Month: September 2021

Subterranean Holt-sick Blues

Happy Labor Day! and a tip of the SoSF hardhat to the estimable Epicus Doomus for seeing us through the latest installment of Les’ Story. Epicus usually throws himself on the grenade of having to post on a holiday weekend, but I have seen fit to give him the holiday off for a change. You’re welcome.

Though he’s really not dead after all, Phil Holt has arrived in that Old Comics Creator Heaven known as Atomik Komix. He’s even greeted by Saint Mopey Pete himself. Phil and Flash have leeft behind their earthy grievances (to the point where they are now living together), and, thanks to Chester’s beneficence, have reunited to “write to life” the Subterranean, the project that led to the team’s breakup years ago. This development easily pushes the median age of the Atomik Komix staff  well north of sixty.

Many of us have wondered why Phil felt it necessary to fake his own death in order to “work without being bothered.” He was already toiling in obscurity when Darin spotted him doing caricatures at a kiddie party. If Phil wanted Darin to have those original Batom covers (which Darin immediately decided to liquidate), it didn’t have to be via his last will and testament. What I think was behind it was this: Phil knew that his “death” would cause Flash to be wracked with guilt over losing the opportunity to reconcile. Now that he’s turned up alive, Phil gets to bask in Flash Freeman’s beaming bonhomie.

It’s The Way They All Became The Batom Bunch

Link To Sunday’s Strip

Here’s the story

Of a hack named Batty

Who was busy with two comics of his own.

Both of them had stupid puns

And lots of wordplay

And bad dialog for girls.

Why the f*ck is there a soda can in the header panel? What does that have to do with anything? So BatYarn wanted to parody Zoom, but didn’t really know much about it or have any serious ideas for doing so. Naturally, he decided to plow ahead anyway and this floppery is the result. This is just bad on a visceral level, the kind of FW strip that firmly convinces me that mocking FW every day is indeed the right thing to do. What a hack.

And on that note I am done. What an ordeal that was. There’s been entirely too much Les lately, too much cancer too, at least for my tastes. Stay tuned for a Special Guest Appearance by Our Fearless Leader himself, the SoSF King Of Kings, TFH!!!

A Brief History Of Wry

Link To This One

Christ, what a bunch of assholes. BatYam’s pandemic garbage dump arc limps toward the finish line today, as we get a rare glimpse inside the WHS teacher’s lounge, aka The Den Of Perpetual Ennui. The always-insufferable Linda is (surprise) once again bitching about her job in that low-key annoyingly wry way of hers, as Klabichnik delivers the “punch line” (as it were) while the useless Dick Facey sits there stupidly. What a piece of garbage. Strips like this actually make a mockery out of making a mockery of FW, which is the only “anomaly” here.

Low Water Mark

Link To Today’s

SIGH. Yet another pandemic gag that (I assume) seemed clever at the time, only to fail badly thanks to BatYam’s unique blend of ineptitude and stupidity. I don’t know why Les drinks water from bottles by throwing the water from the bottle into his mouth, but based on their expression in panel three, Linda and Jim have clearly seen this and been amused by it before. The real question here is what did Les say there in panel two? Was it “shit”, “f*ck”, “dammit” or something else entirely?

Pound sign, squiggle, explosion, lightning bolt and skull and crossbones…whatever it was it must have been pretty obscene to merit that skull and crossbones. I also like how the bottle is helpfully labeled “water”, just in case there was any doubt. Seriously though, has anyone out there actually done this or found it to be a problem? I mean sure, I do some pretty stupid things at times but I haven’t sunk to this level yet, thank God.

Help Me Tom, I’m Only Bleating

Link To Today’s Drip

Batty usually has no problem with dreaming up new premises, as the problem is typically everything that happens after that. But jeepers, this one is mighty thin, even by his lowly standards. It’s like he decided to do a “back to school” arc, then completely ran out of ideas immediately, then decided to forge ahead anyway. And in his defense, who would even know?

But anyhow, yeah, he’s already resorting to testicle gags, the lowest of all gag forms. At this rate we should be getting into the fart jokes by tomorrow at the latest. I mean what can you even say here? This isn’t merely a lifeless outing, it’s an exhumed corpse outing.