Batom Comics – Page 16 – Son of Stuck Funky

Damsel Under Duress

Actually, Cigar McBalding’s idea sounds like a good one. While he’s obviously proposing it for prurient reasons, the Comics Code Authority would curtail anything outrageous, and really, I think it would make the Starbuck Jones comic a bit less one-dimensional.

Which makes it strange that McBalding is proposing it. I thought he was supposed to be the greedy, money-eyed villain of the Batom Comics company (despite him being, uh, the publisher). Here he is, actually trying to improve the book.

Of course, I’m thinking of a typical comic book; in the context of this strip, adding a new female character opens up the whole can-o-worms that is “female characters in the Funky Winkerbean world,” which is a place that is really depressing. Starbuck Jones already has a robot that can bring him hot chocolate and cookies while he’s reading comic books…what else can a woman do? I guess she can travel the universe, collecting comic books for him, or she can die of cancer. At all times, though, she must show herself as way inferior to her man.

Ah well, when you’ve got a 50th Anniversary as a goal, it’s a bit late to start learning new tricks. You just need to get there, pal, any way you can.

The Turning of the Tables

Link to today’s strip.

Now, this is curious. Presumably, Cigar McBalding is the guy who founded Batom Comics.

Let me just repeat that: Cigar McBalding is the guy who founded Batom Comics.

Here, his staff is all but openly insulting him, already positive that whatever idea he’s about to present is absolute garbage.

In real life, Tom Batiuk is the guy who founded Batom Comics.

And I’m going to guess that he has a staff.

I don’t want to draw too many conclusions…

Is this a cry for help?

How can a person, who only listens to himself, cry for help? That seems like an interesting philosophical conundrum, which I leave to the philosophers among you to ponder.

(Who says I have to post things that are 8000 words long? Enjoy my brevity, fellow snarkers!)

Deja Doom

Link to today’s strip.

Oh good heavens…are we all trapped in Hell, where we have to relive things over and over again, until we’re forgiven and allowed to pass into purgatory? Didn’t we just go through all this “back in the day” stuff? In fact–isn’t Pete’s dialogue in panel two an exact repetition of what he said before? (I’d look it up, myself, but I’m starting to feel a distinct aversion to going through old Funky Winkerbean strips. Life being short and all.)

How much padding does Tom Batiuk need to get to that 50th anniversary? Wait–don’t answer that!

Well, since we must, I’m guessing the answer is…a lot.

As for today’s day-old bread, again, I posit thus: that Pete here is merely a clerk-typist, tasked with putting the real screenwriter’s handwritten notes into proper script format. After all, he’s never been to a script meeting, and none of the producers have ever come by to chat about the project, even though he’s in the same building and everything.

I think he was hired because Mason wanted to do Cindy a favor, and CME thought Mason was valuable enough that he could be indulged a bit. But when they got his first draft, things went sour (“What the hell is this about sponges? And clones of sponges? And why does Starbuck Jones have so many soliloquies railing against short-sighted editors?”) and he was quietly moved out of the writer’s chair into something more attuned to his abilities.

As for Darin, I have no idea why he’s even here. Storyboards are typically done when there’s a reasonably final version of the script in place; there’s no point in paying someone to draw out sequences that may never be passed out of committee, let alone see the light of film. (Particularly for a firm that produces cable-TV movies, most of which are cancelled.)

That sort of thing is nowadays called “pre-visualization” and I think it’s beyond Darin’s abilities–after all, you have to imagine something that works, rather than assuming failure right out of the gate, and no one from Westview has that talent.

Story Bored

SosfDavidO here, and like most of us, we just can’t get enough of watching the writing and editing process being depicted in the media. If you enjoy pasty-faced nerds staring uncertainly at word processors as much as I do, you’ll really like the action in today’s strip! The sepia edges indicate it’s a flash back but it’s NOT, because he’s imagining they’re working at Batcom Comics in the 1940s because.. your guess is as good as mine.

Sans Comic

SosfDavidO here! Now that the storyline where Cory sold off his comic books has ended we’re now headlong into a new, fresh storyline about.. comic books. Today’s strip returns us to glamorous Hollywood, where the only hint they’re in California and not 1960s West Germany is the peek of a palm tree in the P2 window. Tombat didn’t even have time to do brick-work on today’s tombstone of a building!