Okay. I know that most of you have had a stab at trying to parse out the logic here, but I really want to get my own corkboard and string out and see if I can make a clearer picture. So let us follow the sequence of events.
1.) A few years ago Phil Holt was living alone in obscurity in California. He drew caricatures for the birthday parties of rich brats. He considered his old comics work junk despite the fact he hung pictures of it on the walls of his apartment. And wasn’t working on comics anymore despite the fact he had a drawing board and supplies out in a prominent place so must have been working on something (Fine art? Advertising?).
2.) This single conversation with Darrin (who never brings Pete by to meet him btw,) sparks in Phil a desire to create comics again. He affirms that he will ‘be there for Darrin’.
3.) Despite the fact that no one except Darrin has recognized him in years, Phil Holt is worried about being ‘bothered’ while working out his new inspiration. Phil Holt has a friend/acquaintance/stalker named Mickey. Phil apparently has no one else in his life to confide in. This fat old man with a badly named comic shop somehow knows a fancy lawyer in a high rise office who also loves Phil Holt so much that he’s only too happy to help everyone else on Earth (except, presumably the government,) think he’s dead. Phil Holt thinks this will help him achieve the solitude he needs to work?
NOTE: Mickey, who attended the con and then panel with Phil, phased out of existence the second Phil pulled off his mask. Where is he? Why doesn’t he get to go to the fun and fancy restaurant of reminiscing over retroactively recreated history?
4.) Phil decides to use the lawyer to gift a bunch of original art to Darrin. Art he had ALREADY decided to leave him in his will, and updated the will accordingly. It is worded vaguely enough that I can’t tell if this is the sole mechanism by which he faked his death, or just a nice thing he decided to do to ‘be there for Darrin’ despite planning on disappearing. The fanboy lawyer, who knows that Phil Holt is still alive, still somehow has trouble locating Darin.
NOTE: The auction of the comic covers was advertised, and Phil never moved from the SoCal area it was held in. So he knew that Darrin immediately cashed in the art. He’s shown no ill will toward Darrin so far, so I can only assume he approves of the charity donation.
5.) So, for the last few years, after faking his death quitting, his job as a caricature artist, and giving away valuable possessions, Phil has moved from a tiny apartment in the greater L.A. area to a house in San Diego that couldn’t cost less than 500K?
NOTE: I’m assuming they’re still in San Diego. Unless the ROAD TRIP Pete was so excited about was all of them driving 150 miles to LA after having supper, after a long day at a convention? Ruby is in in the same clothes they wore to the panel. But Pete and Darin politely changed shirt color before dinner. And Mindy hacked off her sleeves again.
6.) All so he can spend LITERAL YEARS working on a comic character he already worked on once before, and had entire folders of preproduction material prepared. And could have been working on constantly in the 40 plus years since he stomped out of Batom. I estimate he should have a Watchmen length graphic novel all penciled up and ready to go by now. Which means he never intended for his faked death to be permanent? I guess? Or he was creating for the sake of creation? Or he was going to release under a pseudonym?
Conclusion: I’m lost. It’s nonsense all the way down. But as I said on Monday, this is the kind of stupid and crazy I joined on for. If Funky Winkerbean was nothing but badly handled social issues, I think I would probably get burned out on the outrage and leave.
But THIS? An elderly man imagining that even more elderly men are still alive so that he can live out his fantasy of all the Silver Age Marvel greats that bickered over credit kissing and making up? I don’t know if I’ve enjoyed an arc this much since Zanzibar. Actually even Zanzibar had the unfortunate implications of being based on a real life murder.
This is *chef’s kiss* peak outsider auteur Neil Breen crazy.
Son of Stuck Funky 
There are four fundamental forces in the Funkyverse…wryness, resignation to one’s fate, pizza and nostalgic childhood comic book memories. Of the four, nostalgic childhood comic book memories is by far the strongest, as evidenced in today’s strip, where elderly bitter reclusive curmudgeon Phil has his pals over to check out his work, setting aside his decades-long grudges after one nostalgic childhood comic book memory. And not even his own memory, mind you, but the memory of a total stranger. That’s one potent force all right.
