At a quick glance, “hadron” is real, real close to “hardon”, which might have made for a WAY more compelling super villain if you ask me. So what’s the deal with “Pion”? Is he or she supposed to be some sort of punk rock cheerleader or something? I mean, what would sub-atomic themed super villains even do?
Please, I was just thinking out loud so don’t take me literally and start to speculate, as no one needs or wants that. With each painfully slowly passing day, it becomes more and more obvious why Flash and Phil were out of work for fifty years. And correct me if I’m wrong here, but weren’t they all just standing around talking as recently as yesterday? So when did Phil draw this shit? Again, no need to actually answer that.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Oooooooo… sub-atomic! Like the circulation this title will wind up having.
How could Batiuk overlook “Tachyon?” It’s the perfect name for one of his tacky characters.
(BTW, a pion is a pi-meson, just like a muon is a mu-meson.)
Maybe he’s afraid George R.R. Martin will sue over Dr. Taychon, a major character in the “Wild Cards” sci-fi anthology series which Mr. Martin edits and oversees.
I’m starting to suspect that the only reason FW still exists is because Batiuk knows that the old folks who (apparently) adore Crankshaft would (justly) rebel if they had to sit through weeks of COMIX THE WAY YOU LIKED ‘EM BEFORE PENICILLIN WAS INVENTED!
This, of course, isn’t funny. It isn’t even boring. For something to be boring, you have to be willing to put some sort of effort into figuring out what’s supposed to be interesting about it. But I can’t do that. I can’t care. Because Batdick doesn’t care. The whole comix thing is supposed to be one of his greatest passions, right? And he gives us…this? Shit, Ayers can’t even be bothered to draw backgrounds anymore.
Seriously, this is one of his PASSIONS, yet it’s totally lifeless and inconceivably boring. You’d think he’d really throw himself into these AK arcs and go deep with the comic book mythology, but instead the total opposite is true.
The name of the strip should be No One Cares. As Sourbelly says, it’s too nothing to be boring.
Well, the deal with Pion appears to be that she’s ripping off Storm of the X-Men, specifically her mid-’80s Mohawk look, complete with black costume and electrical charges from her hands. Just like Baryon mixes Marvel’s Corruptor and Nova, Meson borrow from DC’s Legion of Super Heroes member Star Boy, and Hadron is influenced by original Guardians of the Galaxy regular Charlie-27 with villain Black Mace’s…er, maces.
Did I say Corrupter? I meant the Controller. Curse my erratic ’70s Marvel villain memory.
Don’t feel bad. This strip corrupts everything it touches.
I know that the totality of research that he did on this was most likely a “Grandpa Google” search for the names of subatomic particles. Are there any properties that these particles have that would translate to a useful power for a supervillain? (I’ll confess that I couldn’t figure any out from what I read but I also avoided taking physics in high school and college because of the math even though the concepts and theories fascinate me.)
Most of them have the amazing ability to collapse almost instantly; mesons last only microseconds, and a charged pion has a lifespan of 26 nanoseconds. (A neutral pion doesn’t even make it to a nanosecond.)
This, of course, is about how long they’ll last after their #1 cover, so these names actually do make a certain degree of sense.
Grandpa Google search using the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
To be fair, Tom Batiuk has good reason to feel lucky. He gets paid to publish this shit.
Tom Batiuk was born with a four-leaf clover up his butt.
These villains are the exact opposite of “Mega-” anything…
You know, there’s a reason none of these particles have been used to name superheroes before.
They SUCK. They either look like misspellings of something else, or they’re one letter change away from being offensive.
A superhero is TRADEMARKED. And as long as you’re not trying to name your hero one of the REALLY big names, and as long as it is distinct, names can be reused.
Those are stupid names (surprise)
They are all hadrons and in addition pion is a meson.
My guess is that Batiuk opened the wikipedia page for hadron and took the first particles that were not yet taken for superheroes.
So we went from typeface to mega-powered to cosmic to sub-atomic. I would joke that the Sunday cover will end up being carnies or something, but Batiuk needs at least two days to settle on a comic book idea. Tomorrow’s strip will be Pete and Flash giving their approval. Chester, Ruby, and Mindy will all remain unseen.
