The Annotated The Komix Thoughts

“The final Funky strip shows the future Lisa reading her great grandfther’s book, Lisa’s Story- The Other Shoe. The book had originally been titled The Other Shoe – The Complete Lisa’s Story.“

It’s both pretty funny and kind of sad how even his personal blog posts are full of pointless filler and careless sloppiness. No one cares less about his passions than BatYam does. Except for that freaking cancer book, of course, which he STILL cares about way, way too much.

Is there really a (former) regular FW reader who needed that last strip explained to them? I mean, come on. He relentlessly shilled, flogged, hawked and pimped that book for like sixteen years, there was no mystery or confusion present in that terrible, terrible ending. We all knew exactly what it was and exactly why it was there. So who does he think this is for?

Then (I don’t feel like linking to it, just go look at it yourself) he actually demonstrated the creative process involved in slightly changing the title of the cancer book, like it was interesting to someone, somewhere, in some distant alternate universe, or so I assume. Given how he just did the last strip, it would appear that the Annotated Ending series of blog posts are finished now, and we’re all poorer for it. If this is indeed the case, the last Annotated Ending post was every bit as anti-climactic and sad as the actual ending itself was, which is no mean feat. How DOES he do it?

Poppin’ and Lockin’

Well, I’m back, from Outer Space (Seattle). I just walked in to see Cranky sitting there with that dumb look upon his face.

Specifically this one,

NGL: This one got a chuckle out of me.

And if Cranky seems unfazed to be haunted by the disembodied soul of a former coworker appearing to give him advice, well…

Clutch Grinder, no relation to the late ‘Pop’.

This isn’t Ol’ Ed’s first Dickensian Rodeo.

Once again, Tom is pulling an old running gag outta his tattered old gag bag. Treating us to an entire week of that famed Bus Barn mentor and legend, Pop Clutch. And giving me another opportunity to sit awkwardly on the floor of my kitchen taking pictures of Crankshaft trade paperbacks that I’m holding open and flat with my toes like some kind of spy gorilla.

No idea who these two are. Early Crankshaft had some Bus Barn randos that never got names. The woman could be the principal, but this seems out of character for her.
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T.B. Tropes

Most works that are infamous for being bad – The Room, The Eye of Argon, Big Rigs Over The Road Racing, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Crown Royal – are bad in ways that are easy to explain, and apparent to anyone who consumes them.

Funky Winkerbean was an awful comic strip, but in ways that are difficult to quantify.

My usual go-to resource for this kind of analysis is TVTropes. A trope is a “narrative device or convention used in storytelling or production of a creative work.” TVTropes catalogues them all, and catalogues works in all media by the tropes they use. Most importantly, it gives us a language we can use to talk about what’s good or bad about creative works. It’s one of the best things the hive mind of the Internet has ever come up with. If you’re not already a reader, go check it out, but be warned that TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life.

I view tropes as the atoms of storytelling. Every object in your home, at its most fundamental level, is made up of atoms. Water is two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom. Salt is sodium and chlorine. If you look up your favorite book/movie/TV show/record/comic strip/video game/Bible story/anime/whatever on TVTropes, you’ll get a list of the tropes it’s made of. It’s a way of breaking down your favorite story into its most basic elements, and discussing what does well or badly.

Tom Batiuk’s writing is so bad that it defies this model.

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