Tag: Nate

BLAM!

So the cash-strapped Westview football can shell out between four and seven grand for a football helmet tunnel to give the team “some real class” (because “real class” is what wins football games). And from the looks of panel 4, they inflated it with…highly flammable hydrogen? It took me a long while to discern that those aren’t leaping flames but rather letters spelling out “BLAM!” Of course, by the final panel, things aren’t as bad as they looked (unfortunately). Evidence found at the scene will later reveal the blast to be the result of sabotage by last Sunday’s player-turned-ballboy Jason Williams!

Con"Grads"ulations, Class of 2022–err, 2012?

Guest blogger DavidO here, reporting for duty for my last entry before passing the reins back to someone with much more talent than I, TFHackett!

Confusing, impossible to decipher time-jumps aside, Summer and Company (Aka, the nameless, faceless rest of her class) has finally graduated from high school!

Call me an ol’ softy but I can’t find too many faults with Sunday’s strip, aside from the smirk on Summer’s P1 baby picture. It’s actually rather well done and paced at a level that lends itself well to a one-shot Sunday strip.

Enjoy it, Snarkers. Dailies like this are far and few inbetween.

Coro-Nate-tion

Epicus Doomus
May 25, 2012 at 3:55 am
…The big “surprise” will be, as always, staggeringly lame and instantly forgettable…

Shocker, huh? Elevating the two gay teens to prom royalty would have required drawing them again and maybe even giving them names or another line or two of dialogue. So much safer to have the kids bestow the honor on Mr. Nate and Mrs. No First Name Green.

Paul
April 11, 2012 at 12:04 am
…this guy [Batiuk] can’t draw “walking,” can he?

He’s not the best at depicting people expressing excitement, either (remember “bespectacled blue shirt khaki guy” at the basketball playdowns?). Summer and Keisha show proper decorum (probably relieved that they weren’t elected as the royal couple). But some of the Westview teens exert themselves so hard to demonstrate their approval as to risk injury. Maddie (wearing that #*@%in’ hat) shimmies awkwardly and offers a cracked grin. Cory may be a delinquent but he’s no homophobe; he thrusts up a thumb and smiles with his bottom teeth. Rana actually seems to be having a hearty laugh at the Greens’ expense for some reason, while Big Mac is just all like durr-hurr-hurr. But I think it’s Touchdown Guy in the blue tux who best expresses the joy that all of us are feeling…this arc is finally concluded.

Phew! Gay prom wore me out! I’ve asked David O to
step in and take over the reins for a week…enjoy!

— TFH

 

Talk to the Hand

You were wondering what could be even more gutless than inventing a disposable, nameless same-sex prom couple as a vehicle for “addressing” gay rights? How about icing the cake by having another anonymous student (seen by us only as a fluttering, disembodied hand) confidentially coming out to Nate to thank him for making today better? TB’s shoulder must still need an ice pack a year later after he dislocated it with this epic self-back-pat.

Charles
May 22, 2012 at 3:06 pm
[W]hat is the deal with Batiuk showing high schoolers with significantly receding hairlines?

That’s no high schooler! It’s today’s special celebrity guest star, Tom Hanks!

If These Walls Could Talk

Nate’s prom night reverie is interrupted by what appears to be a talking castle.

More TB News

So Marvel Comics is jumping on the “Boys in the Band” -wagon, gay-marrying superhero Northstar to his non-super partner. The Washington Post sought out Tom Batiuk for comment, since he’s a cartoonist and a comix fanboy. He offers up basically the same talking points he’s given everyone else since before Promagaydon:

“I think I’ve created a space for myself” to deal with serious issues, Batiuk tells Comic Riffs. “It’s not such a big deal for myself as some other strips. It’s been incremental … that I can grab my readers’ hand and [say]: ‘Let’s come over here.”

What really makes the Post piece noteworthy, though, is this illustration:

…it depicts an alternate reality in which actual confrontation takes place! This would have been so much better than the way it went down. Note the dude holding the “It’s Our Prom” sign: where’d he come from? My guess is that Batiuk inserted him into the tableau lest non-readers assume that the same-sex couple is Summer and Keisha. The “real” gay couple (and they don’t even match; are they sure they’re gay?) stand meekly behind their fellow students as Roberta gives them the evil eye, and Mr. Blackburn silently rolls tape.