Is this really how Tom Batiuk thinks the creative process works? Randomly flit from theme to theme, never giving any thought to what exists in this world, what powers can exist, what backstories people might have, or anything at all about the heroes besides their names? And waiting until after issue #1 is published to figure any of this out? And then coming up with something that doesn’t fit anyway?
I’ll say it a million times: it’s obvious why no comic book company would hire Tom Batiuk. And it says a lot about why Funky Winkerbean is such an incoherent mess.
Is this really how Tom Batiuk thinks the creative process works? Randomly flit from theme to theme, never giving any thought to what exists in this world, what powers can exist, what backstories people might have, or anything at all about the heroes besides their names?
Well, uh, yes. It’s clearly how his creative process works, as you can plainly see in the finished product. And he’s still got a platform after all these years, and is still being paid for it. So yes, he’s got all the evidence he needs that this is how creativity works. And no desire — or incentive — to look into it any further.
I can’t argue with that.
Maybe AK can convince Mason to change his name to Meson. It’s a pun, it’s dull, it doesn’t fit anywhere…perfect for FW.
Congratulations, Tom Batiuk, your shit has gotten so repetitive I can actually re-use jokes about it.
This was the original.
I laughed out loud at this. Which, needless to say, is not true of the original source material!
Here’s another group of super villains Batty can use free of charge.
Introducing the Batiuk Bunch. We have:
Selfish – I write about whatever I want to. Readers be damned.
Lazy – Submit comic. Deposit check. There’s no need to edit my work. The readers know what I mean.
Over entitled – Where’s my Pulitzer? Where are my awards? Hey, New York Times, write an article about me!
Indifferent – I don’t care what people think of me or Funky Winkerbean.
Arranged slightly, they could be SOIL.
Here’s another question: how do the sub-atomic villains have clothes? I know nothing about physics or chemistry, but I thought “sub-atomic” was the smallest possible unit of any matter. But these clothes must be made of something smaller.
I don’t see any actual characters being created here—I just see some random names of subatomic particles, applied to standard generic super-hero drawings (thanks J.J. for listing which existing superheroes the drawings seem to be plagiarized from). Which is pretty standard for AtomiKKK KomiXXX: a “clever” name, a pretty standard superhero drawing, a “First Issue!” Sideways Sunday cover, and we never hear of it again.
That last part, I like.
None of these characters have anything other than a name. We are told absolutely nothing else about them. Presumably the Burnout has flame powers of some kind. Presumably Thick Guy has super strength. Presumably Capt Gas has Les Moore levels of hot air. Presumably Sea Lady is a distaff Aquaman.
Hell, we don’t even know what Rip Tide, Scuba Cop, actually does other than that he’s a “scuba cop.” And the Pulp, does it just wander around like Man-Thing, or does it have some kind of purpose like Swamp Thing?
We don’t know, and we’ll never find out because Batiuk thinks everything ends with the name. Or a pun. Whichever takes the least effort.
Rip Tide is IMO easily his best Act III idea, but he’s done NOTHING with it. The entire idea of a scuba cop just fascinates me to no end, but it’s just sitting there, completely unrealized. Just think of the infinite possibilities there.
Yeah, but what does he do? Check that snorkels are regulation length, or rescue nitrogen narcosis victims? Can he work on boat crime, or is that not in his charter?
Batiuk should have a comic for “Earl Camembert, Cheese Reporter.” “Hey, Earl, there’s a big fire downtown, and a bunch of murders!” “Sorry, Floyd, I only report on cheese and cheese-food.”
SCTV reference! That’s the vexing thing about Rip. The idea is rife with possibilities, but it’s Batiuk, so we know absolutely nothing about him. I mean look at Starbuck Jones, he’s been in the strip for like twelve years now and we still don’t know a thing about him either. I’ve never seen anyone with such a bustling yet lazy imagination. It’s a really peculiar combo.
@Epicus Doomus
Here’s another SCTV reference for you. Every time I read the name ‘Rip Tide Scuba Cop’ I think of the ‘Fish Police’ on SCTV.
