Batom Comics – Page 11 – Son of Stuck Funky

Holting On To The Past

RIP Phil Holt, the latest FW character to sadly bite the dust. Well, at least he didn’t suffer. Apparently he had no family or friends, so he bequeathed his career-defining original artwork to some jerk he bummed a ride from a few months back. Too bad Phil didn’t own a pizzeria too, as then EVERYTHING would finally be going Boy Lisa’s way.

Pete’s reaction here is totally baffling. “I would have appreciated them too”…what? Is he being hypothetical and merely commenting on how awesome they are or is he expressing jealousy, like he wishes Phil would have left HIM some original artwork too? Either way he looks like a dick, as most normal people in his position would probably say something like “holy shit, Phil Holt died and left YOU his career-defining original art???” or something like that. Or maybe express some sadness about the news, you know, like normal people would. And these nitwits are his FANS, mind you. Imagine what Phil’s enemies must be saying about him right now.

Wholly Predictable

Link To Today’s Strip

Wow! More comic book collectibles! Those will no doubt triple in value within a few decades and might be worth WELL over nine cents apiece by then! That Skyler sure is a lucky kid, when Boy Lisa kicks the bucket he’ll stand to inherit the ENTIRE Boy Lisa collection! That oughta be enough to pay for college AND a few pizzas too! Well, a good online college at least…IF he qualifies for some sort of comic book scholarship program, that is. Otherwise his path seems shaky at best right now unless he really, really likes old comic books.

Congrats to the SoSF snarkers who successfully predicted the contents of Boy Lisa’s Mystery-Pak. Although in fairness what else could it have been? After all, it was the wrong shape for a pizza box. I likewise assume that Phil Holt is dead, which makes him the shortest-lived FW character ever, assuming that Darin’s weird half-sister is still alive, that is. BatNom has spent countless weeks on Pete and Darin daydreaming about what it must have been like to work at ol’ Batom Comics, then he introduces a character that actually did work there only to kill him off after one appearance. Apparently the great comic book art master had no one better to leave his career-defining work to other than a guy he met and hung out with exactly once, which says a lot about the glories of being a comic book artist, at least from one perspective.

How Blue Was My Astra

Maybe I’ll update this post later on and maybe not, but in the meantime please enjoy today’s strip without dislocating your neck. BeckoningChasm will be heckling the Starbuck Jones cast and crew from behind the velvet ropes starting Monday. Thanks to BC and to Team SoSF and most especially to you, the readers!

Your genial host,
TFH

Same Old Used to Be

Starbuck Jones…was the brainchild of Batom Comic’s first official writer Flash Freeman…Freeman had reached out to Phil Holt, an artist he had worked with from time to time on his various freelance jobs. Part illustrator, part cartoonist, Phil was the perfect artist for the job. His clean exciting style set the tone for the series right out of the gate.

“Batom Comics – The Untold History Chapter 3” at the official FW blog

So there’s the backstory, for those of you who understandably can’t be arsed to follow the 11-part (and counting) history of Batiuk’s cloud cuckoo land comics empire. I shall use the rest of my time to share some observations about Rick Burchett’s artwork. Where Batiuk often would eschew busy backgrounds in favor of a crosshatched, encroaching black void, RB likes to cram in lots of detail, and today’s strip is a case in point. The kid sitting for a caricature resembles bratty Angelica from Rugrats, but Phil depicts her, as he probably depicts everyone he draws, as a flying superhero. In the background, a kid inexplicably goes sailing ass-over-teakettle through the air.

As Chyron HR pointed out in the comments yesterday, Phil Holt bears a resemblance to legendary comics artist Jack Kirby, born one hundred years ago this month. According to Batom’s “history,” Phil drew the first SJ comic in 1954; he’d be in his mid-eighties by now, which makes his having to work kids’ parties a little depressing. But in a universe where a nonagenarian actor is feted at Comic Con and a WWII vet still drives a schoolbus, I suppose this is totally plausible.

Martin Mulls It Over

Greetings, SOSFers! It’s billytheskink here – your favorite lizard-named, Martin Mull-referencing, pointless trivia-posting, guest author.

I was wishing (and hoping, and thinking, and praying) that yesterday’s strip was the coda to this Comic-Con arc. It certainly looked like it could be. Unfortunately, it was a tease, and today’s strip takes us right back to yesterday’s ocean-side confab to discuss… the Starbuck Jones movie premiere. Goody, another week of this. That’s four straight weeks now.

A relative of mine had a baby back in June. That baby will be 8 weeks old at the end of this week. FW strips involving Starbuck Jones will have appeared during 65% of her life. This makes me incredibly sad.