Atomik Komix – Page 21 – Son of Stuck Funky

Flagrant Foul

If this is how Batiuk imagines the comic book creative process, then it’s no wonder he couldn’t get a job writing them. Pete is constantly spewing new characters based on whatever wanders through his field of vision. Even going back to his time being harried by Lord of the Late, some word association would lead him down a nightmare pun hole to a new asinine character.

I don’t need to tell any of you that compelling and exciting stories are built on conflict and plot. Maybe, in the old days, you had Plastic Man and Matter Eater Lad wackiness every month. But that was when comics were mass produced to be consumed and disposed of by children. Kids have YouTube unboxing videos to watch now. Comic books are for a niche market of teen and adult readers who will mock relentlessly stupid gimmick characters made from dumb word associations.

Speaking of stupid gimmick characters made from dumb word associations, have you guys seen Marvel’s ‘The New Warriors’? I guess morons like Pete CAN get jobs in comics.

The music of the years gone by.

Link to today’s strip

Except he wasn’t named for a sandwich, Pete. According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, Hoagland Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael was named after a circus troupe called the “Hoaglands” that had stayed at the Carmichael house during his mother’s pregnancy.

And we keep slipping further back in musical history, because ‘Stardust’ was recorded in 1927. I expect tomorrow we’ll be referencing ‘Maple Leaf Rag’, and by June Ruby will have pulled out a phonautograph to listen to the 1860 recording of ‘Claire De La Lune’.

At least Stardust has become something of a timeless classic, with famous covers by Sinatra, Louie Armstron, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Willie Nelson, and Fred Flinstone.

So don’t besmirch the Hoag for his weird name dear Pete. Then man wrote hundreds of songs, over decades, including ‘Georgia On My Mind,’ ‘Stardust’ and ‘Heart and Soul.’ HEART AND SOUL, Pete! The only song other than ‘Chopsticks’ passed around from one unlessoned kid to another via church basement pianos and children’s keyboards for decades immemorial. The song 70% of the population would try to plunk out if tied to a piano and told to play something under pain of death.

You will never, in your entire life, do anything that could even come close. Stardust was chosen by Library of Congress for the National Recording Registery. All you’ve done is come up with a handful of pathetic comic characters with even stupider names than Hoagland flailing their way through inane plots, barely earning you a footnote in history, Tom.

Um, I mean, Pete.

The Lost Generation.

Link to today’s strip

Pete has totally declared himself forever stuck in the nineties, the only decade when a child might not recognize a box of LPs on sight. “What are these?” There’s a record player on the friggen desk you dunce! With music coming out! Ruby has worked in the same office with you for how long? Pete comes across as a amnesiac toddler pointing to things he has to have seen a million times before and asking, “Wat dat?”

And all to cover the limitations of sloppy artwork. A more natural beginning to the conversation would be. “Hey Ruby, why did you bring your old record player in?”

The strip is nonsensical all across the board. Every panel has something either inane or baffling.

Everyone likes to listen to music while working. Find me a person who enjoys working in complete silence and I’ll have another name to add to my list of suspected pod-people.

And the record player is ON HER DESK, she might not even need to stand to flip that LP over. Does standing register steps on a fitbit? I’m guessing that Batiuk wanted to give an interesting juxtaposition of old and new technology to show that Ruby is hip with the times. But for THIS joke to work the record player would need to be on a separate table a few feet away. Which would have been doable, but Batiuk and Ayers didn’t even bother.

Strap in folks. It’s going to be a bumpy week.

Woo goo away, please!

We have Thatsnought Hewmore to thank/blame for today’s strip. Because HE demanded it! And true to his word, Pete didn’t write a crossover until Atomik Komix had more than four titles… they’ve had FIVE since the addition of Wayback Wendy.

The Comics Code Authority is not exactly the heaviest of punching bags in 2020… but it’s an especially odd one for Atomik Komix. This is a company founded on replicating Batom Comics and its Silver Age shlock in every possible detail… Chester hates that non-CCA guided new stuff. Batom Comics is said to have existed pretty much entirely in the CCA era and all of its titles would have adhered to the CCA’s guidelines. Go look at the Batom Comic covers that appeared every other Sunday before Atomik Komix happened, they’ve all got the CCA stamp.

That ends my latest stint writing this pap up. My honest apologies for not noting Son Of Stuck Funky’s 10th anniversary on April 9. I was and am quite honored to have been blogging when this site moved from its first decade into its second. Our esteemed founder, TFH, takes the helm for tomorrow’s certain tire fire and many thanks to him for launching this ship and picking up the survivors of the original Stuck Funky site. This site has picked up so many more folks over the years and has become one of the internet communities I value most. It has survived cease-and-desist letters, Comics Kingdom’s ever-changing strip link addresses, and TB’s best efforts to drive us to madness. I say “here’s to another decade”, because I cannot face whatever this strip has in store next without you all.

EvesdroPete

Crazy Harry shows us all that he never took a sales class in today’s strip, shilling for Atomik Komix by dumping on the comic book industry’s far more popular, far more established, and far more successful giants while Creepy Pete creeps about like a creeper (but not the comic book character, who has appeared in *gasp* multiple universes!). Maybe it worked, though we don’t actually see Komix Korner’s first sale since the Obama administration. This, uh… child (I think) actually seems interested in wasting $2.99 on a copy of Atomic Ape and its single universe of simian shlock. Sorry, the gray shading on that kid’s hair is throwing me off, he looks like a tiny Tom Batiuk.

This gripe about multiple universes that is shared by maybe 0.001% of all comic book fans that I have ever met is especially rich coming from TB, a guy who writes two comic strips that share a universe together and with a 3rd defunct strip, one of which is set 10 years ahead of the other even though both are depicted as taking place in the present day. So much less confusing than multiple universes…

Have a safe, healthy, and happy Easter Sunday SOSFers!