I feel so much better knowing that even TB cannot remember if his name is Darin or Darrin. He should consider doing what I do, just call him Durwood.
I’ve been calling him Boy Lisa for so long I sometimes forget he’s actually Darin, or Darrin, or Durwood or Dullard. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more useless character in the strip. I said MORE useless, as there are plenty who are nearly or just as useless.
I thought it was either Darwin, Darcy, Dimwood, or Deupty Durland. Where’s Agnes Moorehead when you need her?
She’s dead, just like Phil Holt.
Agnes is unavailable, but I found a handy list of some of the better names Darrin [Stephens] was called in Bewitched:
Dagwood,
Dar-Dar,
Darian,
Darius,
Darryl,
Darvy,
Darwin,
Darwood,
Dexter,
Dino,
Dobbin,
Dorian,
Dulphin,
Dumbo,
Dum-Dum,
Duncan,
Durweed,
Durwin,
Durwood,
Dustbin,
Whatchamacallit,
What’s-His-Name,
Ding-Ding
“Dustbin” suits him nicely, I think.
Amazing thing is how Darin had nothing to do with this meeting of Phil and Flash, but here he is. Phil goes to disrupt the induction of his old coworker at the Hall of Fame, and here’s that asshole who accosted him as he was trying to work at a children’s party. He faked his death to avoid that asshole! He thought he’d seen the last of him!
Anyway, no one’s remarked on that coincidence, both here and in strip. I think it’s more of a comment on the regular sloppiness of Batiuk’s work than a criticism of us that no one here has commented on it.
Anyway, old criticism of mine, but there are about 250 people in the Funkyverse and they all know someone who knows everyone else. Phil has a random chance meeting with a peculiar storyboard artist (even though that’s not what he actually was) in Los Angeles, and then he decides to confront his old coworker from Cleveland who’s hanging around a independent comic book company for some reason and there this dumbass from Los Angeles is. It’s a small damn world, this Funkyverse.
Endora agrees with you!
“Hi. I’m Lisa, this is my son, Darrin, and this is my other son, Darin.”
A brand new “Subterranean”? Gosh wow geewillikers! Won’t that lead to a huge revival of Silver Age art and writing styles! I wonder how long it will take Batiuk to lose interest in this particular delusion.
Judging from the Funkyblog, I’d say Batiuk has already lost interest in it. His latest post is about the elaborate backstory of… Claude Barlow. And it makes even less sense than this comic book stuff. My favorite sentence:
Why that was remains one of the unsolved concatenations of Barlow’s somewhat desultory biography.
Oh FFS Batiuk, just say “unanswered questions!” Put down Roget’s Thesaurus and just tell the reader WTF is going on! That’s not even what “concatenation” means!
The good fortune of (a musical score) being in America allowed it to escape the Barlow burnings* in Europe that summer. As such, it is an unwelcome addition to the Barlow canon.
I feel like I’m listening to Bizarro talk. “They find rare Claude Barlow musical score! This bad, this very bad!” The man cannot write a five-sentence paragraph that makes any goddam sense. I wonder if there will ever be Batiuk Burnings.
To be fair, it is intentionally Bizarro World language. Because Barlow’s work is so gawdawful, any addition to the canon is unwelcome rather than welcome. It’s the sort of parody of album liner notes that I would have smiled at in junior high.
Okay, but it’s supposed to be an excerpt from Dinkle’s book about Barlow. It’s weird for Dinkle to be saying that, because he’s supposed to unironically admire Barlow.
I suppose it’s too much to hope for Peter Schickele and P.D.Q. Bach.
This is the Bizarro Code:
Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is Big Crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!
Thus, under it, Charlie Chaplin isn’t funny and Frankenstein and the Wolfman are.
What would the Bizarros make of *Funky Winkerbean*?
“It call for new Code…”
Me no am Bizzaro. Me am writing good unfunny pages. Me no am happy Les Wife gets alive!
Wow. The Subterranean. Who but 100 percent of us saw that coming. Enough with the startling plot twists, TB. Let us catch our breath.
