Author: beckoningchasm

Ex-Sponged

Link to today’s strip.

Well, Darin sure looks dumbfounded by today’s revelation, but I suspect that’s his default state anyway.   And across town, at Mega Comics headquarters, that one editor (who looks like Sesame Street’s Grover has shaved his face) looks equally astonished.   He may be thinking, “Haven’t we gone over this road several dozen times in comics?  Spider-Man was a clone for a while…comic books these days seem packed to the gills with clones…”

(That’s my hazy recollection.  Unlike some I could name, I haven’t followed comics for several decades so all my info is second-hand.)

GroverShave may also be thinking something along the lines of, “Say, isn’t this a really stupid idea?  Why would a hero’s arch-enemy clone that hero, rather than kill him?  Is the clone programmed to let Doctor Centipede free just as he’s about to capture him?  Isn’t that kind of annoying, having his schemes stopped all the time by his own creation?  Should Pete go back to his old job of bringing us coffee, while simultaneously shutting up?”

And here we have the number one problem with “tell, don’t show.”  Since we’ve never had a glimpse of The Amazing Mister Sponge (or TAMS for short), much less any hint of his adventures, none of this means anything to anyone.  So what if TAMS is a clone?  It changes nothing.  Our lives, hitherto untouched by TAMS, have not had their courses altered in the slightest by this latest development.   Even the characters here are just chatting–there’s certainly no hint at all of Pete bemoaning that he is being asked to change the nature of his signature character into something else.  There’s no sense of loss, or dreams slipping away, or anything…it’s just another day for Pete, and like most days, it ends with your creations ground down under commercial pressures.

Or so we assume, again.  Pete looks excited in the last panel, but is that because the idea appeals to him, or is he simply desperate to keep his job?  Without a hint, we’re just looking at bad drawings spouting bad dialogue, with nothing to tie either to any human experience.

I hate to say it, but the scenario below has more of a connection with an audience–any audience.

Yes…above, everything revolves around Les, as Tom Batiuk clearly wants.  But at least in this scenario, there’s someone we can hate.  The Amazing Mister Sponge?  I have no opinion about him one way or the other.  I’ve been given no opportunity to form an opinion of any kind…which, given the reception Mr. Batiuk’s work usually gathers, may be by design.

 

The Invisible Man Gets A Makeover

Link to today’s strip.

Once again, Tom Batiuk goes with “tell, don’t show” and graces us with a wall of text about a (fictional, in-universe) character we’ve never even seen and care nothing about. In a strip well-known for having stupid character names, The Amazing Mister Sponge is really up there in the top ten.  Were I a super-villain (and I’m not saying I’m not), if one of my henchmen called out, “Hey boss, the Amazing Mister Sponge is after us!” why, I’d probably collapse from laughter and be unable to launch my scheme.  So maybe he does have a super-power.  I imagine it loses its effectiveness the second or third time, though, and starts being annoying.  “Why can’t one of the good heroes try and stop me?  This is embarrassing…”

It really makes me curious about how Mr. Batiuk decides on a storyline, what factors come to play that cause him to deliver…this.  Don’t you love how the episode ends on a cliff-hanger, the idea being that we’re all on pins and needles to know what Pete’s scheme is?  In reality, we know it’s going to be a crashing bore, except “crashing” implies something happening.  If this is Tom Batiuk’s depiction of the pressures of being a cartoonist, there’s a much better solution than wasting space:  retire.  Sure, you can spin your wheels until the glorious 50th, but here’s a cold hard truth.  No one is going to buy The Complete Funky Winkerbean: 2010-2015.  No one.

I guess one thing is that Mr. Batiuk seems to have lost any enthusiasm for drawing.  That Starbuck Jones face on the wall, for example, is a terrible drawing.  If that’s an example of Pete’s artwork, no wonder we’ve never seen this Sponge-Head.

As for the “real” characters depicted here, Darin is a bland smiling blank–the kind of image you’d see if TV stations still used “test patterns.”  And Pete has clearly been rejected from The Muppet Show for “looking too lifeless.”

Bores!

Link to today’s strip.

Well, those of you who thought we were going to get more of Les’ genius today are in for a real treat!  Because we don’t.

Instead, we have two boring characters chattering in an episode where the drawing is utterly irrelevant.  The only thing of note is how Pete’s happy(esque) expression immediately morphs into a weary mask when his own work is brought up.  Darin must know how much Pete hates his own stuff, as he lights up a rather predatory grin when switching subjects.

I can’t imagine why Tom Batiuk thinks we care at all about The Amazing Mister Sponge.  So far as I am aware, we’ve never been allowed a single peek at the character, so we know it has to be underwhelming.  Instead, we’re given a scene of two minor, dull characters talking about him.  Wow, talk about action-packed.  

And another week of crashing boredom gets fully under way.

Trivia Train a’ pullin’ In

Link to today’s strip.

Well, it’s another Sunday time-waster starring Owen.  I recognize that’s a really redundant statement, but like that fetid chullo, there it is.

Tom Batiuk has some thoughts on the original King Kong, and he is of a mind to lecture us on its short-comings.

Let that thought sink in for a few minutes.

In preparation for today’s post, unlike Tom Batiuk, I actually sat down and watched King Kong (1933).  If you’ve never seen it…well, you probably know the plot anyway, but some of what I note below can be considered SPOILERS.

1. No one on the voyage knows they are looking for a giant ape.  Carl Denham has heard there’s “something” on Skull Island, and he knows it’s called “Kong,” but he doesn’t know what it is.

2. Furthermore, all he wants to do is photograph it.  That they end up capturing it is not the point of the voyage–that’s Denham’s last minute improvisation.  But Owen says “determined to capture” as if that was the goal.

3. Denham and crew do not see any dinosaurs “along the way.”  They don’t spot any dinosaurs until well after seeing Kong for the first time.  At this point, they’re trying to rescue Ann Darrow so they have other goals in mind than film-making or capturing animals.

3. The dinosaurs were not “small,” though some are slightly smaller than Kong (which still makes them pretty huge).  And they definitely don’t appear to be “a lot easier to capture” or easier to control.   They cause several deaths.  (Remarkably ghastly deaths for the time, too.)  Of all the dinosaurs in the film, only one can be considered “small” – a bear-sized beast that climbs up a vine in an attempt to menace John Driscoll.

These things effectively negate everything in today’s strip.

I try to keep from saying anything about Tom Batiuk personally in these posts…but this is shameful.  There are really only two explanations for this.  A – He wrote this based on vague memories of King Kong, or of the various remakes or sequels.   And he didn’t bother to watch the film again to confirm any of this.  That’s sheer laziness, especially with a year’s lead time.  B – He wrote this, then watched King Kong to see how clever and superior he was; he saw instead that he was King Wrong, but decided it didn’t matter, that no one in his audience would remember King Kong, and even if they did, they wouldn’t bother to watch it either and they’d think Tom Batiuk was some kind of film genius for poking holes in a masterpiece.  That’s sheer contempt.

I’m not sure which one is worse, to be honest.

That leads me to my final point about today’s strip –

4.  I’m not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on television.  But the whole strip seems to be asking the question, “Why try for something unique and spectacular?  Aim for ‘good enough’ and that should be good enough.”    Why climb Mount Everest when you can climb the local dump instead?  Why go to the Moon when it’s much less dangerous to go to the mall?  Why use actual jokes and interesting characters in your comic strip, when you can just use fifth-rate puns and have people smirk to show they “get it”?

Oops…did I type that last one out loud?  Whoopsie.