Tag: Comic Book tribute

All Dried Up

Ow, my neck. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, today’s strip is a closer look at the cover that was hinted at in yesterday’s panel one, just in glorious color. I wish there was an in-browser way to rotate this but it looks like we’re just all going to have to cock our heads.

A few thoughts:

You’re on issue 57, and most superheros don’t get a sidekick until the writers are out of ideas. It’s the comic equivalent of when a TV sitcom writer turns to another and says: “Have we done the ‘stuck in an elevator’ bit yet? It happens to most heroes, and usually it’s pretty clear heroes are kinda more bad-ass on their own than with a partner and we never see the sidekick again.

I’m looking at you, Rover.

Hawkeye_Vol_2_2

Pete is so worried his readers are going to hate him for killing Absorbing Jr but if he thinks that’s an issue, just wait until he brings lil’ Spongy back with a lame time-travel or ‘it was all a dream’ cop-out.

Reneger Please

A HREF
June 30, 2014 at 11:47 am
“If you take their money, it’s their turn to tell the story”. Michael Connelly on asking whether it bothered him about the changes that occurred when his novel Blood Work was adapted to a movie.

I think it was a polite way of saying “I cried all the way to the bank”.

If this is not Les at his most pathetic and unlikable, then I don’t want to be around when he finally sinks to that nadir. When he insisted on writing his screenplay, his agent clearly informed him that the studio would likely rewrite it. “Hollywood” sent him a huge check and then patiently waited a year while Les struggled to turn in a screenplay. They flew him (and his imaginary cat) to Hollywood, booked him a fancy hotel room, and fed him tandoori chicken. Feeling thus “betrayed” and alone, Les calls Cayla back in Ohio. But rather than depict honest human conversation between husband and wife (during which maybe Cayla tells Les to get over himself), Batiuk treats us to another obscure comic “tribute’ which equates Les’ Hollywood experience with being dropped into a pit of vipers. My favorite part is how Cowboy Les, even in this dire predicament, still has this “why me?” look on his face.

The original (more colorful) Rawhide Kid cover

Rawhide Kid on Wikipedia

Multi-Failing

Today’s strip

Nope, it’s not TFH, you’re stuck with your faithful old pal Epicus for another fun-filled week! And based on the header pic, it’s going to be one hell of an arc, possibly featuring multiple views of Funky’s enormous freak ass as he hangs Halloween decorations! Trick or treat in-deed!

131027Man, TheAuthor really outdid himself with this drawing. A broken, exhausted Bull is just dripping with shame, fatigue and defeat while Linda doesn’t even try to hide her weary disgust and indifferent disdain while blurting out her usual meaningless platitudes. And not only does it come completely out of left field, but it’s crammed into a completely unrelated comic book cover tribute too, floating there like the proverbial turd in a punchbowl. I guess “sports” was supposed to be the “common theme” here but man, that’s a pretty f*cking tenuous connection.

That Evening with Frankie

It wouldn’t be A Very Special Funky Winkerbean Story Arc if Batiuk didn’t manage to work in a Sunday comic book tribute. Interestingly, Batiuk’s Medina homeboy Tony Isabella featured this very comic book cover on his blog a little over a year ago. Also worth noting that while the guy pictured here has the same skin tone as the woman, that the FW colorist has made him positively swarthy. He’s like Lenny in reverse.

The Lisa-Frankie “romance” so far: insecure “new girl” can’t believe that the handsome jock has asked her out. He picks her up in his leopard-print upholstered bread truck. Later, they attend a party where they both consume alcohol. On the way home, Frankie stops in an alley where we must assume they had unprotected sex. Lisa’s journal only informs us that this was not a good idea, but was she in fact raped? What were her “high expectations” when Frankie parked in that alley? Did her low self esteem lead her to just go along despite her better judgment? Nothing to this point suggests that this was non-consensual (“Uncle Jfff’s” recollection of the near-punching seems to have taken place either after the sex or on a different night–Lisa’s dressed differently). In the 2001 flashback to Lisa’s teen pregnancy, she even offhandedly describes Frankie as a “lousy” lay.

What makes today’s panel so infuriating, of course, is that interview Batiuk gave back in March, where he teased this story arc:

In the return of that story we deepen the teen pregnancy story and say that it was a little more than just youthful indiscretion on Lisa’s part. There was some coercion involved (emphasis added).

With that, Batiuk goes above and beyond “tell don’t show”: he’s telling about “telling, not showing”. Any coercion on Frankie’s part, particularly of an alcohol-impaired Lisa, makes TB’s evocation of “Romance” today stupid, tone-deaf, and wrong.

The More You "NO!!"

(Long post! Click here to jump directly to comments!)

Before we announce the winner…here are the runners-up!

BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 2:20 am
Let’s have a contest. Who would be the lamest person unmasked as The Lord of The Late? This being Funky Winkerbean, the possibilities are endless. Funky? Frankie? Fred? Montoni? Pizza? Hatred? Chien? Doctor Octopus?

Rusty
March 22, 2013 at 12:25 am
Dead Lisa is everywhere.

Epicus Doomus
March 22, 2013 at 12:41 am
It’d be equally hilarious if LOTL was Batom himself and it’d probably make more sense than whoever it’ll actually be…

O.B. Dan
March 22, 2013 at 2:16 am
Pizza Twat!

Helskor
March 22, 2013 at 6:54 am
It’s the sentient computer from Act I.

Beanie Wanker
March 22, 2013 at 7:22 am
…consider this: LOTL wears a hoodie. Summer wears a hoodie. Anyone seen Summer since she went off to K*nt state?.

saturnino
March 22, 2013 at 7:42 am
Ed Crankshaft.

bad wolf
March 22, 2013 at 10:13 am
I’ll take…Durwood at 1:1. “That’s weird, why am I dreaming about holding down my high school friend in such a homoerotic manner?”

jackson53d
March 22, 2013 at 10:16 am
Come On Guys – It has to be “Evil” “Obama” from the “Bible“

Jimmy
March 22, 2013 at 10:20 am
You’re all wrong. It’s Stan Lee, defending quality comics everywhere from the likes of Pete and Tommy.

Bill A
March 22, 2013 at 7:43 am
It’s Colonel Mustard in the library with a hammer…

BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 10:27 am
I think I’ll go with Dead Comic Book John…

Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 10:59 am
I’m going with Aquaman.

$$$Westview Oncologist$$$
March 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Surprised nobody has brought up Ming the Merciless as a possibility.

As always, your suggestions are more entertaining…and no less plausible…than the actual denouement, which most of you had to have seen coming, even as you suggested/hoped for other scenarios:

TheDiva
March 22, 2013 at 12:04 am
It’s Pete himself–oops! Didn’t mean to spoil this shocking twist to anybody who hasn’t seen The Empire Strikes Back or a single episode of The Twilight Zone.

sourbelly
March 22, 2013 at 1:09 am
Wait, LOTL is basically just wearing a blue hoodie. Can’t Pete already see his face? And yeah, The Diva, it’s probably Pete staring back at himself. If not, well, whatever.

Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
It would probably be Pete, which makes no sense but it’s a lame way out (“it was me all along!”). Then again, it only makes sense at this point.

The good news in all of this is that this concludes this arc (I hope!), and that we’ve seen the last of the Lord of the Late. The bad news, of course, is that Pete just killed off the source of his “best” story ideas, and the ensuing creative drought will force him to move back to Westview, where he’ll spend the rest of his days playing video games with Owen and Alex at Komix Korner.