Tag Archives: Cleveland

by billytheskink | November 18, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Ruby the Grate

In case you missed it, we are in the final weeks of Funky Winkerbean. Tom Batiuk appears to be reluctantly retiring the strip much in the same way he’s written Ruby as reluctantly retiring from Atomik Komix this week and in today’s strip. The timing of this thin gruel of a story arc and TB’s fairly muted announcement is certainly no coincidence. Most all of us here at SOSF, despite speculating for over a decade on when and how this thing would end, are probably still processing the suddenness of the announcement, how soon it will become reality, and what that means for this wonderful community going forward.

But enough wallowing about, let’s leave that to the strip and try to get back to business as usual. I guess today’s strip is aiming for bittersweet, but it largely is coming across as just bitter. You can’t mask your true feelings in a wall of smirks, TB… And even if the strip wasn’t ending at the close of this year, I’m guessing we were never going to see Chester meet with the building manager by looking in a mirror anyways. I’d say “a pity”, but, you know, it’s not. It’s really not.

139 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Amazon smirk, arcs that go on too long, Atomic Comics, Atomic Komix, Atomik, Atomik Komix, author avatar, awful wordplay, bad wordplay, Batom's bizarre comic book fantasy world, Batton, Batton Thomas, buildings, cavalcade of characters, Chester, Chester's intrigued face, Cleveland, comic books, comics, Darin, depression, eighteen different characters, extremely high character-to-panel density, Flash, Flash Fairfield, Flash Freeman, glasses, gradient voids, jaunty scarves, knowing smirks, lame wordplay, malapropism, many tags, Mindy, Minty Pete, misappropriated wordplay, Mopey Pete, multiple characters neccesitating many tags, one of those arcs that just never seems to end, Pete, Pete's Plaid Shirt, Phil, Phil Holt, poor female characters, retirement, Ruby, Ruby Lith, sad-sackery, scarf, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, smirk, smirking, smirks, smirks exchanged, sub-moronic wordplay, terrible wordplay, the untimely death of Phil Holt, word zeppelins, wordplay

by spacemanspiff85 | September 14, 2022 · 10:30 pm

I Bet Jessica Will Be In A Display Case Soon

Link to today’s strip

I’m curious to know how much trouble Mitchell had to go through to get this memorabilia. If nobody remembers them anymore, then there really couldn’t have been much of a demand for the stuff. I did some quick Googling, and I think all of these are actual real Cleveland TV personalities. I’m very interested in local history and tend to be pretty nostalgic, but I do kind of wonder how old Mitchell is supposed to be, and if he’d really remember this from his own childhood. I do again wonder why Batiuk had to portray him as a schlubby paranoid jerk, since he’s apparently appreciating old timey stuff, which is absolutely something Batiuk thinks is good.

57 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as backs of ears, Cleveland, Darin, Jessica, John Darling, memorabilia, Mitchell Knox, TV

by billytheskink | January 11, 2019 · 11:30 pm

It’s not what you thINK

The power is out again at Atomik Komix in today’s strip?! Oh no! That means we have to read a comic about the power being out again…

There is a lot in this strip, and it will make your head hurt if you actually think about any of it. So please don’t, that is the burden I have chosen to bear this week.
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Is Atomik Comix in such dire financial straights that Chester didn’t pay the electric bill? Was it because he couldn’t part with any more of his gardening catalog collection?

If the electricity in the old Batom Comics building is so unreliable that it goes out weekly…
– Why doesn’t Chester move his 3 employees to a few hundred square feet of space in one of Cleveland’s many affordable, functional, and maintained office buildings?
– Why is there no generator or other back-up plan to maintain power?
– How does this building pass city inspection? Even Cleveland has standards.

Why doesn’t Mindy know what to do? Not one week ago, she met a deadline while working from a coffee shop.

How does Mindy not know what Dr. Martin’s is? Yeah, I get that the average person doesn’t know what it is (which really weakens the Dr. Martins=Doc Martens joke) but she is paid for her apparent artistic talent and she’s never used physical ink or been into an art supply store?

Does Chester really think that ink he found in a box of unused supplies from Batom Comics is still usable for professional-quality work? For reference Batom Comics shut down in 1972.

How does Durwood’s face manage to get even longer?
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There, I’ve though about all of that for you. I have determined that there are no satisfactory answers and that this whole story arc is asinine, so don’t even think you need to worry about it. Carry on and have a nice Saturday.

22 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Atomik Komix, Chester, Chester the Chiseler, Cleveland, comic books, comics, Darin, hatchet face, Mindy, misplaced nostalgia for things that weren't all that great to begin with, Mopey Pete, nostalgia, Pete, procrastination

by billytheskink | January 9, 2019 · 11:30 pm

Thor’s Day, January 10

Today’s strip was not available for preview.

Isn’t that just like the comics industry? We finally have a story arc about a woman righting the egregious wrongs of the comic industry’s man-o-centric male-ocracy and then it stops being available for preview. Typical good ol’ boys club behavior, really…

Well, while we wait for the strip/truth bombs to drop, let’s take a look at the start of Mindy’s comics education, which began with the discovery of Lucy McKenzie’s comic book collection in the attic of the McKenzie home back in 2007… mere minutes after she smirked at a confused Lucy while visiting her at an Alzheimer’s home. That is really what happened.

cs4-5-2007