books no one will ever read – Page 4

Summer Is The New Les

Were you looking forward to a light-hearted week with the Pizza Box Monster? Well, you’re not getting it. It’s time for Summer’s Story! We might as well start calling it that, because Tom Batiuk couldn’t telegraph his intentions any harder.

I realize that Batiuk uses Funky Winkerbean to indulge his frustration that he hasn’t won the praise he thinks he deserves, by lavishing it on his many self-insertion characters. But how many times does he need to do this? We’ve already seen Les and Lillian McKenzie get the deluxe treatment. The Atomik Komix team gets a ton of it as well. Several other characters, like Dinkle and Holly, have written books. Why do we need another story where someone becomes an author? Why does he need another story where someone becomes an author?

Silverfiche

OK, which one of you yutzes bet Tom Batiuk that he couldn’t put together another strip about Bernie Silver’s senior pictures? I suppose we have you to thank for today’s strip…

The good news is we can all boot up our Packard Bells and our MS Paints and join Bernie out in Tinseltown, where we’ll be paid handsomely for our rudimentary green screen skills (citation needed). Here’s a blank Bernie to start with:

Now go forth… The possibilities are endless!

History!

Sports!

Economics!

The deaths that built Gordon Lightfoot’s house!

Stolen Valium

In today’s strip Les, appropriately, puts all of his stolen Hollywood paraphernalia in same place.

Marianne doesn’t appear to understand the concepts of opacity and walls.

Cayla plans to monetize this display even though presently no one seems willing to visit the Moore house for free (and people are willing to visit Dinkle!).

Why am I blandly narrating this strip in lieu of hard-hitting commentary and rapier wit? Because I know my limits. Why is Les blandly narrating his actions in the first panel? Because there is no limit to his disdain for even those that worship him.

Twenty-Four-get This Dreck

Oh hello Mr. Stock Male Nerd Cartoon #27 from 10,000 Clip Art Images ’98 CD-ROM (OS/2 Edition), glad you could make it to today’s strip. If you hadn’t shown up, Pete and Durwood might have had to twiddle their thumbs, and we all know how much they hate slacking off…

Y’know what’s really nerdy? Math! Let’s do some math. Lessee, it’s early May, so we’ll say Atomik Komix most recent issues were published in April. Here’s their titles that we know of and when we first see them “published”.

The Inedible Pulp – May 2018
Rip Tide: Scuba Cop – July 2018
Atomic Ape – September 2018
The Scorch – January 2019

Assuming one issue per month for each title, there would be 33 issues. Assuming a once every two months schedule there would be 17 issues.

The Inedible Pulp – 12 issues/6 issues
Rip Tide: Scuba Cop – 10 issues/5 issues
Atomic Ape – 8 issues/4 issues
The Scorch – 3 issues/2 issues

No math involving this strip or story arc equals entertainment.

The Hair-ried Author

Oh no, Les is back in today’s strip. And along with ol’ smirk n’ shirk we get three would-be nominees for This Week In Milford’s pantheon of hair. Let’s see… we’ve got a phone camera operator sporting a Dave Coulier mullet, a proud Lisa book-buyer wearing the Luke Skywalker, and someone so enthralled with the many justifications for John Darling’s murder in Fallen Star that they are morphing into Albert Einstein. Fantastic.

Well, that took my mind off of yet another strip where Les shows contempt for the people who want to give him money for his work, for a few minutes at least.

Thanks, SOSFers, for putting up with me and TB (mostly TB… I hope) for another two weeks. The unenviable task of covering a crazed bald man palming two imaginary grapefruits (and whatever else next week brings) falls to someone significantly more well-known to the average comic strip reader than Phil the Forecaster, our own Comic Book Harriet. Good luck.