Epicus Doomus

Home Is Where The Apathy Is

After a long, insufferable summer of sitting around doing nothing, Dickface just can’t wait to get home so he can sit THERE doing nothing. The sheer ambition of the man boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Porch swings, gazebos, pizza, his overweight dimwitted pals, comic books, pizza…maybe if he’s lucky his wife will get sick and die so he’ll finally have some new material to work with. Then everything will TRULY be just like it was before!

It’s increasingly clear that Author Guy’s greatest talent is the ability to keep a straight face during those moronic puff-piece interviews of his. I’ve seen better “writing” on cereal boxes. The guy who does “Bazooka Joe” is practically Hemingway next to this joker. This was a complete shambles from top to bottom, obviously the “work” of someone who stopped giving a shit years ago.

The funniest thing about this is how everyone respects Les AFTER he gives up and quits. Welcome to the Batiukverse, where up is down, black is white and apathy is a virtue to be respected and admired.

For Reel??

Link To Today’s Strip

I sometimes wonder if Author Guy sits there in Batom Inc. World HQ with felt tip in hand, poring over his little stories and occasionally leaping from his chair and yelling “No! Dammit, this still makes too much sense! I have to dumb it down again and again until it’s JUST RIGHT!!!!”. It’s just difficult for me to accept that someone…anyone…could come up with anything this stupid accidentally. The way he ignores his own continuity, the way he glosses right over plot developments that just happened mere days ago, the way he does it time after time after time with such predictable ease…it has to be a con, it just has to be. No one can be this consistently awful without trying to be.

As far as today’s strip is concerned, uh, yeah. Dumb “insider” lingo, idiotic contrivance out of nowhere, plot details at odds with things that just happened a few days before, Les behaving like a self-centered narcissistic jerk-off, that stupid cat hanging around for no reason…yup, sounds about right. Why even bother with these plodding mega-arcs if you’re just going to give up halfway through and resort to crappy filler and nonsensical garbage to finish them up? Again, it makes no sense unless it’s on purpose. It has to be.

Mason, Ajar

Link To Today’s Strip

Yikes, by the third panel I was expecting it to start raining pizza. Starbuck Jones, the obscure and unpopular comic book with hundreds of issues that EVERYONE is talking about. Sigh. TB obviously couldn’t help himself here, much like I couldn’t help myself with today’s post title. Had to use it as it might be Mason’s last appearance…unless…no, I don’t even want to think about that possibility right now.

Why is the guy who just quit still hanging around the place he claims to despise? Likewise, why is Mason still lurking around the set? Is Batom ever going to bother to explain the “kill fee” nonsense he spent three days babbling about? Is panel three Les the single most annoying Les drawing ever or is it just me? What is going on here? Did he officially quit? Is the production cancelled? How is it possible for anyone to be this bad at telling a coherent story and furthermore, how is it possible to get paid for it?

Sorry…Sorry Indeed

Link To Today’s Abomination

Well, I would think that getting Adam Sandler to replace Mason f*cking Jarr would be quite a coup for a shitty little made-for-cable TV film. I mean the quality of his work aside, he IS a real “movie star” who manages to crank out a film every year or two like clockwork, plus he’s a major “name” with a fan base and everything. In fact, Sandler might actually be a good choice to play a smug neurotic asshole with a knack for being annoying, as it’s pretty much his main stock character.

But naturally Les replies with deadpan disdain, as he’s Very Serious Artist and not some clown who’s dancing to Hollywood’s depraved and vapid tune anymore. He’s using the ol’ kill fee (which Batom never even bothered to explain, BTW) to put this sordid chapter of his post-cancer book life behind him for good. No siree, no more Hollywood bullshit for the Delicate Genius. You either play by the cancer book’s rules or you don’t play at all.

Interesting to see Author Guy taking a direct potshot like that, I wonder if he’s “real life” pals with Sandler or something? That can’t be…can it? I’m sure that Sandler is merely TB’s stand-in for all lowbrow Hollywood dreck, an easy target. Anyone responsible for “writing” a piece of garbage as bad as this story is shouldn’t be knocking anyone for anything if you ask me. Sure, Sandler’s movies might be painfully bad but I’d wager that any one of his most awful films is still funnier than all of Act III combined, absolutely no doubt. I guess it’s easy for a guy like BatTom to take snarky little digs at at celebrities, working as he is in near-total anonymity and all.

And unless he ends up fleshing out this “SJ” movie fantasy (shudder) it looks like that’s all for Mason Jarr. I honestly always felt bad for the guy. Imagine being cast as Les Moore in a movie, I mean THAT’S indignity.

The Line Starts Behind You, Beardo

Link To Today’s Strip

Well, I’m no PROFESSIONAL WRITER or anything, but according to the definition of “kill fee” that I read, it’s more like a guarantee in case a writer’s work ends up not being used through no fault of their own. However, in the Batiukverse it appears to be a fee Les collects when he just doesn’t feel like working anymore, which is completely moronic on every level. So Les lives it up for a few months in a first-class, fully-paid for hotel suite, does no “writing” at all, then collects a “kill fee” when he decides to up and quit without any notice whatsoever? OK Tom, whatever you say. TB’s vision of “reality” gets weirder and weirder every day.

And then, just to remind everyone why Les is the most despised character in the entire history of fiction, he makes a little “joke” implying that’s he’s just exasperated to death by “Hollywood” and the “LFL” production. Always with the cynical obnoxious wisecracks, the Dick With Ears never fails to live up to his reputation. The jerk gets a golden opportunity just dropped right into his lap and all he can do with it is simper, whine and complain about it, non-stop. Utterly ridiculous and stunningly stupid, even by FW’s pitifully low standards.