Will the sideways comic cover of the “Explosive First Atomik Komix Issue!” be this Sunday? What are the odds of it featuring a giant underground creature (I’m hoping for a star-nosed mole) and an inset image introducing a punny-named sidekick (Rock-Etta or something equally puke inducing)?
If we’re coming up with punny sidekick names, I think “Edgar Rice Burrows” has a nice ring to it. Or maybe “Lyman Stone”. “Sal Agmite”? Nah, these aren’t snappy enough.
Hats off to your Burroughs reference. I wonder if TomBa read the DC adaptations of “”At the Earth’s Core”.
Let’s resurrect Jimber-Jaw, shall we? And invite Dian the Beautiful to the party by all means!
As usual, his fictional comic book heroes are unimaginative and painfully dull. I assume The Subterranean (I am not going to type that word ten thousand times) solves underground crimes, unless they happen beneath the sea floor, as that would be Ripe Tide’s jurisdiction.
There’s not a single AK title that would have sparked my interest back when I was reading comic books. Not a thing. Back then they would have bored me just as much as they do now.
“No new comics to read? Just these Atomix Komix things? Sheesh, I think I’ll go home and do schoolwork.”
I will admit to having a sick sort of fascination with “Rip Tide – Scuba Cop”. I picture him hiding behind a reef with a radar gun, clocking passing submarines or surprising small pleasure boats full of underage drinkers. And I assume there would a lot of dialog like “can’t…can’t…fight…this current!” and “if I don’t get to that offshore platform before that rogue wave hits those men could DIE!”. His sidekick would be named Snorkel or something like that. I likewise assume he’s happily married to his wife Ebb and has a young son named Lough.
If you want to see what an animated Rip Tide tale would look like, Epicus, check out the 1966 Saturday Morning cartoon series “The Super 6,” where one of the titular sextet was named “Super Scuba.” I’m not saying Battyuk ripped the show off, but there were some striking similarities (no Snorkel or Ebb, but S.S. did have a mermaid secretary named Bubbles).
In my headcanon, Rip Tide is just Sonny Crockett from “Miami Vice” with a few underwater scenes thrown in… If his name was a little less stupid, I’d have gone for it as a kid
Rip Tide: Scuba Cop has a little potential, because it’s just so damn weird. Everything else is just lame clones of well-known superheroes. And in the backstory, this is exactly why Batom Comics got shut down: their ripoff of someone else’s ripoff was found to be copyright infringing. In an industry where clones of existing ideas are standard practice. They must have been really blatant, or really incompetent. And they’re supposed to be the good guys in the story.
And a daughter named Neap!
When I hear Rip Tide, I can’t help but be reminded of Joe Penny and two other guys doing detectivey things around the beach.
If the sidekick’s name is “Homesick Blues”, I’m out…
The pump don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handles (savagely, along with a meteor).
Huh, given how we usually see comic book characters created, I wonder what random trivial event spawned this idea in Holt’s head.
“If you kids don’t get off my lawn, I’ll bury you! -Hm- Buried, like underground….”
Wow; a bad day for noses in today’s strip.
One thing that should be remembered about Phil’s party clown gig: he had to have Dullard drive him back home.
Meaning he probably didn’t own a car. (I guess he hitch-hiked to his various party gigs, or perhaps walked.) Meaning he probably wasn’t rolling in cash.
So how did he afford that house?
No, no, let me guess. He was actually wealthy the whole time, and he arranged his “party caricature” gig with one of his friends…so he could meet Dullard. Because he knew Dullard would have some connection with Flash Freeman. And he could plot his mild revenge!
(Shut up about how there wasn’t an Atomik Komix back then.)
It’s another small plot element that makes no sense whatsoever. When we first saw Phil it was heavily implied that he was down on his luck and living in squalor and askew-ity. He was miserable, downtrodden and reduced to prostituting his artistic gifts just to eke out a meager living.
Or at least that’s what he wanted Boy Lisa to believe. Apparently it was all part of his grand scheme to disrupt the CCCBHOF ceremony (which he correctly assumed was inevitable) and generate the childhood comic book nostalgia he needed to rejuvenate himself and resume his comic book career. And it all worked perfectly, too.
