Tony’s back in today’s strip you all!
TONY! IS! BACK! Ring the bells! Toss the confetti! Kill the fatted calf!
Yes, he’s back! Wearing the same shirt he had on when he left for “God’s waiting room” back in October, no less. And carrying the same suitcase, because… he lives at Montoni’s?
Also, Rachel is handing out invitations A WEEK before Wally’s graduation? Miss Manners ain’t gonna like this… I know I don’t.
So long Atomik Komix! Not sad to see you go.
Today’s strip moves us on to the greener pastures of… *sigh* Montoni’s.
Yep, nephew cousin Wally is having one of those newfangled January college graduations. He is also too cheap to spring for (recently-increased) postage it would seem, having Rache hand-deliver invitations and putting the savings toward paying Wally Jr’s ransom.
Meanwhile, uncle cousin Funky is wistfully wondering when Wally, who began high school the year after Funky graduated from college, became an adult. Probably sometime during the the time he joined the military, became a POW, got married, volunteered with a minesweeping organization, adopted a child, had another child, became a POW again, spent over a decade in captivity, came back to the US, got a job at Montoni’s, started going to college, got a service dog, got married, and qualified to graduate from college.
Today’s strip deserves all the oys, head shakes, groans, and boos that it gets. Even Durwood’s attempt at lampshading joins in the dopey wordplay (and I use that term in the loosest possible sense).
I’m not sure what is more remarkable, that Pete and Durwood exhausted their creative energy and all they could come up with is a gender-swapped Human Torch or that Mindy is sure a gender-swapped Human Torch is THE THING that female comic readers have been waiting for.
Oy.
The power is out again at Atomik Komix in today’s strip?! Oh no! That means we have to read a comic about the power being out again…
There is a lot in this strip, and it will make your head hurt if you actually think about any of it. So please don’t, that is the burden I have chosen to bear this week.
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Is Atomik Comix in such dire financial straights that Chester didn’t pay the electric bill? Was it because he couldn’t part with any more of his gardening catalog collection?
If the electricity in the old Batom Comics building is so unreliable that it goes out weekly…
– Why doesn’t Chester move his 3 employees to a few hundred square feet of space in one of Cleveland’s many affordable, functional, and maintained office buildings?
– Why is there no generator or other back-up plan to maintain power?
– How does this building pass city inspection? Even Cleveland has standards.
Why doesn’t Mindy know what to do? Not one week ago, she met a deadline while working from a coffee shop.
How does Mindy not know what Dr. Martin’s is? Yeah, I get that the average person doesn’t know what it is (which really weakens the Dr. Martins=Doc Martens joke) but she is paid for her apparent artistic talent and she’s never used physical ink or been into an art supply store?
Does Chester really think that ink he found in a box of unused supplies from Batom Comics is still usable for professional-quality work? For reference Batom Comics shut down in 1972.
How does Durwood’s face manage to get even longer?
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There, I’ve though about all of that for you. I have determined that there are no satisfactory answers and that this whole story arc is asinine, so don’t even think you need to worry about it. Carry on and have a nice Saturday.
Here’s the link to today’s strip. I have only a single comment:
Son of Stuck Funky 
