She’s Gotta Have It

Link To The Sunday’s Strip

OK, so apparently Batiuk recently participated in some sort of archeological joke dig and found this one deep in the bowels of Henny Youngman’s crypt. “Take my wife…please! With the shopping! And the credit card bills! She just doesn’t understand the value of my hard-earned dollars! Because she’s a WOMAN, you see?”.

Yes, unlike in the relatively recent past, a guy’s wife can’t sneak off to the mall and run up a credit card tab behind his back anymore, because technology. Funky is wise to Holly’s womanly tricks (wink, wink) and now HE’S a step ahead of HER. Which is rare and noteworthy, as you know how women are, with their womanly schemes and feminine wiles and all. Sigh. You think he would have finally outgrown the “boys vs. gurls” trope by now but obviously that one is just too deeply ingrained, which is as far as I’m taking that topic this time around. Blech.

And on that note I’m heading back to the bench until my next at bat, stay tuned for billytheskink, who hopefully managed to dodge ol’ Batton Thomas this time around.

Deere, John

Link To This One

Wow, what a miserable pratfall of a gag. “Comic book store owners are shitty businessmen and total imbeciles”…that’s what I got out of this peculiar little arc. BatYam’s real-life comic book store must love it when he meanders by for a visit. Maybe they’ll tape this strip to the wall behind the cash register. You know, ironically. Get it?

Coming next week: Les’ annual cancer screening ends with Les sneering “even I could have gotten into oncology school” as his doctor inexplicably smirks.

“Remember When” Is The Lowest Form Of Conversation

Link To Today’s FW

I used to know a guy who claimed to have been on the outer fringes of the music business back in the day and he had a million and a half stories just like Batton’s.

“Yeah, Jerry and Bob sure threw some fun parties. They asked me if I wanted to join their new band, but I’d just gotten into the drill press operator’s union so I passed. So yeah, I coulda been in the Grateful Dead, but you know.”

He was pretty annoying but he was no Batton Thomas, that’s for sure. Then again, who is? Wait…do NOT answer that. Anyway, yeah, BatYam obviously saw a news story about that stupid comic book being auctioned and right after he settled down and took a brief nap he got right to work on this timely arc so he could mention it in that annoying “if only we’d known then what we know now” kind of way of his where he conveniently ignores the fact that if everyone had saved those old comic books they wouldn’t be rare or especially valuable, like with those poor souls with closets full of worthless Beanie Babies. It would have been a funnier story if Batton’s mom had thrown it out, but in BatWurst’s zeal to re-tell the story that thought must not have occurred to him. That’s why the editor’s role is (guffaw) so crucial. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Dropping Mad Dimes

Link To Yesteryear

I’m amazed that this tedious anecdote amazes John, who’s literally surrounded at all times by thousands of vintage comic books that have the prices printed right there on the covers. On top of that the whole town is overrun with legendary old comic book codgers who just stroll right on into local comic book businesses and freely share comic book anecdotes with nary a second’s worth of thought. Not to mention the fact that he’s like at least fifty years old himself. Yet there he is, stunned by the buying power of a dime back in 1946 or whatever. Why, if I didn’t know any better I’d have to conclude that this John character is something of a total imbecile.

Akron Zip

Link To Today’s One

Im·pe·ri·ous

  1. assuming power or authority without justification; arrogant and domineering.

So I suppose that a Rexall pharmacy COULD be “imperious”, I guess. Once again I know exactly what he was going for here but once again it doesn’t make it any less baffling. “My grandparents lived in Akron and there was a Rexall two blocks away”…how hard was that?

“Holy temple”…”sacred texts”…OK sure Thom, whatever you say. Once again we see BatYam venerating the most mundane aspects of things he loves the most, just like last week. I mean I remember where I bought my first copy of “Love Gun” but you don’t see me getting all nostalgic over going to Crazy Eddie‘s. It’s where they sold the records. The store was the facilitator, a means to an end, not the primary focus. Of course I liked going there, as it was where I’d buy the stuff I liked.

But it’s never that easy for Westviewians. They can’t just buy pizza, they have to immerse themselves within a whole complicated pizzeria experience full of old jukeboxes and whimsical band boxes with colorful local characters exchanging wry banter all over the place. And they can’t just buy a comic book, they have to enter a fantastical nostalgic dream world full of holy scriptures and clandestine attic forts full of milk and cookies. They just have to complicate everything, no matter how dumb it is. No wonder they’re all so grumpy.