comic books – Page 29 – Son of Stuck Funky

Simian Simulacrum

Comic Book Harriet back again for another ride on The Carousel of Death (and Comics) known as Funky Winkerbean. And like all carousels we’ve been on a trip up and down, around and around, only to come right back to where we were before.

Mopey Pete and Durren have quit their old jobs, moved halfway across the country, got a new boss, and started an entirely new comics venture, only to write “Starbuck Jones But This Time He’s a Monkey.”

At least Burchett got to draw two panels of exciting detailed comic book action. I especially like the face of the guy getting a haymaker in panel two, and the Abe Sapien/Murloc love child in panel three. For a brief moment, he actually got to be an artist producing art again. Like a rotting tree producing a single delicious apple even though it’s dead inside.

Make Like an Ape, Man

It’s my call and I have to tell you right now that covers with gorillas on them are total locks.

Tom Batiuk, 1/6/18

I doubt that today’s strip (or anything in Funky Winkerbean) accurately depicts the way comic books are produced in the real world…I mean, you come up with a “flagship title” after you’ve launched the company? I do think that what’s reflected here is Batiuk’s own creative process, wherein he paces the floor and muses out loud (or maybe TB’s got his own Cosmic Treadmill), before settling on some half-baked, flimsy premise, and then hollering “YESSSSSSSS!!!” so loudly as to attract the attention of passersby.

Speaking of comic books, guest author comicbookharriet serves up the snark for the next two weeks. Bon appetit!

Clotting with faint praise

Rip Tide Scuba Cop has never looked better than he has in today’s strip, which would be high praise for Mindy’s coloring skills if this wasn’t issue #2 of the title.

That’s more than can be said of Pete’s writing… Why Rip Tide did not assume that antibodies would be apt to attack him, as they do to germs and other foreign substances in the bloodstream seems like a rather foolish call on his part. It also seems like this will be an expensive cover to print, requiring a special cut for the thought bubble that hangs off of the side. Chester may have to sell some more of his collection.

And with that, I leave this gilded site and the mucky comic strip that it covers in the extra-capable hands of comicbookharriet. Best of luck, hope you don’t get any Les strips.

Colors of the Chinned

Oh no. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. No. Just no. Please no.

*Sigh*

Our greatest fears have been realized in today’s strip. Atomik Komix has become what the Starbuck Jones movie and Montoni’s were before it, a nepotistic cesspool that doles out jobs to whoever walks in the door. No interviews, no resumes, no HR departments, just a brief conversation and YAGOTTHAJOB!

Also, like Montoni’s, Atomik Komix has had to be kept solvent by the owner selling his own personal property. Not sure this would be an owner-approved hire in real life… but this isn’t real life, this is one quarter inch from it, so the joke’s on us I guess.

Color Me Impressed

Pete had his go two days back, now it is Durwood’s turn, in today’s strip, to patronize Mindy, the woman who DARED to know things about comic book writing and artwork.

Whoa, hold up there Darin! You have your own woman to patronize, so back off of Pete’s! Yeah, she’s 3 time zones away right now, but that is what phones are for.

Maybe tomorrow Mindy will lecture Pete and Durwood on locking their computers while away from them so that visitors don’t use their hard work (I did not type this with a straight face…) as their own personal coloring book. We have established that she is allowed to know stuff, after all.