“What’s going on?” asks Chester. Certainly not productivity! Grandpa Google apparently has directed Mindy to Aunt Register of Copyrights, where she’s able to look up Miss American’s first owner. This means that the copyright wasn’t secured until 1978 or later: the U.S. Copyright Office’s public catalog only goes back that far. Works registered prior to 1978 may be found only in the Copyright Public Records Reading Room in Washington, D.C. (can’t get more American than that!) Those flashbacks to Ruby’s earlier days in the business seem to take place a couple decades earlier. But hey, don’t stop Mindy from making herself useful for once.
Ruby Tuesday
Banana Jr. 6000
February 10, 2020 at 7:01 am
[W]hy was Pete even included in last week’s arc? He never said anything, and, not being an artist, wasn’t in the running for Kitschy’s check…I know Pete can’t pry his eyes off anything comic book-related, and Mindy would have been another character to cram into an already crowded panel, but it’s just weird that she left and he didn’t.
Well, because we needed Pete to, once again, pull a brilliant idea out of his ass, and offhandedly express it in the most roundabout way. And we needed his fiancé, a comics professional whose last job was sucking farts out of the seats at the Valentine, to reveal her ignorance how copyright law works. Grandpa Google to the rescue!
Neo-Lith-ic
Banana Jr. 6000
February 6, 2020 at 11:04 am
Chester shouldn’t be tolerating this woman prancing around his workplace, competing for his paid employees, and wasting their time.
Doghouse Reilly
February 9, 2020 at 1:55 am
So, are we to assume that “Ms. Swoon” and her “Dibbs Gallery” are now going to specialize full-time in comic book art? In a small town in Ohio?
What we’d hoped to be a mercifully short Atomik Komix story arc overstays its welcome today. It’s interesting that yesterday, when Darin, who’s been professionally drawing comic book for about two years, inquires if Swoosie Kitch would be interested in selling his art, she unhesitatingly replies “I’ll take all you have.” But when she offers to do the same for bona fide (and fellow female) comics legend Ruby Lith, Kitch is interested only in Ruby’s “older original art.”
You Better Work
Double Sided Scooby Snack
February 8, 2020 at 12:12 pm
Uh oh! Well, so much for “Take your favorite guy to lunch day.”
Well, what do you know? Jessica is not about to let Darin off the hook for blowing his check on other comix artists’ work, and Darin reveals himself to be not completely clueless by picking up on her anger.
Before It’s Earned, Our Money’s All Been Spent
Well, if the “nice-sized” check wasn’t meant for Darin, then he and Jessica will have to settle for a check that is merely “nice.” Doesn’t matter anyway, since Darin immediately cops to having blown at least that amount on some other artists’ work. Tune in tomorrow when Chester turns to Darin and snatches the check from his hand. As commenter “Doghouse Reilly” reminded us on Wednesday, the artwork that Ruby sold was “commissioned recreations,” not her original work which her chauvinist pig bosses did not allow her to keep. Come to think of it, if they were commissioned, then by whom? What’s she doing selling them? Anyway, unless Darin sold off some old “Sophomoric Sightings” strips, any comic art that he’s produced was done as an employee of Atomik Komix, so he’s already received his reward.
Son of Stuck Funky 
