run out the clock over at Bedside Manor. Either way it’s us, the loyal readers, who benefit.
I should probably say something noteworthy, but the absolutely terrible artwork today just short-circuits anything I might say. Seriously, this is drawn at a level that “high school mimeograph newsletter for the chess club” would reject as “Try harder.”
And the people behind this strip are paid professionals? They’ve been doing this for years? Here’s the real scandal, Batiuk. It isn’t that ancient Burgess Shale fossils aren’t properly classified. It’s that utterly terrible hack work is being paid a living wage. There are hundreds and thousands of writers and artists who are doing this so much better. And here you are, spitting in their faces.
Maybe years of reading The Comics Curmudgeon has warped my standards, but the artwork could be worse. I mean, I’ve seen Crock. I’ve seen Momma. I’ve seen several of the Six Chix. I’ve seen the tragic decline of Apartment 3-G. This barely fazes me.
Agreed. I never cared about comic books. However, I did care about comic strips as a child. I passed by DC and Marvel for Charlie Brown and Calvin & Hobbes.
And even as a prepubescent child I always had an intense dislike of Momma for its atrocious art (among other things). I wouldn’t be so callously cruel as to say that I’m glad that Mel is dead, because I have no animus against him as a person, but I am rather relieved to never have to see another new Momma strip for the rest of my days.
Bobblehead Flash may have a skull that’s as large as Pete’s torso, but at least we’re not at Crock levels of terrible yet.
I was never into comic books either, I always preferred the satire magazines like Mad and Cracked.
What are you talking about? It /is/ a scandal that so Many precious Burgess Shale fossils are misclassified. Or have never been classified in the first place. Because they exist in the storage rooms of museums unwilling to put in the time to have them examined! How many precious threads in the web of evolution are we missing, not because the fossils don’t exist, or haven’t been found, but simply because no one has bothered to look at what we already have?
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/thousands-of-fossils-sit-forgotten-in-museum-drawers-how-one-paleontologist
If Flash’s head gets any taller, this strip is going to have to be a single sideways panel any time he appears.
What’s this, a crossover with r/prequelmemes?
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
The ridiculous height of Flash’s head, and his greasy, dishonest smile, immediately reminded me of that character. And Ruby looks like she’s about to open her mouth and make a Chewbacca noise. She fits right into that scene.
Funky: Lisa! Your tragedy at the post office, terrible. Seeing you alive brings warm feeling to my heart.
Lisa: Do you have any idea who’s behind this attack?
Les: Our intelligence points to disgruntled talk radio listeners from Centerville
Lisa: I think that Tom Batiuk is behind it.
Brilliant work.
I don’t know how to embed images in comments. But I am imagining Ruby as that that time RLM’s Plinkett photoshopped his dead wife and Nute Gunray together.
https://skyfutonsockfun.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/download.jpg?resize=214%2C214
I got that reference!!
It’s clear that the kindly Mr. Freeman is actually a disguised supervillain looking for a way to enter the San Diego Comic-Con and disrupt the proceedings. My money’s on either Silver Age Green Lantern foe Hector Hammond (http://www.comicbookreligion.com/img/h/e/Hector_Hammond.jpg) or classic Hulk adversary The Leader (https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Leader-Hulk-Marvel-Comics-Stern-h2.jpg).
Mindy’s double-pointing gesture not captures the childish excitement of this moment, but emphasizes the maturity of Dullard and Dopey Pete. Now I hope that Rubella’s “just-in-time” wordplay will soon prove to be eerily prophetic.
“So I’ve been elected to the Comic-Con Hall of Fame. Sigh… these things just never when you want them to. It’s nice that my coworkers rigged the election on my behalf, but I needed this when I was much younger. Even though I spent the last 50 years complaining about being overlooked because of my gender. But I guess I’m lucky it happened just before I died. Oh, life is such a struggle.”
The meaning of the phrase “just in time” is not dramatically different from “how timely”, so why did Ruby feel the need to correct Flash? Because Batiuk wanted to make a pun about Timely Comics, that’s why.
A more honest strip, though not a better one, would have read like this:
“You two are going to be inducted into the ‘Hall of Fame’ at Comic-Con this summer!”
