Tag Archives: gray ashen landscape

by billytheskink | December 4, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Nudge, Nudge, Say No More… Please

Hey folks, billytheskink here… I’m back for at least one more post so I can tag the ever-loving dickens out of today’s strip.

Lest we think Harley only takes agency and free will away from women, we learn today that he did the same to DSH and to the various members of the Westview High School class of ’92-’88-’78-’72 reunion committee. Since TB is looking back, let’s step into our own WABAC machine and see what exactly happened in the these two events that Harley interfered in.

First off…

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

November 19-December 20, 2012
An extended Crazy Harry arc begins. Harry explains to Donna his love of old comic books. The next day he walks into Montoni’s to inform Funky that USPS is shutting down the Westview Post Office and he’s out of a job. Harry decides he must sell off his beloved library, spending a week sorting and packing his books and his comics before schlepping them off to John, who offers Crazy Harry a job at the Komix Korner.

Granted, I cannot say what she was thinking, but back during this story arc, Donna never talked about leaving town. She didn’t do much of anything, really, except try to come on to Crazy while he moped about and spout off about how his political beliefs had changed with age. Also, is Harley admitting here that he “nudged” long-time Komix Korner employee Kevin out of existence to clear the way for DSH to hire Crazy? There are consequences to this time-meddling, Batiuk!

Now for the star flashback of the day…

We’re looking at August 21, 1993, when Les and Lisa reconnected at one of the incessant high school class reunions.

^{In the original strip, Les hung the moon for Lisa… in today’s flashback, he hung the “Westview Reunion” banner next to the moon.}

Should we assume the committee back in 1993 (holding what was then a canonically a 5-year reunion) was the same cabal Les was drafted into replacing Cindy on in 2015: Cindy, Mary Sue Sweetwater, Junebug, who I think is Cindy’s frizzy-haired minion Carrie, and abdicated valedictorian Barry Balderman? Eh, why not? Barry wasn’t at this reunion, though, he had a cool job.

I’ll give Harley/TB this, his intervention into giving that crew Lisa’s Seattle address makes some level of sense as Lisa wasn’t close with ANY of those committee members (even nerdy Barry) and Les didn’t have her address until after he broke his hand punching Bull at the reunion for reasons that still defy explanation. In a rare moment of common sense, Lisa actually chided a deserving Les for still being stuck in high school. This moment passed quickly, though. Lisa was practically apologizing to Les for being upset even before dawn and the next week Bull was practically apologizing to Les for getting punched. What a time to be alive that was…

83 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, bad hair, Classic Les, Classic Lisa, comic books, comics, contempt for comic book nerds, Crazy, Crazy Harry, Dead Skunk Head, DSH John, enraging hair strands, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, gradient voids, gray ashen landscape, Harley, head up own ass-ery, helmet, helmet hair, John, knowing smirks, Komix Korner, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' Slob-ass Tie, Lisa, long-winded babbling, Now Crazy Harry, retcon, retcons of retcons, reunions, sepia-toned flashback, smirk, smirking, smirks, smirks exchanged, Summer, the comic book industry, the lisa, the single most objectionable fictional character of all time, things that take an unnecessarily long time, time travel, times I wish I'd never discovered FW at all, weird time anomalies, Westview H.S., Westview High School, word zeppelins

by billytheskink | November 17, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Excre-mint

Here is today’s strip. You all go ahead and tear into it. Not sure I could do much better than the post title anyways.

Sorry, two days to go on my stint and I’m already running on fumes. Even WordPress knows this, somehow. It’s kind of creepy, to be honest… I’ll press on these next two days, but I’m going to set a spell today and see you in the comments.

Speaking of running on empty (and burying the lede, for that matter), Tom Batiuk dropped some news late yesterday that may or may not be relevant to this story arc, the last several months of speculation in the comments, and the future of this website. Some of you all commented on it yesterday. I have plenty of thoughts on this, as I am sure many of you all do. As with today’s strip, I’ll see you in the comments to discuss.

^{I’m guessing this will get more ink than the strip…}

153 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as awful wordplay, bad wordplay, Batton, Batton Thomas, Boy Lisa, Chester, comic books, comics, Darin, Flash, Flash Fairfield, Flash Freeman, gradient voids, gray ashen landscape, knowing smirks, lame wordplay, laptop, Mindy, Minty Pete, Mopey Pete, mug, Pete, Pete's Plaid Shirt, Phil, Phil Holt, quarter inch pinch, retirement, Ruby, Ruby Lith, slapstick comedic gestures, smirk, smirking, smirks, sub-moronic wordplay, terrible wordplay, tiny hands, unnatural hand gestures, wordplay

by billytheskink | November 16, 2022 · 10:30 pm

What’s in your head, in your head? Ruby, Ruby, Ruby-y-y-y

I’d argue that today’s strip is the product of an AI tasked with generating images for the word “wistful”… but that’s an insult to artificial intelligence and I don’t want to be responsible for unleashing Skynet. This is just completely sad, but in the stupidest way.

