Testosterony’s really neat! Hooray! For testosterony!

We’ve teased you with her face at the top of the page for a full week now… but she’s finally here folks! Please welcome Ruby Lith to the climage damate/pandemic/supply chain issues story arc (now with comic book misogyny or something) in today’s strip.

Is Ruby just annoyed that all of the damate climage comic books Atomik Komix is putting out don’t feature female characters or are too muscle-bound action man violence explosions so many explosions-oriented (did she forget about The Oceanaire?.. well, she doesn’t appear to be the only one) or does she believe that these issue du jour comic books would somehow be more effective in changing the hearts and minds of the world citizenry if they weren’t so… ugh, “testosterony”? And why is she addressing Batton like he works at Atomik Komix? Unless… oh no. Surely it won’t come to that, will it?

Climate-specific progress goes “broke”

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd, back to damate climage in today’s strip. I know we were all wondering how last month’s second issue of The Subterranean sold. Not well, which I am sure surprises absolutely no one. Flash seems especially put out by this… and it was Batton that got nicknamed “Bummer”?

You know, the climage damate books aren’t the only things at Atomik Komix not working…

Pulp Fiction

As long as author avatars are popping into today’s strip

Shoving the temples of your glasses INTO your ears is painful. Worst of all, you can still hear these two ding dongs when they talk. Would not recommend.

Durwood has a pretty poor grasp of economics for the holder of an alleged MBA… but look, if you really want, I’ll grant that the loopy and incredibly fictional economy of the Batiukverse means that Silver Age Omnibus books are such tremendous demand that Durwood’s Catch-22 makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that quite literally yesterday we were told that these fancy comic books couldn’t be shipped on time due to climage damate. Now the blame rests with the Pandemic/COVID/Supply Chain Issues/Amazon/Internet/Inflation (oops, we’re not yet a year out on that last one filling up the column inches, check back next summer when inflation somehow closes Montoni’s again)? Make up your mind TB Batton!

Damate Climage

Much thanks to Banana Jr. 6000 for slogging through Summer’s ludicrous Could Be A Book Deal Here moment over these past two weeks… which, despite revealing that Montoni’s is apparently closing (!!!) and launching Summer off to interview countless uninteresting people who appeared in this strip 30-40+ years ago, does NOT continue in today’s strip. I’m not mad about that or anything, but I am surprised.

But should I really be surprised? Over the past 5 years or so we’ve seen TB shift well away from the two workplace communities (Westview High School and Montoni’s) that have defined this strip for pretty much all of its existence, largely replacing them with this new one he’s created at Atomik Komix (toss in the Komix Korner scenes and the shift is even more pronounced). If you had told me 5 years ago that comic books would somehow become MORE important in this comic strip in the near future I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But it is and they are, as very clearly evidenced by today’s strip in which TB’s latest issue du jour has taken on even more critical importance because it has now directly affected his author avatar’s sad little comic-obsessed world.

P.S. – I am now refusing to use the asinine term for climate change that TB continues to flog even though no one else on the planet uses it. I’m going to call it damate climage or climage damate or issue du jour or nothing at all for the rest of this story arc and the foreseeable future. I am aware this is stupid, but it is not as stupid as the term I’m refusing to use. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

I Am Serious, And Stop Calling Me Deadly

Link, Please Click Here For Strip

“Bummer Batton”…LOL, I get it. Batiuk is always at his weirdest when he tries to get all “meta”. Once again he’s gently poking fun at himself in that wry, self-effacing way of his, and once again, it just sets my teeth on edge and makes my fillings hurt. Making fun of FW is OUR thing, Tom, so either do it right or stay in your goddamned lane, you big, overly-sincere lug.

It bears repeating to once again mention how, once again, TomYam deftly avoids the whole “climate change” kerfuffle by a) calling it “climate damage”, which no one else does, and b) never really taking any kind of concrete stand one way or the other. He acknowledges that it exists, but that’s it. He knows who butters his toast, and he’s not going to risk generating a tide (half a dozen) hand-written letters to the editor complaining about those damned hippie comic strips that bumped “Gasoline Alley” from the local funny page. Better to be incredibly vague, thus dodging that whole issue entirely. He’s kind of good at that, actually. In another life, I bet you that BatHam would have made quite a cunning local politician, like a state assemblyman or something, carving out an unremarkable but incredibly long-lived career by deftly straddling both sides of every issue, and that’s it.

“Assemblyman BattonTom! Channel One News. Where does your office stand with the controversial “Books For Orphans” program and the controversy swirling around it ever since the allegations were made public.?”

“It’s something I’ll need to look at. We might not have many tomorrows left, you know. I think voters should be hearing about this.”

He’d have been really good at it. And he’s real sincere and self-effacing too, in case you failed to notice. One can’t help but wonder what might have happened if BatYarn had put this unique talent of his to some kind of good use, instead of squandering it on a f*cking comic strip, of all things.