Tag: comics

The First Monday in November

Link to today’s strip.

Cue the shrieking violins from Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score.

In a town where calamity awaits around every corner, what exactly did Holly expect would happen?  Did she really expect that Cory would appreciate all the “effort” she put into completing his collection?  I seem to recall a lot of commentators here saying that Cory’s reaction would be, “Thanks a lot, mom, but I’m not into comics anymore.”

I do have to say it’s kind of clever how Holly discovered the empty box.  A full box would not have moved from a simple bump, but an empty one slides easily.  I wonder if she’ll call the police?  That would make sense, but “making sense” is seldom on the menu here.

Anyway, it’s a week of comic books!  Again!   What is it about comic books?  I mean, there are things that I like, things I enjoy, but I don’t wallow in them 24/7, nor do I push them into every context in which I find myself.  There’s nothing wrong with enjoying something, but to base your whole life around it seems like going way overboard.

But I guess extremism in the cause of comic books is no vice.  Or something.

Darin To Be Stupid

In today’s installment, Darin has his recent life choice validated by a guy who is the antithesis of every person ever depicted in a Coffee Achiever commercial.
And… that’s it. Frankly, I’m surprised Crazy’s dream career arc is aimed as high as it is.

All this talk of storyboarding, however, has reminded me how much Act III Crazy looks like the late Jim Mateer. Mateer was TB’s high school art teacher and an accomplished artist in his own right. He had a week-long appearance in FW back in 2006, painting several lovely murals on Montoni’s walls, murals that appear to now sit under 3 and a half coats of Sherwin-Williams’ Urban Putty.

Failing Up

No doubt TB means to suggest that a “Netbusters” movie is barely a notch above “straight to cell phone.”

Me, two days ago

OK, I stand corrected: they are equivalent. For once, Batiuk seems to have achieved synchronicity between seemingly divergent plotlines, and the results are just as implausible as you’d expect. Pete, who sat practically mute as his editors shitcanned him, vents at length to his Skype wife Darin (these guys are too cutting edge to just talk over the phone; anyway, Pete’s panel 3 air quotes would be lost in translation).

“The Hollywood writers don’t know how to handle superheroes…” This has to be the most howlingly funny and asinine thing that TB has written in years. Comic book adaptions continue to be among the biggest-grossing movies year after year, and probably not on the strength of the writing. Mason Jarr the movie star, because he has just so much clout in this town, decides that the answer is to “bring in some fresh talent” from the comical books. This of course spells opportunity for Pete Reynaldo, freshly chewed up and spit out by New York, whose epic struggles vs. deadlines should play just fine with the studio.

Incom-Pete-nce

Fired? Pete’s been fired?

Welcome to CloudFunkyCuckooLand, folks. Batiuk has at long last thrown off the bowlines and sailed away at last from the harbor of continuity and logic.

Sure, the editors tasked him with taking Mister Sponge in a “darker and grittier” direction, but the clone idea was Pete’s own, and he enthusiastically sold it to his bosses. When, as they anticipated, controversy ensues, his editors reassure Pete that his story has “lit up the internet” and put sales of their comic book “over the moon.” They outline a plan (presumably involving Pete) to further boost revenue by spinning the one title into three. When Pete predictably complains about the increased workload (his current output is already enough to trigger Pete’s psychoses), his nerdbosses calmly throw him overboard in favor of the Netbusters guy.

Suddenly jobless and 400 miles from home, Pete is concerned not for himself but for the “poor readers,” represented by Owen in a panel 3 which presumably takes place months hence: the same Owen who was devastated to learn that his absorbent and yellow and porous hero had been “retcloned” has dutifully shelled out for all three of the resulting comics and pronounces them “cool.”