Pete in the Hands of an Inept God.

Link to Today’s Comic.

I got way too much enjoyment out of panel two today. Pete’s bland, mopey, dumpy little face, too crushed by the lassitude of his underwritten universe to feel fear as he slowly comes to terms with his own non-existence. I am excited to see what Chester comes up with to rebel against the uncaring creator of the Funkyverse who has doomed the comic book venture that he himself called into being. If Chester does engage in some holy war against Tom Batiuk, what hell will he be cast down into? Where do all characters in Funkyverse go to be damned and forgotten? But to reign is worth ambition, the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Kent State, a Hell of Westview.

Also, it might increase sales and buzz of your comics if they weren’t blank sheets of paper stapled together. Though I suppose blank white paper is cooler than The Inedible Pulp.

Counterfeit Maturity

Link to Today’s Comic.

Comic Book Harriet, stretching her comic book chops, with a comic book lesson.

I collected new DC superhero comics from 2008 to about 2012. Blackest Night got me hooked, a great horror based crossover event, that had legacy dead characters rise up to confront their still living family members and teammates. Though I hadn’t read much before, the arc gave me an exciting and emotional lesson in characters and stories I hadn’t read first hand.

Then in 2011 DC decided to cancel and then relaunch their entire comics lineup, in The New 52 initiative, tweaking characters and erasing backstories. This included canceling both Action Comics, and Detective Comics, which had been running since the 30’s, and were up to #904 and #881 issues respectively. They were both relaunched with a #1 issue.

The New 52 lost my interest completely, I compared it to a beloved relative having a stroke and staggering around forgetting half of who they were, and randomly attempting to relive life events that had already taken place.

In 2016 DC Rebirth tried to reset this again, which included renumbering Action Comics and Detective comics as if they had never been ‘cancelled’. They had learned that you can’t ‘restart’ when the majority of your audience doesn’t want a to hear a Muppet Babies version of a story they’ve already read. But most of all, they learned you can’t fake being new and hip when you’ve been around for 70 years. Your legacy and history is your capital, don’t spend it or throw it away.

Chester is going to learn the hard way, you can’t fake being ‘old and established’ either.

Cover Up Fallout.

Link to Today’s Comic.

After being silently cowed yesterday, Mindy today has completely disappeared. We can only hope that she stomped out of the building in a righteous huff, deleted Pete’s number from her phone, and re-uploaded Tinder and Linked In.

Kudos to everyone yesterday that pointed out that Pete has totally written kid sidekicks before, with no mention of his apparently crippling phobia of pubescent partners in crime fighting. Maybe since that time he has unconsciously internalized The Seduction of the Innocent, and now sees all comic team-ups through goggles of pederasty.

Holtron sighting in the background today. Like they realized they couldn’t fit the Cosmic Treadmill in every panel. The extra background detail almost makes up for Darin’s terrible three-fingered hand in panel one.

I can hear in my head the tone of voice that Darin is using in panel 3. It’s sad, disappointed, and only barely curious.

20-1 odds on there being a sideways Comic Cover tomorrow. With a repeat of this joke in a panel at the bottom.

There’s No Thumb Big Enough For This.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Count on Batiuk to take a relate-able peeve, hatred for kid sidekicks, and present it in such a way that we all feel both offended and annoyed.

I’m a Transformer’s fan, I know how bad the little kid sidekick can be. I’ve lived through Daniel Witwicky for Primus’ sake. One of my best friends couldn’t enjoy Reboot, (the greatest cartoon of all time, I said it, fight me,) because Enzo grated on her nerves like jalapeno sandpaper. Her unbearable pain was hilarious to witness, and gives me a model of how this could have been presented better.

But TommyBats decided to frame the innocuous punchline in a box of unfortunate implications, by turning Pete into the most overbearing mansplainer since Mark Trail. If Chester had just come up with the sidekick on his own, then Pete could have complained without the specter of mysoginy haunting the exchange.

Interesting to see that Mindy has not only been rendered a silent object by Pete’s temper tantrum, she’s beginning to fracture into some kind of Cubist, Surrealist monstrosity.

Patronizing Pathos

Link to Today’s Comic.

Yesterday when I joked about Batiuk doing this as a serious storyline, I was kidding. I really genuinely thought that the glare from Pete was going to be the beginning and end of it. And as bland and easy as that would have been, it would have been better than this.

This is, without a doubt, the most deeply uncomfortable strip I’ve seen Batty put out in YEARS. I’m not usually one that trumpets the ‘Batty is a blatant misogynist’ line, but I am reassessing my opinions of it.

No wonder Burchett is half-assing this… I would half-ass this as a form of silent yet visual protest.

I am genuinely curious if the fallout of this will be Mindy being cowed then educated by the power of SRS BIDNESS comic books, or Pete being put back in his place with cheap heavy-handed feminist patronizing. I could see it go either way.

I am very eagerly awaiting all of you Stuckfunkians tearing this strip to pieces in the comments.