Tag: Batom Comics

Hardboiled Volk

Today’s strip tells us literally the same thing that Friday’s strip did. Marianne’s fate will remain a mystery for another day… that day quite possibly being Christmas Day. We are in color again, but I’m not quite getting that infomercial tonal shift feeling I described a few days back.

I feel it my duty to point out that a story about an actress who is driven to suicide (possibly) by cyberbullies is not “hardboiled” It’s pretty much the exact opposite of hardboiled, actually. It can be many other things: sad, appalling, educational (or in TB’s hands: implausible, maudlin, and preachy), but a word meaning “tough, cynical, unsentimental” as hardboiled does? No.

Us beady-eyed nitpickers may notice that Tom Lyle’s signature offers additional proof that TB works a year ahead, not that we really needed it.

lylesignature

You can see the conception of this comic book cover on the official Funky Winkerbean blog

To The Moon, Alice

Despite hatching the title “In The Clutches Of Queen Morphine!”, TB breaks from his typical tone in today’s strip. Yes, what sounds like the title of an Act II addiction-awareness pamphlet written by Mopey Pete, or something else right up TB’s alley, is actually a setup for some cheesecake space action. Weird.

Anyways, Cindy is still jealous, Mason still oblivious, and this whole Starbuck Jones movie deal is still ridiculous. There was no resolution this week… I’m afraid to see what might come next. Walt Kelly help us all.

I would like to thank everyone but Tom Batiuk for these last couple of weeks. Taking over tomorrow will be, your friend and mine, the nonpareil DavidO.

Double Shot of My Batty’s Love

I suppose we can’t blame Tom Batiuk for taking Fathers Day off and yielding the floor to a “real” comic artist. But we’re left with so many unanswered questions.

Mason Jarr casually  informs Cliff, on-set and in costume, that they are concurrently “shooting” Starbuck Jones and its sequel? Did Cliff not read and sign a contract? Or is he so delighted to have been rescued from obscurity that anything is fine with him? “I can’t believe they’re shooting two at once!” This from a man who became (obstensibly) famous as an actor in serial films. Do you suppose these were shot episode by episode, totally in sequence?

Let’s move on to the content that’s not drawn by Batiuk: a fucking Western? Because “shooting two at once”? Maybe this one of Batty’s obscure, beloved old comic covers that he tries to to bend the narrative in order to make it fit? We Google “comic book ‘arizona ranger‘”  to find the source…there’s Lone Ranger comics…Texas Ranger comics…there’s, um, this…

Turns out it’s not a vintage comic after all, but is instead another title from TB’s imaginary Batom Comics: he mentioned The Arizona Ranger in his blog two years ago (along with Charlie and Chuck and Mr. Sponge). So TB commissioned this “tribute” (from an artist who is old enough to be a contemporary of Cliff Anger’s) and really doesn’t care if it makes any sense.

The Fan-Tom Empire

Cowboys, thunder riders dressed in quasi medieval armor shooting futuristic weapons, robots with flamethrowers— The Phantom Empire viewed genre boundaries as mere inconveniences rather than limits…I became fascinated with the idea of taking what was considered to be a low art form and creating something of substance within those confines, of trying to take what others considered junk and turning it into something more. That thought continued to inform my cartooning choices for the next fifty years. It’s hard to overestimate the impact that The Phantom Empire has had on my developing brain.

From the introduction to The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume One

So today, Batiuk’s “writing what he knows'” sharing with us readers a space opera that influenced his creative vision as a youth. At the same time he’s writing about something about which he has no idea: how today’s Hollywood motion pictures are made. “I think seeing that old serial is really going to be helpful with our movie.” Mason might as well be talking about a campfire skit or routine that they are preparing for a middle school talent show. And I’m waiting for the day when Darin snaps at his old buddy Pete: “Shut the fuck up already about ‘back in the days of Batom Comics!'”

Anyway, snarkers, it’s good to be back in the SoSF wheelhouse as we approach the 6th anniversary of Son of Stuck Funky! Stay tuned for a special announcement of the first contest around here in awhile. Details to follow! Happy Easter!

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire

Link to today’s piffle.

The content of today’s strip implies that Droppo and Pungent spent the entire weekend doing a cover mock-up.  (Complete with title, logo, price, etc.  Is Darin also a compositor in the print shop?)  Because a cover is the only thing that Cigar McBalding is holding…  I thought they were supposed to be doing an entire comic book, and that’s why it was so arduous?  Hell, I could do a cover mock-up over a weekend without a problem.

–Unless I missed something–this strip is so careful and attentive to detail, after all.

If all they were doing was a cover, why was Pete even there?  Oh well, looking for consistency or common sense in this thing is a fool’s errand.  It’s like asking, “Why is Darin’s hair in color when everything else is sepiatone?”  There’s no answer to that, man.

I think Moon Mile Meek is the big-eared thing barely visible at the bottom of panel one.

I seem to recall some Bat-Mite like thing on other Starbuck Jones covers.   Doesn’t seem like a great idea to give it its own book, but what do I know?  Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen was a successful enough comic for years.  Of course, Olsen was an occasionally entertaining moron who drank whatever potions he found lying around, turned ray projectors on himself and ate millions of pancakes.  Then Superman would have to save him.  And then, the exact same thing would happen all over again the next month.   There were always more potions, radioactive rocks, alien artifacts, magical crowns, and so on.  Superman never lost patience with Jimmy or tried to knock some sense into him (and his teeth out of him), and despite what I imagine were hundreds of fan letters, Superman never punched Jimmy so hard he flew into a completely different comic book.

So I suspect that the same formula would follow in Moon Mile Meek, minus the “entertaining” bits of course.  After all, the exact same thing happens with Funky Winkerbean.  Someone will be asked to do something, he’ll complain the entire way, then it’ll end with a pun and a smirk.  Interesting how the Starbuck Jones universe keeps expanding, while the strip that hosts it continues to shrink.

So, are we all ready for the comic book tribute tomorrow?  It looks like it might be well drawn at least.