I’m excited to get to come back here and cover the next installment of “Comic Books: Batiuk Kind of Likes Them: The Continuing Saga”. In today’s installment, we find out that Comic-Con has lines, and people sometimes refer to it as “line-con” (I thought this was something Batiuk made up, but after a few seconds of Googling I saw that apparently it is a thing). So today’s strip is more of the same: Batiuk makes a reference to a comic book thing without adding any humor or anything interesting, yay!
Also, if people had to get badges last year, how were these six able to get tickets last week? I can understand that Ruby and Flash would get passes, but I don’t think they’d just hand out passes to four coworkers, too.
Red Badge of Dorkage
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Line Con”??? Wow, that’s weak, even by Batiukian standards. If this is Monday’s gag the rest of the week is guaranteed to be a huge garbage dump of Fresh Kills proportions. And remember, he’s INTO this stuff. Just imagine if he was covering a topic that bored him. Shudder.
Sadly, Line-con rings true. I’ve been to many a con in my time, and a few of them WERE referred to dryly as “Line-Con.” Dragon*con in particular.
Great. More trivial filler that does nothing to advance the story that’s allegedly being told.
Also there’s nothing unique about big conventions having long lines at the entrance.
So Batiuk is doing lines? Much is now explained.
Wow…is this the very definition of boring? Sources say YES. How in the name of heck can Batiuk keep churning this crap out. I cannot imagine the level of indifference needed to just post garbage over and over.
I was going to say that Funky Winkerbean is the comic strip equivalent of waiting in a line, but there’s really no reason for me to insult waiting in a line like that.
Actually, this strip strikes me as the graphic equivalent of the carnival “Line Ride,” a real-life simulation of waiting line with nothing at the end, in the “South Park” episode “Cow Days.” Even now we’re taken past the long line of eager fans in front of the San Diego convention hall (which isn’t happening this summer and which Battyuk knew about months ago) while we’ll have to endure several days of his passive-aggressive mocking of comics fans until the Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the shocking unmasking of Darth Vacuous (who I’m calling out to be a heretofore unknown Phil Holt, Jr.).
Or Phil Holt III. These people are so old that even Phil Holt’s son would be about 60 by now.
That was a great episode! Batty has done line gags before. I seem to remember this being done for the OMEA convention.
The 2022 event will be extra special as it will be in Cleveland in February. No doubt there will be a blinding snowstorm!
And Batton Thomas will be elected to the Hall of Fame this time.
Plus when you’re waiting in (or in NJ, waiting ON line) a line you’ll (ideally) eventually get somewhere.
I guess we’ll all have to spend another sleepless night or three worrying about who the Darth Vader Dwarf turns out to be. In the meantime, we get a totally bonkers rephrasing of Comic-Con as Line-Con (who comes up with this zanyness?) and the absolute shittiest, off-model depiction of Mopey Pete imaginable. I guess if you merged Mopey Balloonhead and Flush Floppyhead’s skulls, you’d wind up with something vaguely human looking.
“Dwarf Vader” should be that character’s name.
Two things stand out:
1. They’re all in the same clothes that they flew in.
2. Grandma and Wonder Woman aren’t wearing their entry badges.
Yep, that’s how exciting I’m finding this story.
Unbelievable. We’re never going to find out why Phil was mad at Flash, are we? We’re never going to find what was so important about the ‘Subterranean’, are we? We’re never going to find out why Chester was eavesdropping, are we? At this point I’m beginning to doubt we’ll ever find out who was in the Darth Vader helmet.
Tom Batiuk, the master of dodge and
deflectforget.Batiuk’s junior high art class allegedly coined the name “Funky Winkerbean”. I think it’s high time those same students took over the rest of the strip. Can’t do any worse.
Where’s Ruby’s badge?
I don’t zoom in on the strip often. Does Chuck Ayers always go this overboard with the Zip-A-Tone?
I wonder if Chuck has ever painted the walls of his home using Zip-A-Tone.
Dave Bowman: “The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God! – it’s full of
starsdots!”I bet Darin, Mindy, and Pete wouldn’t look so excited about that long, long line if they had to stand in it themselves.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m surprised it took Batiuk this long to do an arc set at Comic-Con. Grandpa Google tells me that he won an Inkpot Award in 1999 and was a panel guest in 2013, so he’s had a fairly long history with the event.
Oh, he’s done Comic-Con arcs before. And they’re an object lesson in why you should never give Tom Batiuk any recognition, unless you want to be depicted in Funky Winkerbean until the end of time. Comic-Con seems to have joined the list of gold-level sponsors: Luigi’s Pizza, Kent State University, The Phantom Empire, and the Ohio Music Educators Association. The man is so starved for attention that even making eye contact with him is a risk.
Because the purpose of this entire Hall of Fame arc is to depict the word “Comic-Con” as many times as possible. He actually toned it down today. I would have expected more “We’re going to Comic-Con to get tickets for Comic-Con to watch Flash and Ruby get elected to the Comic-Con Hall of Fame because Comic-Con!” with ten Comic-Con logos in the background. Because he’s doing you a favor, you see. Even when he’s depicting your Hall of Fame election process as crooked.
