Tag: misplaced nostalgia for things that weren’t all that great to begin with

Drivel Of Dreams

Is today’s strip really about circa-2015 Billy Joel visiting one of those closed factories he sings about in “Allentown”? Oh don’t we all wish it was…

I would guess that the T-square nailed to the wall is supposed to tell us that this office has been unoccupied since the “Batty Batom Bullpen” (ugh, there are more endearing nicknames found in early 70s Harvey Comics) moved out in the spring of 1972. Real endorsement of the Cleveland economy there… I’m amazed this building is fit for occupancy. I mean, the Pontiac Silverdome was condemned after sitting idle for all of 3 years. Anyways, if you missed Monday and Tuesday’s strips, today’s is a near-verbatim restatement of their contents.

Did he haggle more than the average building-buyer?

Pete, Pete, Pete… When you agree to take a job for a madman, you don’t question him. One can only hope that is the lesson learned in tomorrow’s strip. In today’s strip, however, nothing so interesting is happening. Nothing interesting at all is happening.

What is happening:
– Chester is excited that he bought a building, which might not be as impressive an accomplishment as it sounds if this structure is located in certain parts of Cleveland.
– Pete and Durwood are both too dense to realize that the Batom Comics fanboy who has just hired them is totally going to make them work in this dilapidated, asbestos-ridden structure.
– This story arc is no closer to its greatly-desired conclusion.

What’s Eaton You Two?

Today’s strip takes place in the morning? The morning after Pete and Durwood’s night trip to Marianne Winters’ jumping off point? No wonder Durwood’s eyelids are so heavy and Pete… well Pete has the same bags under his eyes that he always has. Bet he had to gate check those on the red-eye flight to Cleveland, no way they would fit in the overhead bins.

Buckle up for the seventh consecutive week (!!!) of this Atomic Comics story arc. I’m pretty sure George H. W. Bush was president when this thing began. Looks like we’ll be in the wallowing in Batom Comics nostalgia phase of the story this week. Goody goody…

Grim And Bear It

Link To Today’s Strip

Ha ha ha ha. TOM BATIUK, of all people, is doing an arc about how Chester dislikes “grim and gritty” comic book titles. What balls. After turning his once-lighthearted and humor-based comic strip into a litany of death, cancer, amputation and an endless cavalcade of human misery, he’s doing a “story” centering around how “dark” modern comic books are. Two words…”f*ck” and “you”, Tom. I’ve never seen a comic book where the lead character’s parents roundly reject her as she agonizingly dies of cancer, nor have I ever seen one where a trombone prodigy loses her arm in a car accident or one where the once-happy-go-lucky titular character drinks himself into thoughts of suicide either. Leave it to Tombat to inadvertently insult himself in his own strip. What a maroon.

So why did this require a cross-country trip? They couldn’t have had this discussion over the phone? So basically BatNard wasted five entire weeks on this just so he could work a few fictional Batom Comics “props” into the artwork for his own amusement. The self-indulgence is off the scale here and nearly approaches “Lisa’s Story” degrees of head-up-own-assed-ness.