Tag Archives: Amazon smirk

by billytheskink | November 18, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Ruby the Grate

In case you missed it, we are in the final weeks of Funky Winkerbean. Tom Batiuk appears to be reluctantly retiring the strip much in the same way he’s written Ruby as reluctantly retiring from Atomik Komix this week and in today’s strip. The timing of this thin gruel of a story arc and TB’s fairly muted announcement is certainly no coincidence. Most all of us here at SOSF, despite speculating for over a decade on when and how this thing would end, are probably still processing the suddenness of the announcement, how soon it will become reality, and what that means for this wonderful community going forward.

But enough wallowing about, let’s leave that to the strip and try to get back to business as usual. I guess today’s strip is aiming for bittersweet, but it largely is coming across as just bitter. You can’t mask your true feelings in a wall of smirks, TB… And even if the strip wasn’t ending at the close of this year, I’m guessing we were never going to see Chester meet with the building manager by looking in a mirror anyways. I’d say “a pity”, but, you know, it’s not. It’s really not.

139 Comments

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Tagged as Amazon smirk, arcs that go on too long, Atomic Comics, Atomic Komix, Atomik, Atomik Komix, author avatar, awful wordplay, bad wordplay, Batom's bizarre comic book fantasy world, Batton, Batton Thomas, buildings, cavalcade of characters, Chester, Chester's intrigued face, Cleveland, comic books, comics, Darin, depression, eighteen different characters, extremely high character-to-panel density, Flash, Flash Fairfield, Flash Freeman, glasses, gradient voids, jaunty scarves, knowing smirks, lame wordplay, malapropism, many tags, Mindy, Minty Pete, misappropriated wordplay, Mopey Pete, multiple characters neccesitating many tags, one of those arcs that just never seems to end, Pete, Pete's Plaid Shirt, Phil, Phil Holt, poor female characters, retirement, Ruby, Ruby Lith, sad-sackery, scarf, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, smirk, smirking, smirks, smirks exchanged, sub-moronic wordplay, terrible wordplay, the untimely death of Phil Holt, word zeppelins, wordplay

by billytheskink | November 12, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Scorched Earth

Well, at least today’s strip made it easy to choose a post title. I don’t feel like I had any other choice.

As far as the strip goes, is this really more feminine and more hopeful than Atomik Komix’s previous climage damate covers? (Eh and Eh are my answers) More importantly, is this the kind of cover Chester can be deadly serious about? Yeah, probably. Chester, introduced as an unscrupulous and unpleasant wheeler-dealer, is pretty much the most laid back boss ever these days.

Pete should leave the snark to us. For one thing, baked potatoes are delicious and this strip suffers greatly in comparison to them. For another, all this damate climage comic business was Pete’s idea in the first place. And above all, Ruby’s given him some prime snark ammunition by drawing some planet that does not appear in almost any way to be earth and he just completely misses it. Leave the wisecracks to the professionals in our comment section next time, Pete.

98 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Amazon smirk, Atomik Komix, baked potato, bullpen, climate change, climate damage, comic book art, comic book cover, comic books, comics, Comics Code Authority, curmudgeonly oldsters, deep space objects, drafting table, Fire, jaunty scarves, knowing smirks, melting faces, Mopey Pete, Old dying people, optimism, Pete, Pete's Plaid Shirt, Ruby, Ruby Lith, scarf, Scorch, smirk, smirking, smirks exchanged, space hate, Sunday comic book covers, The Scorch, tiny hands, Tom doesn't get women, traveling green shirt, unwarranted wry sarcasm, weird noses, Winkerbe-, women in comics, Women's Lib, wry banter, wry weary snideness, wryness

by billytheskink | November 11, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Nix Chix Fix Comix

Ruby has got to be regretting speaking up a few days ago because, as we see in today’s strip, she’s being told to… do her job?!

EGADS!

I know, I’m as shocked as any of you that someone at Atomik Komix is even suggesting the idea of doing work. Granted, Phil is suggesting that someone other than himself work, but still… This will probably work better for the deadline anyways, Phil is not known for his speed. Flash being kind of a jerk and everyone else standing around like this place has no editor in chief, or leadership of any kind – now that is the Atomik Komix we all know ~~and love~~.

Anyways, we’re back from “the climage damate comics aren’t optimistic enough” to “the damate climage comics aren’t, uh, something about women I think”. Are we supposed to see these two complaints as the same thing?

63 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Amazon smirk, arcs where nothing happens, Atomik Komix, Batom's bizarre comic book fantasy world, Batton, Batton Thomas, bullpen, bullying, climate change, climate damage, comic book art, comic book cover, comic books, comics, crappy ploddinng stories that never get anywhere, curmudgeonly oldsters, drafting table, enraging hair strands, Flash, Flash Fairfield, Flash Freeman, glasses, gray ashen landscape, jaunty scarves, melting faces, Mindy, Old dying people, people not doing their job, Phil, Phil Holt, Ruby, Ruby Lith, scarf, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, smirk, smirking, smirks, the comic book industry, this is all a horrible mistake, Tom doesn't get women, unnatural hand gestures, weird noses, who asked you?!, why?, women in comics, Women's Lib

by billytheskink | May 23, 2022 · 10:30 pm

0-2-1-3-4

Today’s strip is all about the numbers for me… and not just the zip code of “Boston, Mass”. We’ve got 3 faculty on stage here, which is what… half of WHS’ known paid staff these days (along with Les, Cayla, and Lefty)? Of course, maybe you only need 4 teachers, 2 administrators, and a Dinkle when you only have 16 students in your senior class. To be fair, only nerds would show up for a school assembly during the last weeks of their senior year, so maybe these are just all the nerds (that would explain why Maris Rogers is having to plan on crashing graduation parties instead of hosting them).

Wait a second, this is the Senior Honors assembly. That explains it…

^{With credit and apologies to the Scotts, Smith and Hepting.}

59 Comments

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Tagged as Amazon smirk, Amelia, anon-o-students, bad internet connections, Bernie, Bernie Silver, Chien?, Conner, Connor, COVID, COVID-19, crowd, crowds, Emily, extremely high character-to-panel density, failed gags, hatchet face, high school, ill-timed disaster-themed gags, Jim Kablichnick, Jim Kablichnik, knowing smirks, Linda, Linda Bushka, Logan, Logan Church, Maris Rogers, Nate, pandemic, smirk, smirking, smirks, smirks exchanged, Thatsnought Hewmore, things to do in Westview when you're dead, those annoying Crankshaft twins, those stupid Crankshaft twins, traveling green shirt, truly terrible gags, Westview H.S., Westview High School, WHS, Zoom

by billytheskink | May 21, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Silverfiche

OK, which one of you yutzes bet Tom Batiuk that he couldn’t put together another strip about Bernie Silver’s senior pictures? I suppose we have you to thank for today’s strip…

The good news is we can all boot up our Packard Bells and our MS Paints and join Bernie out in Tinseltown, where we’ll be paid handsomely for our rudimentary green screen skills (citation needed). Here’s a blank Bernie to start with: