billytheskink

Today’s Log Post

Hello SoSFers, billytheskink back for another two weeks steering this runaway bus. Lucky me, today’s strip shifts back to Pete, Durwood, and their adventures at the City of Cleveland’s newest employer. Now that Chester has acquired the remnants of Mort Winkerbean’s life savings, I guess Atomik Komix’s bankruptcy has been postponed… and that, sadly, means we have to peek at the Batty Atom Bullpen’s “creative” process.

Durwood is the star of this one for sure, offering one of the few reasonable explanations for the existence of the last decade of Funky Winkerbean. On the other hand, Pete is being Pete… that is to say, useless.

Batty Batom Baloney

Welp, turns out the Batom Bullpen is actually BS, as Chester learns in today’s strip. Six panels of explanation about how working at Batom Comics in the 1950s was just like Pete and Durwood’s fever dreams and one panel of Chester getting the vapors after learning that Pete and Durwood’s fever dreams were true to life. It’s… it’s almost like we’ve seen all of this actually drawn and didn’t need any of this exposition.

Poor, poor Holtron has to witness this whole sad, sad scene.

And with that, the skink is out until next time. $10 sez this story arc is going to continue uninterrupted until my next turn at the wheel.

No takers?

None?

Yeah, I don’t blame ya.

Starstruck Jones

Well, at least today’s strip doesn’t contain any Wayne’s World shtick so fantastically lame and over exposed that it took me hours to recognize it, like yesterday’s did… The gag is still extremely rote, though. Could we at least get a “Mr. Freeman is my father” bit? I actually kind of like that old groaner.

According to the official “Untold History” of Batom Comics, Flash Freeman created Starbuck Jones as an adult in 1954. He looks pretty good for 136.

Why, just why?-day, April 20

Today’s strip was not available preview, so it is time to dive into the archives to find answers to the questions that YOU, the loyal and hearty SOSF readers, want to know!

Today’s question comes from B.D. Idenitpicker from Picher, Oklahoma.

When did Pete get those bags under his eyes? Was he born with them?

The answer, obviously, is yes. Pete’s eye bags were visible on ultrasound. But, I know you all are here for archival evidence, so lets see some, shall we?

FW9-2-98
Here’s Pete’s first appearance in the fall of 1998 and… what? No bags? Or are Pete’s eye bags all we see here around his nose, not his eyes themselves? I subscribe to the latter theory.

FW9-4-98
Pete’s bags are on clear display in this strip, where much-missed Act II arsonist Mooch Myers takes Durwood’s property with no intention of returning it. I would like to see more of this, actually.

FW9-10-98
Pete’s bags grew considerably here in this strip, where he creepily pines for his best friend’s future wife.

FW9-11-98
And they grow further still when talking about his parent’s divorce, because Act II was all about EVERYONE having a personal raincloud.

There you have it, sports fans. Pete has never gotten enough sleep, or learned about antihistamines. Until next time, keep sending in those post cards!

Does This Spell The End?

Having been informed in today’s strip that the name of his newfound comic book company is already trademarked, Chester decides to employ the strategy of phonetic misspelling that made the TurboGrafx-16 the number one name in video games.

I find this strip to be fairly discordant because of the use of “Grandpa Google” combined with the revelation that an Atomic Comics already once existed. First, “Grandpa Google”… please stop trying to either make this a thing people say or pretend that it already is a thing people say. It is not and it never will be. However, stupid as it is, I can allow that it is some kind of in-universe slang. But that brings in the second point of discord. If this is a fictional universe in which people say “Grandpa Google” without being blackmailed then why does “Atomic Comics” have to be an unusable trademark? Skirting a real-life trademark is a spectacularly uninteresting story arc, not to mention that “Atomik Komix” isn’t likely to stave off a lawsuit that “Atomic Comics” would invite anyways. This makes the set up of The Phantom Menace look like Macbeth.