Tag: bullpen

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.

This Call To The Bullpen Is Brought To You By Intense Ennui

Link To This One

Blurgh. You have got to be f*cking kidding me. Not these two tiresome codgers again, it’s just too damn soon. The way this Flash asshole emerged from nowhere to become one of the most-used characters in the strip is one of Act III’s most astonishing developments. Suddenly Flash is pretty much the brains behind the entire Atomix Komix operation, the ever-patient comic book sage who spins his pathetic colleagues’ pitiful ramblings into comic book gold. He just has this undying fascination with this kind of ridiculous comic book creator banter, like this is how people actually work.

The less said about that woeful Type Face gag, the better. I liked Phil better when he was a gruff, surly jerk, as opposed to the moronic buffoon he is now. I liked him best of all when he was still dead, of course, but that ship has sailed.

Terminal Tedium

Oh, so we’re pretending the Atomic Komix crew actually works in today’s strip, are we? I suppose we are also pretending like it is normal for all of these people to fly to San Diego together for Comic-Con (not @home then, I guess)?

We’re pretending like Darin doesn’t have a wife and child to be concerned about? Wait… we’ve been doing that for years.

Well then we’re pretending that Flash has literally nothing better to do in his few remaining years (months? days?) than hang around a comic book company he never worked for? Oh… I guess we’ve been doing that for years too.

At least Chester appearing to care that his employees do their jobs is a new thing here.

Right In Der Füehrer’s Face

beckoningchasm
May 26, 2021 at 11:11 pm
You know, just spitballin’ here, but this arc kind of makes Ruby the worst person…

This really has been just a whole week of crap, hasn’t it? Start with the recurrent premise: Ruby regales Mindy with her story of life as The Only Woman Who Ever Worked In Comics (h/t batgirl‘s comment from yesterthread).

In fairness to Ruby, “woke culture” are two words that are hard to say together without making air quotes. She’s demonstrated herself to be pretty game when it comes to watching stag films with the guys every week, but Ruby does have boundaries: cross them and you’ll be physically assaulted. She’ll then channel that rage into her portrayal of Miss American socking…Hitler?!?  He’s been dead 76 years! Even if Ruby went into the comics industry straight out of high school, she’d have to be midway thru her nineties by now. Tune in next week when Ruby recollects her “King of the World” moment with Cliff Anger on the bow of that tramp steamer.

Stag Gag

Gerard Plourde
May 26, 2021 at 10:50 am
Does anyone else think it’s weird that TomBa thinks adult male bonding behavior includes WEEKLY GROUP viewing of porn?…I can imagine guys getting together for drinks at the end of work…but I find it hard to believe that this would happen outside of some member of the group’s office bachelor party.

Hitorque
May 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm
I don’t get it either…. Teenagers and maybe college students is understandable, but grown-ass men in their 30s and older watching erotica all huddled together in a dark office seems creepy as hell…

bobanero
May 26, 2021 at 9:08 am
The joke’s on her. This week’s feature is “Bambi”.

We can breathe easier knowing that getting together with coworkers to watch porn in the office after work probably isn’t something that happened even in the pre- “Women’s Lib” real world. It was merely a premise to set up  Ruby’s little joke on the guys. Ruby’s smug smirk bugs me, but I do like Pipe Smoking Guy. Kind of reminds me of a Thurber drawing.