Chester Has The Runs

Link To Today’s Strip

Big deal. I have a “complete run” of Blue Oyster Cult’s early work but you don’t hear me gloating about it. I hate it when BatNard wallows in his own self-indulgent crapulence like this. How many goddamned universes full of undeveloped characters can one comic strip creator have?

Well, at least we now know why there isn’t any Mrs. Hagglemore, as his mansion walls are literally lined with female repellent. Batty never fails to find new and innovative ways to remind regular FW readers about his cleverness, like those stupid sidewards Batom Comic covers are something we all look back on fondly or something. He wishes. The only one I really “remember” is the SJ wedding one featuring the space penis, although I try to forget it each and every day. Just so you know, no SoSF guest host is going to come out of this totally unscathed, I’m living proof.

One Of These Days These Comic Books Are Gonna Comic Book All Over Your Comic Books

Link To Today’s Strip

This is already week five of the Great Chester Hagglemore Batom Comics mega-arc  (oh yeah, it’s a mega-arc  at this point) and they’ve only just now arrived at Hagglemore Manor. I suppose he assumes we “like” Pete and Boy Lisa and thus are amused by their annoying patter and irritating banter but oh how very, very wrong he is. Day after day of mindless chatter, beating around the bush and avoiding the point, which has not yet been made entirely clear. That’s right, there’s a real no-fooling company that will PAY YOU to do this! It’s all a matter of knowing the “right people”, I guess.

I (shudder) went back and (ugh) re-read this arc (it amazing how quickly one forgets a FW weekly arc, isn’t it?) and counting this one I found only five strips that had anything to do with the premise. Chester asks about Pete (Sunday strip), John agrees to get them in touch, Chester texts Pete, Pete mooches ride to Ohio, Pete and Darin arrive at Chester’s. The rest of it was all incomprehensible nonsense about Jessica’s old sex life, the decline of fairy tales and petty theft, none of which could have had any less to do with anything. This is week five, so counting that Sunday strip this is the twenty-seventh strip in this arc. So only 18% of the strips in this arc had any relevance to the story and that’s using a very, very loose definition of “relevant” too. He could have told this entire “story” thus far in a mere five days and even then it would have been as thin as his everyday grip on reality. Just amazing.

What Hath Chester Wrought?

Link To Today’s Strip

Sure Pete, wrought iron work like that seems to be a lost art these days, sort of like how it’s been impossible to find actual jokes in FW since 1981 or so. Sigh. At least they’re finally there, although that driveway looks like it could very well take several more weeks to navigate. And speaking of navigating, that’s a spiffy Batiukmobile they’re in, eh? I recall seeing a few of those over in Albania before communism fell, they’d hand them out to all high-ranking party officials. I’m dying to see an arc centering around Westview’s new and used car lot, “Crazy Hektor’s House Of Off-Brand Motor Cars”. I’m assuming that the proprietor of Westview’s auto parts store hung himself years ago after one too many dreary locals came in looking for a rear flangelator for a ’92 Labda 3-cylinder diesel.

I hate how every FW character needs to wonder everything aloud just to repeat the premise over and over. I mean come on BatNard, we f*cking know where they’re going, they’ve been bantering about it almost non-stop for five weeks now. I really hope there’s a valet or something, as I don’t think I’ll survive a week-long arc about those newfangled backup cameras the new cars have nowadays and how much better it was when you had to turn around to see behind you “back in the day”. It’s a near certainty that we won’t know what Chester wants until Saturday, the question is how will he kill the next four days? My educated guess: moronic comic book banter. But you already knew that.

The Purity of Fandom is Never Tainted by the Coin of Commerce.

Link to today’s strip. Note: Comics Kingdom has finally awakened.

First of all, let me apologize for recycling a phrase for a blog post title, but I must confess I liked that phrase so much that I thought it deserved a bit of immortality.  Surely, if Tom Batiuk can resurrect the moronic whimsy he concocted when he was ten years old, I can re-employ a phrase from just last week.  Especially when mine is so much better.

Sunday’s strip was not available for preview, probably because it’s terrible and extra time would just mean extra critiques.  My guess this time is that we’ll remain with The Story of Chester Hagglemore, Bounder and Cad, Volume Eighteen, but every time I guess at these things it’s like Bullwinkle trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.   Except Bullwinkle was funny.  This strip…not so much.

So, here’s a nice painting of the seashore.

Speaking of funny, thus ends my time in the Cylinder of Despair; taking over, starting tomorrow, your master of ceremonies will be Epicus Doomus.  His posts are guaranteed to be funnier than this comic strip.  While admittedly that’s not much of a stretch, Epicus definitely brings the entertainment…while certain cartoonists we might name adamantly refuse to do the same.  Hail Epicus!

Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Preview

Link to today’s strip.

Well, so far Pete’s learned absolutely nothing of value from John, which isn’t even a little bit surprising.  I’m guessing that in today’s episode we learn even less, but as it wasn’t available for preview, we can all be disappointed together.

By the way, did any of you notice that Chester has a mutant super-power?  I’m a bit red-faced that I only recently saw this.  Observe:

He has the power to hitchhike whenever he wants!

Actually, let’s improve this.

Much, much better.

A couple of days ago, commentor Charles asked this:

“And why does it always have to be someone like Crankshaft and his daughter? I swear to God when I first made the observation that “There are 200 people in the Funkyverse and they’re all within two degrees of separation” I was joking.”

Many others have asked the same.  (And it’s almost always Crankshaft characters appearing in Funky Winkerbean, rarely the reverse–though I do remember Les showing up the used bookstore.  Les Moore?  Double-yuck!)

My own theory is that Tom Batiuk is trying to create some kind of Funky Winkerbean Extended Universe; the idea being that someone reading this would learn of Crankshaft and think, “Wait, there’s MORE like this?  Wow, I have to find that!”

Which is exactly the reaction he gets nowadays.  Oh, except the word “find” is replaced by “avoid.”