Characters can’t or don’t drive only when it’s convenient to Batiuk’s storyline… Don’t forget, when Hollywood starlet Marianne Winters was filming Starsuck Jones reboot, she was living at home with her mother(!) and had to bum rides JUST TO GET TO THE FUCKING STUDIO (!!!)
No, I’m not making this up, people…
You mean Hollywood starlet Marianne Winters who was a big name that was going to drive moviegoers to the Starsux Jones film? It’s “funny” how she was brought on as an A-list actress who would lend the project credibility and was then retconned into being an inexperienced waif who couldn’t take the strain of “scandalous” photos of her snogging her co-star being released.
Speaking of driving, I was just looking at panel one again. All seven of these people drove from the San Diego Convention Center/whatever restaurant they were in to Phil Holt!’s house in that one car? Does Phil Holt! still not own his own vehicle? There’s none parked in his driveway.
Yet Marianne Winters drove her car to the Hollywood sign in a tizzy after that tabloid (incorrectly) leaked that she was having an affair with Masone Jarre.
Batty likes having his cake and eating it too.
We’re [looks at notes] supposed to be excited by today’s strip? I guess?
Because they’re still valid and remain unaddressed, I’m repeating these points from yesterday:
2. So all it took was one random stranger kissing his ass to make Phil mellow out and forget about 60 years of bitterness and resentment? And it’s one thing for Phillip to be inspired by little kids into resuming his career, but some 35-going-on-11 year old manbaby like Darrin? That’s just awkward and uncomfortable to explain…
3. Lemme guess — Despite being an industry legend, poor old Phillip has a secret studio full of new original titles and characters but no publisher!! But if only there was a pure, honest-to-god grassroots indie comics label with true reverence for the old school; untainted by financial greed and shameless corporate commercialism… He’d sign a contract with them on the spot!!
4. This still doesn’t fucking explain how Phil (who didn’t have any freaking money when we last saw him) survived when he was legally dead and not getting any income… I mean, even “dead” guys gotta eat and buy their prescription meds and keep a roof over their head, right?? Nice house, Phil…
5. So if Phil had buried the hatchet years ago, why this stupid-assed “revenge plot” buildup? And why even do it at ComiCon when he could have done it anytime and anyplace before now? And why would a notoriously private anti-social recluse make such a self-serving and attention-whoring spectacle at the world’s biggest comic event?
5a. Do I have this straight? Phillip Holt has a shitload of unpublished new original content AND HE DIDN’T THINK TO TELL EVERYONE AT COMICON, WITH THE EYES OF THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY ON HIM… WHILE HE WAS ON A STAGE TALKING TO A PACKED HOUSE OF FANBOIS… RIGHT AFTER HE MADE A SELF-GRATIFYING CIRCUS BY HIJACKING FLASH AND RUBY TUESDAY’S PANEL!!? Seriously, fuck this asshole…
6. The Sub-Terranian?? Are you shittin’ me??
So Phil doesn’t even have new shit, just some reheated ideas from 60 years ago? And we’re supposed to believe that an industry notorious for overlapping, copycat or otherwise redundant character ideas that no other artists in 60 years had come up with a 95% similar character and cashed in? Am I really supposed to believe Phil wasn’t able to capitalize on this creative property when he was still young, so he just let it sit and rot for decades??
7. The linchpin of this story is Phil Holt demanding ownership of the Subterranean and not getting it. If he doesn’t have ownership of this property, then WHY IS HE WORKING ON IT? He can’t publish anything without the rights! Why has he spent 60 years working on the project he stomped out the door specifically to not do?!
8. If the property was so valuable, why didn’t Batom Comics just hire a replacement artist and publish it without him? And if they couldn’t because of what he took, why didn’t they sue him to back to a ball of dirt?