Look at the idiot smiles on all their faces, even the 95-year-old Flash Freeman. They look like the kids entering Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. Could they be a little bit professional? Is this place really Wonderland to these people, when they work in the industry and should all be manning a booth to promote their own products? The absolute juvenileness of Batiuk’s fantasy comic book world has no bounds.
This is the comic-strip version of line-dancing.
Reporter: Good afternoon, comics fans and welcome to our coverage of Comic-Con at Home 2021! I’m Nigel Pertwillaby-Psmith. Comic-Con maybe virtual this year, but we believe it will still be chock-a-block with fun and excitement. Coming up we have my exclusive interview with the extraordinary Neil Gaiman, who will tell us about his upcoming projects and share some never-before told stories about Douglas Adams. But first up, our special guest is Mr. Thomas Batiuk, creator of the comic strips “Funky Winkerbean” and “Crankshaft.”
TB: And don’t forget “John Darling,” who was murdered.
Reporter: Uh, quite. So, Mr. Batiuk, I understand “Funky Winkerbean” is supposed to take place “a quarter-inch removed from reality.”
TB: Yes, and I’m really proud of that. You see, it lets me to tell real stories about serious issues, the kind that the people who wrote the unwritten rules about comics have never had the courage to tell…
Reporter: And yet you’ve set your current storyline at an in-person Comic-Con, despite the fact that it’s all online this year. You even used the Comic-Con at Home logo in the strip…
TB: Yes, but you need to understand. My strip is a quarter-inch removed from reality unless reality doesn’t match up with what I already wrote a year ago. When that happens, reality can just go to hell.
Reporter: Ah! Ha ha! Splendid. Enlightening stuff from Mr. Batiuk. We’ll be hearing more from him later, but now let’s switch over to my colleague, Sylvia Bottomley-Jones, who is standing by with some exciting news for all you “Doctor Who” fans out there. Take it away, Sylvia!
Nice! But I bet Batty would start all of his answers with the word “so” and then trail off into a long diatribe.
Lame. The real line-con is at the annual Lytton Stratchey Retrospective in Billings.
This is the part when I remind folks that these two fossils could have gotten all the praise and recognition they could have ever wanted at a regional ComiCon (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Chicago, etc.) And dealt with much smaller lines and crowds…
Batty gets this kind of treatment every year at the Akron Comicon.
Akron is too small-time for Batiuk’s ego. No, he’s only interested in sucking up to to the major branch of Comic-Con. He wants in the Hall of Fame now and this whole arc is a blatant campaign for that. He’s like a six-year-old who wants a new toy.
True. I wonder if Luigi’s and the OMEA like having him around. He seems like a nice guy, it’s just that his stuff is so played out. The same bits every year. Do today’s band directors even read the strip and know who Dinkle is?
Does being a newspaper cartoonist get you that much cred and comicon?
I suspect some band directors do know who Dinkle is, because they signed up for that stupid Rose Parade stunt. Judging from the map on banddirectorsalute.org, they skew older. I hope they enjoy being used as props by Tom Batiuk.
As for how the rest of them got badges, they work in the comic book industry. They got in, probably, as exhibitors. There’s more than likely an Atomix Comix booth where they will be.
Right, so we are they showing up last minute and standing in line? Wouldn’t they have arrived days before to set up their booth? And wouldn’t they have arrived early, before the crowds to come in and open their booth?
And if they are well known creators why are they acting like slack-jawed fools from Ohio? Ah, dumb question. Now I am acting like a slack-jawed fool from Ohio.
Setting up and manning a booth sounds like work. I don’t think the AK crew is wired for that. Say, what are Summer and Keisha doing?
Probably still wrapping presents at the mall.
They really aren’t, are they? Nope, life in the bullpen is just about getting paid huge salaries, creating new characters, screwing around, chatting with random people who walk in, and telling stories about what the bullpen was like in 1954. Atomic Komix doesn’t have to do any marketing, advertising, social media, or anything like that. Only inferior companies need that stuff. Atomik Komix makes the most serious, silver age-iest, multiple universe-free, comic bookiest comic books of all! Word of mouth advertising is all they need! People just line up to buy them!
More anti-narrative from the master. None of the questions raised last Monday have been answered, indeed they seem to have been completely forgotten. The Story such as it is, is stuck waiting on line with the rest of the folks. The whereabouts (and motives) of Dwarf Vader remain unknow. I’m will to be money the Author doesn’t either. My guess is that it was going to be Phil but then someone pointed out that Phil was dead so the Author’s been doing a fan dance while trying to figure out who it should be. Remember he shot John Darling, who was murdered, without having the vaguest idea who did that so this wouldn’t be the first time.
Please don’t say “the Author’s been doing a fan dance.” It makes me picture Battyuk standing on a rocky outcropping in the moonlight. imitating Uhura’s dance routine from “Star Trek V.”
I’m honestly disappointed in Pete… The moment he said “LINE” he should have said aloud to nobody in particular: “Wait a minute! Lines?? How about a new vigilante superhero who’s dark, brooding and morally dubious? I’ll call him (wait for it…) ***THE HARDLINER***!!!! I can already envision the cover! Man, I got to get this down on paper at once!!”