Or perhaps Batton could do a demonstration where he shows the youngsters how comic strip authors used to write real jokes, as opposed to wry, self-deprecating observations about how the world passed them by. I mean, who’s more qualified? As usual, Boy Lisa is looking on with that bland, dimwitted look on his face, instead of telling Batton to get the hell out, as any sane human surely would.
Coming later this week: Batton compares himself to: iceboxes, milk in glass bottles, black and white TVs, and fax machines, as a bemused Boy Lisa looks on stupidly. The Pulitzer committee continues its indifference.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Welp, the artwork perfectly matches the humor today.
Agreed. I think we’ve all gradually become anesthetized to the fact that Ayers just doesn’t bother with backgrounds anymore. Just bland blue and gray voids. Fits the subject matter perfectly.
I actually like Batton’s idea here, there will be an ample supply of horseshoes to throw at his insufferable neck.
“No one reads my strip because times have changed”…uh, yeah, Batton/Tom, that must be what happened.
Would that involve the real, genuine, original style of cartoon-making? Using India ink and a bit of graphite shading on white paper? Just like Gertie the Dinosaur, Felix the Cat and Mortimer Mouse? None of this newfangled stuff with rotoscoping, multi-plane photography and clear plastic overlays? Much less the horrors of color photography and sound tracks dubbed in by soi-disant voice artists? Just genuine artists, laboring at easels and photographic stands as they created their cartoons one frame at a time? Batton Thomas could die happy, and we’d all be just as happy to see him go.
For the most part, Batton, I’ll give you credit for having a realistic self-opinion. You’re a low-achieving, boring, thoroughly unlikable wretch, consumed by self-pity. Nobody cares about you or your comics. Your departure from this Earth will be, at best, unnoticed.
However, the idea that an establishment of any kind would accept you as a volunteer for anything above stall-mucking is absurd. Self-aggrandize much?
P.S. I hate you so much, Batton.
Yes, but the ferrier making horseshoes will be a respected professional. Within his niche community, his discipline and hand-crafted work will be appreciated as something that combines both art and craft into a finely-calibrated finished product that’s both attractive and useful. And worth paying for.
Batiuk will be the sad doofus at the cartooning booth who yammers endlessly about uninteresting comics trivia, while someone else actually draws for him.
“I’ll be next to the guy making horseshoes.” That’s not self-deprecation, Batton, that’s insulting someone else’s profession.
“I’d probably get a job at Greenfield Village, because Henry Ford and I shared a lot of views on various social issues…if you know what I mean, and I think you do.”
Clever work by Batton, actually. With the state he and his ilk have left the comics page in, a Jew certainly won’t replace him. Neither will a goy, for that matter…
Would a golem do?
A Terry Pratchett golem might. The golem of Rabbi Loew wouldn’t.
Batton has reminded me of the sign I saw outside a working smithy:
“I shoe anything that passes:
horses, mules and jackasses.”
Batton Thomas will have new shoes every day he’s on the job.
Whoa, Dagwood, that’s a weird question. “Say, old man, what would happen to you if you lost the only job you’ve ever had? You’d starve, right? Not even pizza app writing to fall back on?”
It’s irritating having to watch him not admit that maybe the problem has always been him. He’s fixated on shiny trash from his childhood, he’s got a boring cast of gloomy idiots whining about their pasts and he doesn’t know how to tell a story. It’s not our fault his strip is lame.
“Hmmm. No, it’s society, the strip is as good as ever. It’s everyone else who’s wrong.”
Damn. I was hoping Batton would go for a ride on Nobttom Road The cops would give the team at Atomic Comics the Thinker helmet he had on., as he clung to golden age comics till the end
The Thinker died in a one-shot special bringing together the Suicide Squad and the Doom Patrol. The writer was Paul Kupperberg.
A decade later, the Thinker was dying in an issue of *The Flash,* and Jay Garrick used the Thinker helmet to find a cure for his condition. The editor was Paul Kupperberg.
So Batton Thomas might survive his ride on Nobottom Road, unlike Bull Bushka.
For what it’s worth, the Thinker was not grateful. He was ready to join the Choir Invisible.
In my day, comic strips were delivered door to door by a kindly gent in a horse drawn wagon.
I just can’t with the Batton Thomas arcs. They get worse with each iteration. I just can’t.