Like Hollywood, book publishing, sports, high school, immigration, pizza parlors, the list goes on… I don’t think Batiuk really knows how the comic book rackets work, then or now…
It’s worse than that: the story doesn’t even acknowledge the problem. Phil Holt not getting ownership of the Subterranean is what began the story. And it hasn’t been addressed, so it needs to still be a problem. Maybe Thursday’s strip will be Batiuk using 68 words to say “it’s public domain now.” Which is unrealistic, but at least it resolves the plot point. It doesn’t have to be 100% realistic, but for cryin’ out loud, could the story keep track of its only plot point?
If past experience is any indicator, Chester will have purchased the rights to The Subterranean years ago, and will sign them over to Phil, along with the cover art he purchased at auction, before he hires him to work for AK.
9. Melina can stop pretending to be so very very fascinated about yet another comic book… God, when she fakes her orgasms Pete must feel like Thor or something…
10. I don’t give a shit — Someone responsible for the production of this comic strip is going to explain for me how the hell Phillip has his own home in the supposedly brutal SoCal housing markets when he should be living in a shack or someone’s toolshed or guest house or a rickety cabin out in the woods somewhere… Is he living with Funkmaster, err I mean Mickey? Did he assume someone else’s identity or change his name? Or was the house originally bought in his ex-wife’s name?? And how the hell is he even getting any medical care or prescription meds unless of course Phil’s home is actually in Mexico?
I doubt Mindy even pretends to have sex with Pete. Or that she even needs to.
Mopey Pete has to be stinkin’ rich. It’s the only way his relationship with Windy Mindy makes any sense.
Pete is stinkin’ rich, but he’ll never share a cent of it with Mindy. It’s all going into his comic book collection and whatever other stupid shit he wants to spend it on, even after she moves into his college apartment. Same as Darrin, who gave his life-altering windfall to the Lisa’s Legacy Foundation rather than his family or his son’s college tuition. The “I lost all my money on ring toss and have to give an engagement tiger” thing really should have been a clue, but Mindy is life-threateningly stupid. And Jessica doesn’t look too bright either.
If someone can explain that, they can also explain where Holly got the money to buy a rare comics collection at auction and just give it to John and Harry.
At long last, in 2021, the market is finally ripe for a brand new costumed musclebound-man-in-tights superhero! What a fresh idea! I look forward to seeing the sideways Sunday cover, drawn by some luckless schmoe who’ll get a tip o’the Funky Felt-Tip. And then: nothing else from this highly vaunted comic, ever. Not a panel, not a splash, not a spread. But take Tom’s word for it, it’s AMAZING!
The Subterranean will have three sidekicks.
1. Iggy “Pop” Neous – an older scientist and inventory.
2. Alexander “Seddy” Mentary – policeman, lawyer, and liaison with the Scuba Corps.
3. “Matty” Morphic – master of disquise.
Ha! That job at Batom is as good as mine, now!
What about Subby’s “Gal Friday” who has an unrequited crush on him, Lava Flo?
And his female nemesis, Irene Pyrite.
Yes, imagine the wonderful names “The Subterranean” would lend itself to, if Batiuk gave the slightest degree of a shit, and were willing to spend some time coming up with clever names, like the ones the commenters here offer for free!
Of course, he doesn’t, and he isn’t. I’m expecting something like “Rock Boy,” or maybe, if he’s in a clever mood, “Lava Lass.”
The mo’ai see of Flash’s giant, hideous head, the mo’ai hate it.
Just wanted to post that ComicBookHarriet is an Alpha among Alphas on this site. Her essay this morning is nothing short of brilliant.
Bad comic strips, good comic strips, church cats, Neil Breen jokes. I will buy CBH a beer at any time.
🙂
This arc will end when Chester hires Phil, right?
Yes, but we have to fawn over these sketches for at least another week.
LOL. An excellent gag about Mickey. The missing man poster is hilarious. I’m still chuckling as I type this.
I wondered what happened to Mickey too. I imagined a crying Mickey prone on the ground with a death grip on Phil’s leg begging him not to abandon him. Phil casually places his other foot on Mickey’s face and gives it a hard shove. Phil tells Mickey he doesn’t need him anymore because he’s with his new friends now.
Oh well, Mickey has served his purpose and is to be discarded like an old newspaper. It’s off to the ‘Funky Winkerbean Isle of Forgotten Characters’ for Mickey. Say hi to Sadie Summers for me.