Dave Thomas: STOP OR I’LL CAST! (reel whirs)
😂
Much like a motion to adjourn, SCTV references are always in order!
“Bore-On”? Hmm, that could be a super-villain with the ability to tunnel through the earth and emerge unexpectedly to wreak havoc, or tunnel under buildings or roads and cause them to collapse, or tunnel into missile silos and hold the world hostage…
Epicus, you’ve just invented a better comic book character than anybody at AtomiKKK KomiXXX has done. I look forward to your Sideways Sunday premiere!
I still think “Typeface” was by far the best idea of the week. Imagine a comic book villain whose only power is being able to manipulate word balloons at will, in a world where word balloons have mass. He could scream at the hero to drop a big, heavy AUUGGH on them. Or disguise himself as a woman by changing his font to something girly. Or use serifs a a T-bar to slide down a zipline.
This is a fun idea.
Flesh Garden once considered using a thought balloon as a weapon, so Zorks, Ziorchtons and Zilchtons beware!
Sub-Atomic was home to Lee/Kirby’s Psycho-Man, who would doubtless look at this week’s strips and say, a la Queen Victoria, “we are not amused.”
Sub-Atomica, that is.
Looks like we’re at smirk-con 1 in the Son of Stuck Funky nameplate.
I’m starting to feel bad for Batiuk. For someone who loves comix and in particular this Silver Age nonsense SO MUCH, he just seems more and more out of touch every time he writes about these guys. Maybe if he were setting his “bullpen” strips 50 years ago when comix were bigger business and tight deadlines meant you could publish any damn thing as long as you met quota, these might make sense and even be mildly amusing, but in the context of the industry as it exists today, as us BENs have discussed at great length, this stuff just doesn’t work and it makes him look pathetic. I just want him to try. Reality of course is that he doesn’t have to, he’s assured of whatever readership he has no matter what he puts out at this point, but he COULD make his last years in the biz a little more memorable. If he just wanted to.
I wonder how his comic book collaborators feel when they get asked to draw this stuff. “You want me to draw…Storm, Star Boy, Black Mace, and a Nova/Corruptor mashup. (sighs) Okay, Tom, you’re the boss…”
Reminds me of the scene in Sid and Nancy (or maybe it was just the book, I forget) where Sid plays the “new song he wrote” for Nancy’s parents and it’s two incoherent chords.
Batiuk isn’t strung out on heroin like Sid was, but isn’t anybody going to tell him how pathetic this is?
It reminds me of the Canadian filmmaker Frank D’Angelo, who has been the writer/producer/director/star of consistently terrible low-budget films for over a decade. You’ve probably never heard of him or his films, but you’ll know some of the people in them: James Caan, Daniel Baldwin, Doris Roberts, Danny Aiello, Mira Sorvino, Kris Kristofferson, Daryl Hannah, Eric Roberts, Margot Kidder, John Ashton, Robert Loggia, etc.
D’Angelo’s scripts are utterly awful — an “F” in first year film class awful. Complete bilge. As a director, he’s poor. As an actor, he’s … vaguely approaching adequate, and perhaps with some hard work and capable direction, he might do okay in a small supporting role somewhere. But D’Angelo the producer always casts D’Angelo the actor in the leading role (and hires D’Angelo the director to direct him), so it doesn’t really matter.
Anyway, D’Angelo makes these invariably unwatchable films, but actors you’ve actually heard of are always in them. Why? Because for these actors, it’s two or three days paid work, and the pay is okay … and there’s zero pressure, because no-one’s ever gonna see this. So why not take the gig, and have some fun with it? And why tell D’Angelo he’s completely without writing or directing talent, when you can keep your mouth shut and count on him for an easy paycheque every so often?
It’s got to be the same way with the Atomik Comix cover artists, no?
Here’s a link to an short-ish interesting article on Frankie (with other links embedded to other interesting related articles): https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/11/james-caan-sicilian-vampire
How bad is Batiuk at his job? Dead Phil says they should go “sub-atomic”, and he’s NOT doing the “my dick is this small” gesture. The ONE TIME it might actually make sense for someone to be doing that gesture, and they DON’T use it? What are you even doing, Tom?