ComicBookHarriet

The Defender: Rebirth

Like many a random female comic character of the 80’s and 90’s, I am pulling on the discarded mantle of a now-gone vigilante to assume his identity for political justice! So watch in amazement as slip on my Mask of Internet Anonimity and take of the Cloak of The Devil’s Advocate. I ascend the rickety soapbox and become…. THE DEFENDER!

I went on an hours long Funky binge today, reading the entire Holly collects Starbucks series again. Because I was completely ready to lambaste this strip, and accuse Batiuk of all kinds of fussy comic book hang-ups. But I suddenly had an epiphany, like a lighting strike! (Into photo-developing chemicals!) And suddenly I could see. We are reading the meaning of Chester the Chiseler wrong.

The rich, obsessive, fanatical, Chester is prancing around like a grade A WWE heel, begging for our boos. And we’ve been booing. But we’ve also been accusing Batty of throwing a temper tantrum and making Chester a strawman of people who are ‘Bad Collectors’ who ‘love comics wrong.’

We’ve been wrong. Chester isn’t bad because Tom Batiuk thinks there is only one way to love comics right. Chester is bad because CHESTER thinks there is only one way to love comics right.

I’ve got more than a couple long boxes hiding in my apartment. I know firsthand how weird comics collectors can be, and Tom knows it too. There’s a mix of comic nerds and non-nerds in the Funkyverse, and Batiuk has made jokes on both sides of the ‘aisle’ so-to-speak without making anyone ‘the bad guy.’ Sweet pleasant little old ladies wandered into Komix Korner on Black Friday and didn’t think it was a real store. And Holly was teased for not knowing what ‘Slabbed’ means.

Most of Chester the Chiselers traits have been displayed by sympathetic characters previously. So those aren’t WHY Chester is ‘bad.’

Mason is rich; he’s not pilloried. Crazy Harry was flat out ‘Crazy’ about his collection he had to sell, and had grouped every book with awful acronyms. He also apparently was willing to spend college savings levels of money to complete his collection of Tarzan. Chullo boy swore on a ‘slabbed copy of Amazing Fantasy;’ so nothing against comic books being sealed away to preserve them. Pete had a hoard so big he had a street sale before moving. Darin bought a life-size Cosmic Treadmill. DSH John gave Holly bargaining advice before she went to buy a comic from Nick the Geek. Holly went absolutely CRAZY CUTTHROAT during an E-bay sale.

But Chester is a SNOB. Chester judges other nerds by what they like, and how they like it. Chester talks down facets of nerdom he thinks beneath him. Chester thinks that his collection makes him awesome and powerful. That it gives him authority to dictate comics dogma. That pointing out nerdy flaws at other nerds makes him THE ONLY TRUE NERD KING. He is a terrible person, who just happens to love comic books. If he didn’t love comics, he would still be a jerk. It’s his interactions with other people, not his interactions with comic books, that make him a villain.

Chester sees John’s wall of questionable loli manga, and back issues of Sonic Adventures…and he is not impressed.

Disagree? Please let me know! I wanna hear your analysis!

Tomorrow we return to your regularly scheduled snarky nitpicking. Defender out!

0.5 POOR (PR)

Today’s Strip

Batuik, you can’t have it both ways. Chester Hagglemore already came to Westview for the FunkyDick crossover comics auction. And DSH John pointed him out to Dick Tracy there by sight. Then he screamed down John’s fifty dollar bid with fifty thousand. Your reputation can’t proceed you to someplace you’ve already been to someone you’ve already met.

Also, while paying absolutely whatever it takes could be annoying to a person in a comic book bidding war with Mr. Chiseler, it’s pretty great for anyone SELLING them. His rep as a comic collector would be acidsniffingamazeballs for vendors in the komix biz. John and Harry should be slipping around the shop with a red pen, surreptitiously marking up prices. A rich nutter guy willing to outbid anyone anything anywhere anytime really shouldn’t be called Hagglemore.

Lets call him Chester Seemore instead. Since he apparently climbed a completely pitch black stairwell with no trouble at all. Seriously John, Harry…do you even WANT customers?

Krime Scene.

Today’s comic.

Redsnifit had this case half solved yesterday.

“The positioning of the lock knob suggests that the doors are hinged at the back, meaning the car is either very old (’60s or ’70s era) or a very expensive luxury car. The iPad holder appears to be sitting in the back, which suggests he has a driver. My guess is he’s a rich nerd who’s going to enable Pete’s lifestyle for the next few years.”

And the premier rich nerd of the Funkyverse is, of course, Chester the Chiseler.

However, no one could have predicted the vehicular carnage laid before us in panel one today. That swanky luxury car has either been curb-checked all the way up the light pole in front of it or, given how high the driver’s side front tire is, Chester’s chauffeur has parked atop a pedestrian.

I must applaud Batiuk for tackling the dangerous epidemic of fashion-frenzied limo services pairing sunglasses with darkly tinted windshields. Truly a sensitive treatment of important social and educational issues.

But our chauffeur has wisely worn gloves. No fingerprint as he disposes of the underclass wedged in the undercarriage.

And Chester is wearing a bolo tie. Really classing it up Hagglemore. Bravo.

Stairs Going Nowhere.

Comic Book Harriet here! And judging by this strip, I’m a very appropriate commentator for the coming week. I want to give kudos to poor Billy for last week’s run. He was dealt a terrible set of strips, and he was able to provide valuable context into just how freakin’ long Batiuk has been using ‘Dinkle Types His Stupid Book’ as a lazy repository for all bad band puns.

I’m sure that Tommy Boy thinks that he’s cleverly building up suspense here. Ooooooh he’s not letting us see the person who is so excited to be finding the Komix Korner for the first time! Who could it be? What drama will it lead to? Is it the long lost Afghani parents of Becky the One-Armed-Wonder and Dead Skunk Hair’s adopted step-daughter Rana? Who have just tracked the..bwahahahah… I can’t even finish that without laughing. Because Rana was dropped down the memory hole YEARS ago!

We do have to wonder why anyone ever, in the history of time, would have gone on an interet mission looking for Komix Korner.

Debt collectors.

It’s gotta be debt collectors.

Schizo-snoozo-phasia.

Comic Book Harriet here, wanting to say it’s been an awesome week to cut my teeth on guest writing. Thanks for all the laughs and comments. I toss the reins into the very capable Beckoning Chasm, whose vast echoey goodness will see us through whatever hijinks are to come.

But before that. I have to make sense of…of…whatever this strip means.

Guys. I think Becky has kind of lost it. I mean Band Turkeys was always kind of a wacky idea. But it made a certain amount of sense. Most people eat eat, and thus buy, turkeys around the holidays. If a school has a tradition of selling Band Turkeys as a fundraiser, then people will anticipate it and buy their turkeys from the band. They were going to have to buy a turkey after all… and now they won’t have to feel guilty for turning down horrible dextrose based band sweets that have to have every word spelled wrong for legal reasons. I’ll take a marginal mark-up on a frozen brick of bird meat over something called Chocklatey Kandy Shugar Knuggets.

But mattresses? Why? I mean, the shipping alone has to be a fortune! And people don’t use a mattress up every year. I spent 20 years sleeping on a mattress as old as my parents… Are these disposable holiday mattresses for people who shopped and ate too much? Will they be burned on New Year’s even in a huge toxic bonfire of latex foam and polyfill? I can see the teetering mountain of blackened rusting springs looming over the Westview landfill for years.

What I’m saying is that a good use for those mattresses would be to build a padded cell for Becky. Heck it looks like you could build an entire padded maze. That would keep her occupied for days. Long enough to get a judge to sign papers to have her committed.