Tag: Dead Skunk Head

Dark Phoenix Saga

Link To Today’s Strip.

Yes Crazy, it’s been so long since we’ve seen unfettered enthusiasm expressed. It intrigued you so much your eyes are slipping down your face. I’m surprised that the very sight of it didn’t drive you completely blind.

Okay, so is it the Sponge Guy or Starbuck that is getting a rebooted comic book? My vote’s on Spongy, since the Clone Arc went over about as well as Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal. And why do I feel like this is Tommy Boy’s way of getting more comics storylines to juggle now that Starbuck Jones: THE MOVIE has been kind of played out. A movie that we never saw, nor even got the general reception of. What was it’s Rotten Tomatoes score? Did the public even like it? We’ll never know.

I think the colorist has never been into a comic’s store, since he keeps coloring the bagged and boarded comics a opaque shade of tan, like every comic is stored in an unlabeled manila envelope.

Or it’s a sad reality of the way DSH and Crazy sell off their backstock. $1.00 each, mystery special! No swapsies tradies! It’s the best way of hiding the fact that their entire inventory is back issues of The Death Of Superman arc and Image comics Youngbloods #1, by Rob Liefield.

Discrete Depravity.

Link to Today’s Strip.

Weird how in the Sunday strip Chester was asking both Harry and John, but in the Monday replay he appears to be attempting to keep Harry out of it.

After reading today’s strip, I’ve realized just how Komix Corner stays in business.

There’s a joke about cheap kid’s cereal or candy having to spell every word in the name wrong for legal purposes. Chackolote because it contains no chocolate… Frooty because it contains no fruit.  Komix Korner so named because it barely contains comics. In the tiny conservative Westview, Komix Korner has become the only place for ‘discrete’ customers from, adolescents to the elderly, to purchase their adult materials.

Whatever happens in Komix Korner stays in Komix Korner, indeed. DSH John and Harry know that the backbone of their lascivious moneymaker is anonymity.

The giveaway is the last panel, where John whispers softly to Chester. His eyes are closed, lips parted, and he sniffs his hand. His pose is frankly erotic, and utterly shocking for a strip that chose to symbolize lovemaking as a darkened window on a rainy day.

Shadowy Agenda

Link to Today’s Strip.

Someone decided to rip of Frank Miller in exactly one panel today.

Actually the art on looks pretty good, bravo to the colorist for the gradient shades on Chester’s bald head. And you can actually tell that it is supposed to be a Hulk poster in the background. Much better than the weeklies. If you look at Saturday we have a brown Green Arrow, and a nearly black Spider Man. I know that there is a black Spider Man now, but I don’t think he’s gone for a suit the same shade as his skin.

In one entire week of strips, we’ve learned exactly HALF of why Chester is here. I’m guessing that at the end of next week we will finally learn why he wants to contact Mopey Pete.

Sadderday

Link to today’s comic.

Now we’ve devolved to a single panel, setting up a joke that could have been between any two Batiuk cardboard cutout mouthpieces. Both Crazy’s animosity and Chester’s condescension have been tossed aside to make a ‘topical’ reference.

According to BingeClock, it would take 2 days and 15 hours to watch all of Game of Thrones released so far. So is this running for a month of Saturdays? How do they decide where to start? I’m guessing they fast forward through any sex or gratuitous violence, thus getting the series down to 20 hours plus potty breaks and pizza runs downstairs. And who is attending this? Where are they sitting and watching? Spending 24 hours upstairs from Montoni’s, crouched on folding chairs in the dark, huddled around a flickering 1994 Trinitron TV, with Bernie, Bernie’s black friends, DSH and Crazy, eating cold pizza and drinking flat Mt Dollarstore, sounds like a recipe for Red Wedding levels of horror.

Also. This is a comic book store. Obviously they should have been watching The Walking Dead.

The Defender: Rebirth

Link to today’s strip

Like many a random female comic character of the 80’s and 90’s, I am pulling on the discarded mantle of a now-gone vigilante to assume his identity for political justice! So watch in amazement as slip on my Mask of Internet Anonimity and take of the Cloak of The Devil’s Advocate. I ascend the rickety soapbox and become…. THE DEFENDER!

I went on an hours long Funky binge today, reading the entire Holly collects Starbucks series again. Because I was completely ready to lambaste this strip, and accuse Batiuk of all kinds of fussy comic book hang-ups. But I suddenly had an epiphany, like a lighting strike! (Into photo-developing chemicals!) And suddenly I could see. We are reading the meaning of Chester the Chiseler wrong.

The rich, obsessive, fanatical, Chester is prancing around like a grade A WWE heel, begging for our boos. And we’ve been booing. But we’ve also been accusing Batty of throwing a temper tantrum and making Chester a strawman of people who are ‘Bad Collectors’ who ‘love comics wrong.’

We’ve been wrong. Chester isn’t bad because Tom Batiuk thinks there is only one way to love comics right. Chester is bad because CHESTER thinks there is only one way to love comics right.

I’ve got more than a couple long boxes hiding in my apartment. I know firsthand how weird comics collectors can be, and Tom knows it too. There’s a mix of comic nerds and non-nerds in the Funkyverse, and Batiuk has made jokes on both sides of the ‘aisle’ so-to-speak without making anyone ‘the bad guy.’ Sweet pleasant little old ladies wandered into Komix Korner on Black Friday and didn’t think it was a real store. And Holly was teased for not knowing what ‘Slabbed’ means.

Most of Chester the Chiselers traits have been displayed by sympathetic characters previously. So those aren’t WHY Chester is ‘bad.’

Mason is rich; he’s not pilloried. Crazy Harry was flat out ‘Crazy’ about his collection he had to sell, and had grouped every book with awful acronyms. He also apparently was willing to spend college savings levels of money to complete his collection of Tarzan. Chullo boy swore on a ‘slabbed copy of Amazing Fantasy;’ so nothing against comic books being sealed away to preserve them. Pete had a hoard so big he had a street sale before moving. Darin bought a life-size Cosmic Treadmill. DSH John gave Holly bargaining advice before she went to buy a comic from Nick the Geek. Holly went absolutely CRAZY CUTTHROAT during an E-bay sale.

But Chester is a SNOB. Chester judges other nerds by what they like, and how they like it. Chester talks down facets of nerdom he thinks beneath him. Chester thinks that his collection makes him awesome and powerful. That it gives him authority to dictate comics dogma. That pointing out nerdy flaws at other nerds makes him THE ONLY TRUE NERD KING.  He is a terrible person, who just happens to love comic books. If he didn’t love comics, he would still be a jerk. It’s his interactions with other people, not his interactions with comic books, that make him a villain.

Chester sees John’s wall of questionable loli manga, and back issues of Sonic Adventures…and he is not impressed.

Disagree? Please let me know! I wanna hear your analysis!

Tomorrow we return to your regularly scheduled snarky nitpicking. Defender out!