Tag: Jessica

Son Of A Batiuk!

Link To Today’s Installment

Give it up for spacemanspiff85 and everyone else who hosted since my last turn! 2022 has been a hundred miles of bad road to hoe, or whatever they say out there on the fertile Ohioian plains. I genuinely enjoyed learning all about various local Cleveland area TV hosts of the 1900s, as that was on my personal bucket list. It’s a lengthy list. Now on to today’s piece of crap.

Hey, that’s no way to talk about Tony. Yesterday, it appeared that perhaps BatYam was humanizing Mitchell a little bit, making him a little more sympathetic and relatable and such. But it didn’t take, as Mitchell is a full-on dick again today, snarling in psychotic collector’s rage over some idiotic John Darling (Jessica’s father) trinket he saw on Montoni’s wall. The look on his face there in panel two is WAY out of proportion to the dialog, but Batty does that a lot lately.

One thing he NEVER fails at, though, is ensuring that his little stories never make a lick of sense, right down to the tiniest, most insignificant details. For example: two weeks (!) ago, Flash and Chester were talking about Mitchell in hushed weirdo tones, like he was some sort of mythical recluse. Yet he frequents Montoni’s, too. How can both be true? I mean, Boy Lisa used to work at Montoni’s, in the breakfast pizza app development department. Surely he remembers the overweight comic book weirdo, and…oh. That’s right. Never mind.

Re: The “Crankshaft” Mason Jarre crossover thing. I tried, but I just can’t. Reading “Crankshaft” just cuts against my grain, and I can’t bring myself to do it. Feel free to discuss it freely, if you must. Trying to juggle THREE Batiuk strips is just way, way too much to ask of anyone.

Keeper of the Lame

So today we have a single panel Sunday strip that really doesn’t add anything new that wasn’t in yesterday’s second panel. I guess all the John Darling megafans are swooning over seeing the set again, or something (it still boggles my mind that Batiuk could think there’s really an audience for this). I am very curious as how to how Mitchell obtained his memorabilia. He’s repeatedly said that he’s basically the only one interested in any of these things, but he’s still kind of acting like what he has are rare, highly desirable artifacts. I have a feeling he probably found this in the dumpster behind Channel One. And two chairs, a nightstand/filing cabinet and a backdrop doesn’t strike me as super impressive.
Thanks for having me these two weeks! The always great Epicus Doomus takes over tomorrow.

Wow! Cow!

After reading the first panel, I was kind of expecting the second panel to show that Mitchell had John Darling’s preserved corpse on display. Or that it turns out John wasn’t actually dead, and that Mitchell was keeping him trapped in his house and was forcing him to act out a new show every day. Honestly, given the way Batiuk’s writing is so bad and how he’s inexplicably spent so much time on JD related stories the past few years it wouldn’t shock me at all if he decided to bring the actual character back.
I’m not sure which of Mitchell’s two facial expressions is worse, but I really don’t like either one of them.

Those Were The Days

Hey, there’s the hat and coat that was brought up in the comments yesterday! Today’s strip is just kind of sad. I read an article last year about how nostalgia can actually be very beneficial, since it can comfort and make people feel better. But being stuck in the past like Mitchell here (or just about everyone else in this strip, really), is definitely not good. It’s not really funny material for a comic strip, either.
I really do feel that the vast majority of people reading this would have no clue at all what it’s about. If you didn’t know that this Barnaby was actually a real character from Cleveland TV, you would be totally lost. And even knowing that he is a real character doesn’t really add a ton to the strip.

I Bet Jessica Will Be In A Display Case Soon

Link to today’s strip

I’m curious to know how much trouble Mitchell had to go through to get this memorabilia. If nobody remembers them anymore, then there really couldn’t have been much of a demand for the stuff. I did some quick Googling, and I think all of these are actual real Cleveland TV personalities. I’m very interested in local history and tend to be pretty nostalgic, but I do kind of wonder how old Mitchell is supposed to be, and if he’d really remember this from his own childhood. I do again wonder why Batiuk had to portray him as a schlubby paranoid jerk, since he’s apparently appreciating old timey stuff, which is absolutely something Batiuk thinks is good.