You’d think that Cody and Owen would be happy to hang out in the alley with their fellow like-minded comics geeks. Instead, it’s bitch, bitch, bitch. Although would it kill Pete to pop into Montoni’s and fetch a pie to feed these guys who are giving up valuable skateboarding time to help liquidate his comics collection?
“Gee…this Alley Con really is like a real Comic Con!” Sure is! Look at the douchebags walking around dressed as characters from Funky Winkerbean!
Rather than shell out for what is probably a pretty good cache of collectible comics (and he couldn’t sell them on consignment?), Dead Skunk Head John shrewdly arranges for Pete’s collection to be sold on the streets mere steps from his store.
More “upside-down” skateboard decks” (hat tip billytheskink) can be seen today.
Upstairs at the Komix Korner, Mopey Pete shares a little inside info with Comic Book Guy. Googling “Metropolis Comics” turns up a number of shops by that name, but as far as I can tell, it’s not a real publisher. Did Batiuk get a “C & D” from DC?
In typical Westviewvian fashion, all of Les’ friends are offering unbidden and useless “help” with his Kilimanjaro conquest. First, self-styled personal trainer Bull shows up to whip Les’ pasty ass into shape. Today Crazy Harry offers to loan his precious collection of “comical books about Tarzan”. I think Crazy may have confused “Tarzan” and “Tanzania”. Look for Funky to send Les and Summer off with a shipping crate of freeze-dried Montoni’s pies to sustain them on the climb.
I’m sure you all recognize the delirious kid with the Tarzan comics swirling around his head as young Harold Klinghorn, pre-hat, pre-nickname and pre-drugs, back in those innocent times when his only “high” was Tarzan funnies. The Sunday-strip color gradients and shading do not make him any cuter. We recognize his teenage (and actually likeable) self in the little portrait in the banner. Would anyone not familiar with Funky Winkerbean see today’s comic and figure out that the boy, the kid in the hat, and the old geezer are the same person? Or that the two men talking went to high school together?
No sooner does the much-hyped Coming Gay Prom story get underway than we take a detour into “Sundays with Crazy Harry”-land. No wonder the United States Postal Service is on the brink of bankruptcy, with goldbricks like carrier Klinghorn on the payroll. I’ll overlook John’s improper grammar in panel 4, to focus on what I hope is the real gag today (because the punchline sucks, as usual): in the penultimate panel, John is expressing optimism about the state of his business; meanwhile he’s holding a comic book titled The Grim Ghost. Irony?
It gets better (hah!): Maybe TB is a little more clever than we give him credit for! A little more “komix” research turned up this factoid courtesy of Wikipedia:
An earlier and somewhat similar character called the Gay Ghost has since been named the Grim Ghost due to the modern connotations of the word “gay”.
Is Batiuk going meta on us? Naw…probably just a coinky-dink.
Son of Stuck Funky 