Flash has reached end of life status

Today’s strip gives us our first glimpse at a young Batton Thomas… back when he had the hair of a newscaster, the jaw of Rob Riggle, and the neck of something that doesn’t have a neck. Quite a contrast to today’s sad-sack Batton, who looks like he could be Pete’s dad (he’s not, John Darling program director Reed Roberts is). Trading that plaid seersucker jacket for a blue Members Only was a good call, though.

So The Flash #123 inspired Batton Thomas (and, most definitely, one Thomas Batiuk as well) to become a cartoonist, eh? How, exactly did it do that? If we are lucky we’ll get that answer in 6-10 business days. Or just visit the official Funky Winkerbean blog, where TB writes more about The Flash than he does about his own creations… Haha, yeah, you all go do that. I’ll wait.

Nothin’ But Reruns

Many apologies for the late and short post. Unfortunately, I was in a situation that was unavoidable, much like a Funky Winkerbean strip about comic books…

Today’s strip dares to ask the musical question, what’s a comic book doing in a comic book store? The answer may not at all surprise you.

Many of you beady-eyed nitpickers eagle-eyed commenters noticed that this is not only The Flash #123, but one of a series of recent reprints of the issue. You think Batton Thomas is going to try to pay DSH a dime for it?

Batton Exchange

Welcome to Son Of Stuck Funky’s week-long 11th anniversary spectacular! Well, it will be tacular, at least, we shall see on the spec… Today’s strip kicks thing off with a bang flash! You can have that one for free, TB. Hey, maybe I’ll even pay YOU to take it.

So, I’m billytheskink, and I am (apparently) contractually obligated to take over the author’s seat here at SOSF whenever Batton Thomas makes his annual appearance. I really should have read the fine print. But really, I covered both of Batton’s previous appearances, April-May 2019 (he crashed DSH’s Free Comic Book Day) and April 2020 (Les invited him to mope in front of his class), naturally. One could argue that he also appeared back in January of this year, moping about Komix Korner mere days before my last stint here started, but one could also argue that old moper was Jff Murdock.

Apparently Batton “used to be famous”. I guess that is why he only started appearing in Funky Winkerbean in 2019.

Bored on the 4th of July

Mindy halfway accuses Creepy Pete of plagiarism in today’s strip, something I actually enjoyed in concept. I would probably have enjoyed it in execution too if it was not wrapped in a dreadful gag about it being surprising that a woman would know comic book minutiae.

The gag, such as it is, falls apart if you assume that Pete has chatted about Mindy with her ex-boyfriend, his good high school buddy Eric “Mooch” Myers, who knows full well that there was a time not too long ago when she was not at all interested in comic books.

CS4-30-2007

Of course, why would anyone assume that? Who even remembers that Mindy dated Mooch back in high school or that she and Pete met at least once during that time? Not the author of this strip, I can tell you that.

Have a safe and happy July 4th, SOSFers! Don’t do anything Funky wouldn’t do… except smile, you can do that.

Les Cafards

I’m beginning to suspect TB is taking payola from the chiropractic industry when he submits sideways Batom comic book covers like in today’s strip. Let’s make that money go to waste…

FW11-5-2017

This is one of the wackier Batom covers and, frankly, one of the better ones I think. Such whimsy, however, falls a bit flat when juxtaposed with Les whining about having to actually work to promote his books. Work? Oh the horror!