Mindy is the one that really punches up the stupidity here. First, “when” Ruby retires is essentially right now, it doesn’t need to be discussed as if it is well in the future. Second, Mindy also draws a paycheck from Atomik Komix… so does she dramatically underestimate the financial resources it takes to travel extensively or does Chester really pay that well?

And if Chester pays that well, why can’t he spend some money on an office that doesn’t look like a dungeon crawl game being played on a vintage grayscale Macintosh? Maybe everything in the office is made of stone. So that’s why they called him “Chester the Chiseler”!

94 Comments

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Tagged as arcs where nothing happens, Atomik Komix, Batton, Batton Thomas, boredom personified, Chester, Chester's 'intrigued' face, comic books, comics, comma eyes, curmudgeonly oldsters, disembodied hand, Dreadfully unimaginable scenarios, enraging hair strands, eyelids, gradient voids, gray ashen landscape, hatchet face, labored setup, lack of imagination run amok, Mindy, muppet profile, Old dying people, pen, pencil, pens, retirement, Ruby, Ruby Lith, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, silhouette, silhouettes, tags you never thought you'd use, travelin, uninteresting stupid anecdotes, unnatural hand gestures, wistfulness

by billytheskink | November 15, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Re-haiku-ment

Are we STILL on this?
More on Ruby's retirement
Here in today's strip

Batton butts right in
Again, he does NOT work here
Who asked him to speak?

Batton's questioning
A reflection of TB?
Is the strip's end near?

Or is this resolve?
Tom writing his thoughts in strip
Eff-ing ponderous

^{A warning haiku
The link above has cussing
That's NSFW!}

With Dinkle, Linda
And others who fake retire
Do we believe this?

We probably should
Not like TB gave Ruby
Anything worthwhile

Chester looks depressed
I mean, he's just despondent
In his sad jacket

57 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as arcs where nothing happens, Atomik Komix, author avatar, Batton, Batton Thomas, boredom personified, Chester, comic books, comics, Complete Worthless Ass, curmudgeonly oldsters, depression, drafting table, endless tedium, enraging hair strands, glasses, gradient voids, gray ashen landscape, hatchet face, impending doom, jaunty scarves, Mindy, not how the world works, not how things work, not the way the world works, oddly muted squiggly lines, Old dying people, one of those arcs that just never seems to end, really dumb questions, retirement, scarf, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, squiggly lines, squiggly lines used to denote texture, stupid, the inevitable ravages of age, the ravages of age, things that never end, why?, windows

by billytheskink | November 14, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Pencil droppers, eh?!

Wait, is today’s strip taking place on the exact same day that Ruby drew Sunday’s Scorch cover?! Ruby drew a whole cover in a matter of hours?! Maybe that’s not at all surprising for a real life comic cover artist at a real life comic book company, but at Atomik Komix it sure is. These folks make “Turtle Thompson” look like AJ Foyt.

I mean, Batton is still there treadmilling and everyone is wearing the exact same things they were wearing in last week’s strips, give or take some colorist’s liberty… ok, scratch that, Mindy is wearing a skirt in today’s strip and clearly has on pants in last Saturday’s strip. Different day, I guess. In either scenario, though, we’re left to note how ridiculous it is that Batton spends so much time in the Atomik Komix bullpen. He, ostensibly, has a job drawing a comic strip, but we’ve never seen him do it. Heck, we’ve never even seen the strip-within-a-strip… and it’s not like Funky Winkerbean is above that kind of thing. He likes comic books and frequents Komix Korner from time-to-time (SUCH a unique trait in the Batiukverse, I know), but he doesn’t appear to be a regular there like he is here at the Atomik Komix bullpen. He likes or feels obligated to jog. And that’s it. That is everything we know about the guy. I don’t necessarily care to know more, but if TB insists on having his author avatar hang around places where it makes no obvious sense for him to hang around then Batton needs some purpose and motivation.

Oh yeah, also… Ruby is old, water is wet, and Chester now wears the look of someone clinically depressed.

98 Comments

Filed under Son of Stuck Funky

Tagged as Atomik Komix, author avatar, Batton, Batton Thomas, boredom personified, bullpen, Chester, comic books, comics, curmudgeonly oldsters, Darin, depression, disembodied hand, drafting table, eyelids, Flash, Flash Fairfield, Flash Freeman, Flash treadmill, glasses, gray ashen landscape, hatchet face, jaunty scarves, labored setup, merry-go-round, mind-numbing tedium, Mindy, Minty Pete, Mopey Pete, muppet profile, oddly muted squiggly lines, Old dying people, pencil, pencil necked geeks, pencil-neck geek, Pete, Phil, Phil Holt, possibly Battom Thomas, retirement, Ruby, Ruby Lith, sad-sackery, scarf, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, slowly dying inside, squiggly "L"s, squiggly lines, squiggly lines used to denote texture, the inevitable ravages of age, the ravages of age, tile, unnatural hand gestures

Tag Archives: gray ashen landscape

Nudge, Nudge, Say No More… Please

Excre-mint

What’s in your head, in your head? Ruby, Ruby, Ruby-y-y-y

Re-haiku-ment

Pencil droppers, eh?!

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