Tag: backs of ears

The Phantom Menace

Link to today’s strip.

So, Day Two of “Lisa Loved to Feed The Birds.” It’s a nice enough thing to do, sure, but it’s very low cost in terms of time and effort. You put out bird seed. Later, the birds eat it. It’s not like rescuing stray dogs, where you have to open up your home and take actual care of another creature.

Which is the obvious answer to Summer’s question in panel one. “Me? Give a damn about someone other than myself? Not likely! You screwed up, Summer–yes, you did.”

And of course his dialog in the third panel is stupid extraordinaire. “Oh my goodness, there’s a human-shaped form out there feeding the birds! It must be Lisa’s g-g-g-g-ghost!”

At least Summer looks like Summer this time. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not. I mean, she’s still Summer and will have to live with that.

I Sold Snacks So I Can Buy Snacks

You know you’re reading quality comedy/ground-breaking genre convention busting high Art and Literature when you’re getting an “airplane food is expensive” joke. I do think it’s a little weird that Dinkle went around raising funds from people so he could fly out to California and be honored. I also don’t really get how it’s band candy if someone not in the band is selling it, but whatever.
I do find the entire premise of today’s strip, “I told people I needed X amount of money to fly out here but kept begging people for money long after I reached X” to be pretty revealing. That seems bad, and not something that one of the heroes of your strip should be doing? And I don’t really know what he means by “let on”. Is he just saying that he lied to his wife about how much he sold, and how much money he has? Which seems pretty awful, actually. Or did he lie to the fundraising company and not report some of his sales, by like claiming a box went missing or arrived damaged or something? Setting up the extremely, extremely tired “airline food is expensive” gag that got old decades ago shouldn’t be this confusing.

Color Me Badd

The proofreading sucks, too! It should be spelled “ATOMIK Komix”

Still gotta question Mindy’s wisdom in engaging with this lunatic, particularly with someone else’s small child in tow. And what kind of shopkeeper would not immediately intervene in a shouting match between customers involving his comics professional friends for cryin’ out loud?

“The coloring” seems such a weirdly specific thing to like about a comic book, but there’s a creative achievement Eisner award for “Best Coloring.” A number of which awards have been earned by women, likely none of whom lucked into her career the way Min-duh did.

Nothing Is Really Work Unless You Would Rather Be Doing Something Else

“You really work for Atomik Komix?” “Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late…ah, I use the side door…that way Chester can’t see me, heh heh – and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.” Yeah, I stole that from Office Space, which is light years funnier, truer to life, and more timely than Funky Winkerbean.

For a comics geek, this guy is more than a little intimidating. His menacing demeanor, drab coat, and especially his Mohawk remind me of DeNiro in Taxi Driver…let’s call him Travis Brickel. Not only does he swear in front of a small child, by panel three he’s advanced on our group. And he’s totally just ignoring Pete, which is hilarious. I don’t think Pete’s panel 3 expression is fear; he’s just really hurt by what the guy said.

This strip actually might have been compelling had Batiuk kept it to only two panels. Check out my hastily composed edit:

Instead, he just has to give Mindy a comeback. Instead of shooting back with some #@!*🌩 of her own, the best sick burn she’s able to muster is a passive aggressive “Nice to meet you too!” Batty doesn’t even bother to put her words in one of those speech bubbles with icicles hanging off it.

It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Busman!

Banana Jr. 6000
December 4, 2021 at 2:02 pm
[Pete and Mindy] getting married or having children makes no sense to me. Their relationship is built around their mutual desire to avoid adulthood. Which is Batiuk is probably going to make it happen.

And which also would qualify them as ideal babysitters for Skyler! Look, I know there’s no point in bitching about the way time passes in the Battyverse, but this kid would just have turned eight years old. He hasn’t changed a lot since we saw him last two Christmases ago. He still hasn’t been introduced to comic books and pizza?