Mickey’s manning the Atomik Komix booth. He sits there, alone, as ComiCon attendees drift past, going from one interesting thing to the next, not stopping at the booth.
His face is an expression of pleading, but all of them avoid eye contact.
I believe Mickey is working incognito, running a rat-infested pizza place in Ass Cheek, Ohio, and monopolizing the local AA meetings.
Mickey has put on his beige Ten-Gallon hat and won the Cosplay Contest for his dead ringer Hoss Cartwright.
I was thinking about the parallels between Neil Breen and Batiuk, and while I think it’s a good comparison, I do think there’s one significant difference between them.
I think they both frequently lose the plot in their stories and end up defaulting to the thing they most like focusing on. For Breen it’s “Corruption”, whereas for Batiuk it might be comic books, but it can also be Lisa’s Story, band candy, Dumb Meglomaniac Band Leader, or how stupid the kids are these days.
My impression of Breen is that he shoots his movies without any script at all, because to quote Ray Dennis Steckler, who Breen probably knew personally, “scripts cost money.” When you mandate props, actors, locations, etc. in a script, you’re obligating yourself to pay for those things. It’s much easier to just assemble what you have and go shoot film instead where you can. As a result, nothing ends up making any sense, because no scene is shot solidly knowing what’s coming afterward, and no scene is shot knowing exactly what happened in prior scenes. Forget about having actual themes or threads or even coherence flowing through all of them.
Batiuk has a similar issue in that he loses the plot, but it’s obviously not about what he could afford or assemble. Instead, I think in virtually every major storyline of his (ie. those he talks about, boasts about, or so obviously put a lot of thought and strip currency into them) he hits a point where he could go big or go home, and he always goes home. It’s just easier to go small and inconsequential than to go big. That’s how Linda’s conversations with her online “support” group ends up taking more comic strip space than any of Bull’s deliberations that led him to choose suicide. That’s how Batiuk can burn down Los Angeles but use the strips while it’s happening to instead focus on “Jfff gets a rock!” or “will Les allow Marianne to see the coveted Lisa tapes?”
Gotta admit though, that both Breen and Batiuk have some real blind spots about how the world works and how people interact with one another, and neither of them seem to be interested in correcting that.
That said, I’m glad with these similarities that Batiuk’s been restrained by the restrictions placed on comic strips appearing in newspapers. I shudder to think about what Batiuk would have done with the Susan Smith stuff if he had been as unrestrained by taste and standards as Breen was. Not to mention any of the Ghost Lisa stuff.
I agree. Though I am sad we didn’t get Les cradling Bull’s helmeted head saying, with bold emphasis on all the wrong words, “I can’t believe you committed suicide. I can not believe you committed suicide. How could you have done this? How could you have committed suicide?”
That would truly be a magical day.
As I’ve said before:
https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2021/03/02/and-all-the-world-is-football-shaped/#comment-118461
I also said that it’d be more appallingly appropriate if he had Lisa come back to life, Les has sex with her while Cayla is killing herself with pills, and upon finding her, Les doesn’t appear too bothered and subsequently sleeps with Lisa in the bed Cayla killed herself on.
I think this strip could be genuinely amusing if Batiuk allows himself to go with how silly it is and just start referencing things left and right. For instance, Jfff gets lost in Bronson Canyon and Mopey and Mindy go all Eegah going to look for him. Batiuk channels Breen’s Jesus complex with Les and has him thinking he’s cured cancer, or thinking he’s fixed Summer’s broken knee, or more disgustingly, keeps Lisa’s remains in a body bag that he keeps in his backyard, vowing revenge on all the people who contributed to her death.
Okay, that last one would just be creepy.
Stupidly getting into this:
(Since the Moores don’t have a pool)
Les: Susan Smith came over here today in a bikini and in our backyard took off her top to sunbathe! And THEN she came into the house, pulled off her bikini bottom and started taking a bath!
Cayla: That lunatic!
Les: I know! I told her to NEVER come back here again unless she calls first!
Cayla: Good. Wait….
If he were an excitable boy, he would make a cage with her bones.