Tom Batiuk, and by extension his avatar Batton Thomas, has a bad case of Nice Guy Syndrome. He’s not a nice guy at all, but he’s very interested in convincing you he’s a nice guy. His “niceness” is motivated entirely by his desire to get fans, attention, and awards. And as you can see in Batton Thomas this week, it’s phony and transparent. What he thinks is self-deprecation is really just insults directed at others – when it makes any sense at all.
This problem is pervasive in Funky Winkerbean. Les thinks he’s a Nice Guy who’s super-devoted to his long-dead wife. But he’s really just using her as a crutch to start his writing career, stoke his ego, raise money for unclear purposes, continue to serve as his codependent partner, have Oscars handed to him, continue living in the past, and justify his appalling treatment of others.
Pete thinks he’s a Nice Guy, but he’s a cheap, tiresome, selfish dullard who failed at the simplest of romantic challenges, still hasn’t bought Mindumb a proper wedding ring or scheduled a wedding, blatantly stole her comic book idea so he could share “his” credit with Hoagy Carmichael, and demands gifts from her on “buy your guy a coffee day.”
Dinkle, Funky, and Mort are supposed to be Nice Guys but they’re sexist, demeaning, overbearing, and treat their wives like property. John Howard is supposed to be a Nice Guy, but he spends all day goofing off in his useless comic book store while his wife is the family breadwinner. Crazy Harry is supposed to be a Nice Guy, but he buys his wife a stupid, insulting gift for her anniversary, and thinks he’s progressive for losing a video game to her over 40 years ago.
I don’t understand why the Incel community hasn’t made Tom Batiuk one of their heroes yet. Funky Winkerbean works exactly how they think real life should work. The men insinuate themselves into the lives of their desired women with excessive, unwanted favors, then sit back and demand romance in return. (Again, Les Moore is Exhibit A for this vile behavior.) Real women see through such transparent acts and know how to deal with them. In Batiuk’s mind, this is how romance should work. Fuck this comic strip.
I’m not certain that Mort is intended to be a nice guy, but I am sure that Dinkle isn’t.
They’re protagonists who get everything they want, face no repercussions for their awful behavior, and whom the audience is supposed to root for.
I’m not certain that Mort is intended to be a nice guy, but I am sure that Dinkle isn’t.
Yes, Dinkle was initially an overbearing lunatic martinet we were supposed to laugh at, and not like. But this has been slowly retconned into Dinkle being an all-around great guy who is admired by all. He’s a beloved community elder, whose adorable quirk is that he is the best at everything he does. Does his unrelenting focus on his music drive everyone crazy? Sure! But he’s a nice guy, and everyone loves him for it!
Mort? Pretty sure in Batiuk’s addled mind that Mort’s meant to be a nice guy, whose adorable quirk is that he’s … uh, somewhat rape-y?
Dinkle needed to go away after Act I, except as a foil to new high school students. But Dinkle will never go away, for the same reason Dexy’s Midnight Runners will never stop playing “Come On Eileen.” He’s the only good character Tom Batiuk ever created. And Batiuk doesn’t even realize how much he’s destroyed him over the last 30 years, by turning him into yet another smug, self-promoting jackass who desperately needs a punch in the mouth, but gets everything in life handed to him instead.
So, at what point during this “Feel the Burn with Batton!” arc does Chester the Molester saunter out of his Atomik Bullpen corner suite, see Batton Thomas (creator of the syndicated comic strip “Three O’Clock High”) exercising in the office, and offer him an exclusive contract to draw and write a TO’CH comic book? The very first comic books were, after all, reprints of newspaper strips, and I believe this shocking twist would finally put the average age of the Atomik staff over the average age of The Rolling Stones.
Here, I changed the expressions, in order to convey the feelings of crushing dispair.
So is TomBa hanging on until all comics pages in newspapers go extinct? Even now that could take a while.
“I’d be in Greenfield Village. There’d be the guy making horseshoes, the guy making horse saddles, and me, making horsesh!t.”
This strip has further devolved into either infuriating incoherence or terminal pithy boredom. Give me Les or Dinklage any day. At least they are entertaining exuding such unlikability with the irony that they are meant to be lovable protagonists. Same goes for Crank Magnon Shaft. 🤔