“How timely.”
“Timely? That’s the name of an old comic book company! I know that because I worked at old comic book companies!”
“You worked at Timely?”
“No, never. But when you hear that you’re finally being honored for your decades of unrecognized hard work, it’s only natural for your thoughts to jump to a random company in your industry.”
And furthermore, these awards aren’t “timely” or “just in time”. They’ve been a long time coming! Decades, even! They could only be construed as “timely” if Flash and Ruby dabbled in the occult and learned that they’re both going to keel over dead the day after Comic-Con ends.
The meaning of the phrase “just in time” is not dramatically different from “how timely”, so why did Ruby feel the need to correct Flash? Because Batiuk wanted to make a pun about Timely Comics, that’s why.
A more honest strip, though not a better one, would have read like this:
“You two are going to be inducted into the ‘Hall of Fame’ at Comic-Con this summer!”
“How timely.”
“Timely? That’s the name of an old comic book company! I know that because I worked at old comic book companies!”
“You worked at Timely?”
“No, never. But when you hear that you’re finally being honored for your decades of unrecognized hard work, it’s only natural for your thoughts to jump to a random company in your industry.”
Furthermore, these awards aren’t “timely” or “just in time”. They’ve been a long time coming! Decades, even! They could only be construed as “timely” if Flash and Ruby dabbled in the occult and learned that they’re both going to keel over dead the day after Comic-Con ends.
That was my immediate reaction when I read this. Batiuk does this kind of thing all the time, where he things just mentioning something “nerdy” is all he has to do, rather than actually come with something funny about it.
On further reflection, Flash’s “How timely” may have been ironic. Either way, it’s more of a springboard for Ruby’s pun than a meaningful statement in and of itself.
On further further reflection, maybe Batiuk wasn’t thinking of Timely Comics at all…in which case, Ruby’s pun is even more weird and pointless.
Interpreting this strip is like a Choose Your Own Adventure of lameness.
The big secret is out. How will TomBa fill out the rest of the week?
Look at a picture of a toilet, and imagine it being filled, over and over. That’s the entirety of the rest of this strip.
Thursday: “Really?!”
Friday: “Yeah, really!”
Saturday: “Gee whillickers!”
Sunday: sideways comic book cover for The Complainers.
Panel Three: The younger people smile knowingly as their elders contemplate their imminent demise. “Thank God it’s them and not us!,” they think to themselves.
Two or three more days of padding this out await us? Will one of those days explain why Flash Freeman just happened to be coming into the Atomik offices on this day?
And everyone violently smirks as Ruby pronounces her imminent death.
For a strip that’s just lousy with old people, Batwipe really seems to hate old people.
It’s almost like he himself is an old person, and resents himself for aging…
No, Batty resents the world for changing. In his mind, the past was always better, save for those sexist comic book factories.
Yes, because that’s a totally believable human reaction to receiving a great honor. “Oh, sigh, too bad I’m old and therefore likely to die soon.” Even though Ruby and Flash are already 90-something and have never been hampered by it in the slightest. Nor does anything prevent them from enjoying the award during the time they have left. But even at a moment of great personal triumph, they have to make everything about how wry and miserable life is. These people are just the worst.
I guess they’d prefer the “Marvin Miller” treatment, who despite being a surefire lock was only enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame *after* his death for purely political reasons?
I would call Ruby+Flash a couple of ungrateful assholes, but in their defense it’s hard to feign spontaneous excitement when they know the only reason they’re getting this honor is because the Westview Crony Club Syndicate called in a favor on their behalf…
And while Peter Coreleone is in a charitable mood, I would be forever in his debt if Tom Fucking Brady happened to “disappear” without a trace the next time he’s out boating in the Bermuda Triangle…
it’s hard to feign spontaneous excitement when they know the only reason they’re getting this honor is because the Westview Crony Club Syndicate called in a favor on their behalf…
Do they know that, though? Maybe it will become a plot point, but so far the story has glossed over it. They didn’t even know they were in the running. Award candidates are normally informed of this. It’s like someone going up to Les and saying “Guess what! You’re the mayor of Westview now!” As if no further explanation were needed.
