Tracking the Rand Curdy

Link to today’s strip.

Boy, the folks running the OMEA are damned efficient!  Compare the background of yesterday’s strip to today’s.  They’ve managed to put up a huge number of booths and banners in a matter of seconds!  Yesterday’s box of crap at the far right has been expanded into a nicely arranged table.  Talk about can-do!  Imagine how many band mattresses those guys could sell.  Probably hundreds in just an hour.  Oh, wait–they’d have to sell them in Westview, wouldn’t they.  Well, they could probably sell at least one, right?  And maybe come back alive, most of them?  Sorry for sending you guys into that city–and I already knew it was infested with zombies, too.  My bad, guys.  Oops.  Won’t happen again, you have my word.

On the other hand, this conference has been going on for several days, and they’re only just now getting around to setting up these booths.  (Perhaps one of these booths was the one that had pizza!  Mystery solved.)  Okay, so…they’re very efficient once they start, but also lazy and unmotivated to start on their own.  Well, no one will ever fault this strip for being too consistent.

As for this stupid app, weren’t they championing something similar a few years ago that could keep track of trombone sections?  Yesterday they were dismissive of this thing, but throw in candy sales and their eyes goggle.  Becky even gets to shove her pinned sleeve into frame, she’s so excited.

*Shrug.*  As mentioned, no one will ever fault this strip for being too consistent.  “Hey, Batiuk, loosen up!  You don’t have to remember all the details, like things that have already happened, last names, and stuff like that.  It makes you look like a beady-eyed nitpicker.  You don’t want to look like a beady-eyed nitpicker, do you?  No one gives awards for that.”

Shrinky Dinks

Link to today’s strip.

As February dawns, the first strip of the month is not available for preview, but let’s be honest–Batiuk’s not going to cut away to something different, not when he’s got Dinkle to shove in people’s faces.   Those seemingly endless weeks where he craps out those terrible, terrible Claude Barlow witlessisms should be proof of that.

Yesterday, he wailed and moaned that he couldn’t find free food.  What could it be today?  Perhaps…his ass, with both hands?

I wonder if Beck will get any lines…so far, she’s only spoken on Sunday, and it was, of course, nothing but praise for Dinkle.  So, she’s really already played her part.  All that’s left is a praise reprise.

(GAH, sorry folks, that was almost Batiukian…surprising how easily one slips back into this stuff…)

 

It’s not what you thINK

The power is out again at Atomik Komix in today’s strip?! Oh no! That means we have to read a comic about the power being out again

There is a lot in this strip, and it will make your head hurt if you actually think about any of it. So please don’t, that is the burden I have chosen to bear this week.
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Is Atomik Comix in such dire financial straights that Chester didn’t pay the electric bill? Was it because he couldn’t part with any more of his gardening catalog collection?

If the electricity in the old Batom Comics building is so unreliable that it goes out weekly…
– Why doesn’t Chester move his 3 employees to a few hundred square feet of space in one of Cleveland’s many affordable, functional, and maintained office buildings?
– Why is there no generator or other back-up plan to maintain power?
– How does this building pass city inspection? Even Cleveland has standards.

Why doesn’t Mindy know what to do? Not one week ago, she met a deadline while working from a coffee shop.

How does Mindy not know what Dr. Martin’s is? Yeah, I get that the average person doesn’t know what it is (which really weakens the Dr. Martins=Doc Martens joke) but she is paid for her apparent artistic talent and she’s never used physical ink or been into an art supply store?

Does Chester really think that ink he found in a box of unused supplies from Batom Comics is still usable for professional-quality work? For reference Batom Comics shut down in 1972.

How does Durwood’s face manage to get even longer?
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There, I’ve though about all of that for you. I have determined that there are no satisfactory answers and that this whole story arc is asinine, so don’t even think you need to worry about it. Carry on and have a nice Saturday.

Thor’s Day, January 10

Today’s strip was not available for preview.

Isn’t that just like the comics industry? We finally have a story arc about a woman righting the egregious wrongs of the comic industry’s man-o-centric male-ocracy and then it stops being available for preview. Typical good ol’ boys club behavior, really…

Well, while we wait for the strip/truth bombs to drop, let’s take a look at the start of Mindy’s comics education, which began with the discovery of Lucy McKenzie’s comic book collection in the attic of the McKenzie home back in 2007… mere minutes after she smirked at a confused Lucy while visiting her at an Alzheimer’s home. That is really what happened.

cs4-5-2007

Editor? I barely know her!

Mindy continues to play editor in today’s strip. Just think, had she been employed at Atomik Komix from the very beginning then we Chester might not have had to endure the launch title flop that was The Inedible Pulp.

How does Mindy know that Armorilla is not so named because her super power is skin that is as tough as armor? Oh right, because she knows as well as we do that TB, Pete, and Durwood are not creative enough to come up with something like that. Frankly, “Armorilla” sounds more like she should be a clothed gorilla adversary of Atomic Ape and Charger Chimp (ugh) than a presumably human villainess who fights someone called The Scorch. One might think that wearing lots of armor would be easily exploited by a superhero called The Scorch, who surely has heat-oriented powers. None of these characters = “one”.