Which makes it all the more odd that Pete didn’t wait a day just so Ruby+Flash could have heard it “officially”…
Hell, just because he got an email didn’t mean he had to scream it across the office like it was a winning lottery ticket
The way Ruby clutches her chest in panel 1 had me half expecting her imminent death might occur in panel 3.
The art is trying to make it look like she was stunned by the announcement. But by the second panel, this emotion is already gone. One surprise panel, and then it’s time for the characters to namedrop the silver age comic book, roll their eyes, and make a stupid pun.
God, I hate this universe so much. It absolutely refuses to let anyone have a genuine emotion. Especially not happiness. All feelings must be stomped out and converted into standard Funky Winkerbean tropes as quickly as possible.
Congrats to Lily Renee! And very much deserved.
But, as a reminder, for all the similarities between Ruby and Lily there are a few big differences.
Lily Renee studied fine art, and it was her mother who suggested she draw comics during WWII in order to help pay the bills. She wasn’t interested in comics as some kind of highbrow mode of expression. In fact, she was only a comics artist for about 10 years, moving on to artistic pursuits that interested her MORE: painting, textile design, writing plays and books, raising a family.
She is a skilled artist, and I am glad that her work in comics is being celebrated and honored. But she made her life about so much more than comic books, and in that way she surpasses every comic associated character in the Batiukverse, and their creator.
CBH,
Thanks for once again providing the interesting details that make an informative story.
Damn, Lily Renee was what they called a “looker” back in her day… She could get it!
And twice on Sundays!
I have to wonder, what the hell is Flash even doing here? Chester didn’t hire him, which is consistent because he hasn’t been shown doing anything. He appears to be nothing more than a mascot that Chester pays to hang around the place all day to give it artistic heft or something. He certainly doesn’t appear to have any responsibilities consistent with an actual job.
Naturally Flash doesn’t have a family he’d like to spend his time with, or any hobbies that he might be interested in his retirement. This old guy wants to spend his last few days/months/years on earth hanging out in this place talking to stupid people while they’re supposed to be working. Literally nothing in his previous 80+ years of existence caught his attention more than this.
He’s here because Batiuk needs him to be here for the story he wants to tell. Which is probably Flash and Ruby getting married at Comic-Con. The end.
I agree that that is a possibility. He could recycle two plot points simultaneously by having them dress as superheroes (Ruby would obviously be Ms. American, but Flash has a number of BaTom characters to choose from) echoing Les and Lisa, and have them marry at the convention, echoing the Starbucks Jones Premiere Geriatric Wedding.
One of these days we need to have a long talk about Batiuk’s fetish for cheesy cosplay weddings, especially if he never had one for himself…
And don’t get me started on the utter creepiness of a “Batman and Robin” wedding when there are dozens of famous hot women characters in the Gothamverse to choose from…
“And don’t get me started on the utter creepiness of a ‘Batman and Robin’ wedding”
Creepy on so many levels.
Related: He also had Cindy, his stereotypical conceited blonde woman, get married twice in double weddings. If she was as awful and as jealous as Batiuk has portrayed her, she’d never want to share that day with another woman. Never mind the minister dressing up as a damn monster in her second wedding, where no invitations had been sent out because they were just going to hijack a film premiere.
But yeah, Batman and Robin, in a pizza place featuring a special couple who never showed exceptional interest in comic books in the first place. Gross, stupid AND nonsensical!
Hey, I’m still wondering why Hank Hill appeared out of nowhere 40+ years after his high school playing days to become a daily fixture in Bull Bushka’s post-retirement life…
And don’t get me started on a 60-something year old dude wearing a custom made full leather letterman-style jacket everywhere he goes…
Well, who the hell else was Bull going to wallow with, Les?
“Sure, your brain is slowly turning into pudding and it’s killing you, but at least you don’t have somebody trying to turn your story about your dead wife into a movie someone might actually want to see!”
Why is Mindy pointing a wizard getting ready to put a spell on them? And after reading Lily’s comments, I feel a great disturbance in the force. Please, for the love of God, don’t tell my one of these oldsters is sick and dying? How many deaths can one comic strip have?