Tag: old crap

Haikranky

Obligatory
Haiku post for today's strip
Where nothing happens

"Who spent most of his
Time at war with the world and
Ev'rything in it"?

We talking about
Phil Holt or that Ed Crankshaft?
Both? Makes me shudder

C'mon now, Durwood
Phil did not know a dang thing
About your mother

C'mon too, Mindy
Who here cares one iota
About your granddad?

Pete here wins the strip
Only offense is a smirk
Default win's a win

Something’s got a Holt on me

If there was a contest to use the most words possible to say “Flash and Phil didn’t like each other”, today’s strip would definitely be a contender. Same for a most exposition crammed into a single panel contest, with panel 1 making a game effort. The only place such contests could possibly exist is, of course, the Batiukverse… so please forgive me if similar contests appear in this strip a year from now.

All that exposition in the first panel and Flash doesn’t realize the hall of fame awards given out at Comic-Con honor the deceased on the regular? Seems like having Comic-Con remotely would work well in Flash’s hypothetical honoring a live Phil Holt scenario, but since Flash doesn’t even know that dead people regularly get honored at this and other hall of fame ceremonies then it stands to reason that he wouldn’t know that Comic-Con and other events are held remotely. And by “Flash” in the previous sentence, I mean TB.

Nothin’ But Reruns

Many apologies for the late and short post. Unfortunately, I was in a situation that was unavoidable, much like a Funky Winkerbean strip about comic books…

Today’s strip dares to ask the musical question, what’s a comic book doing in a comic book store? The answer may not at all surprise you.

Many of you beady-eyed nitpickers eagle-eyed commenters noticed that this is not only The Flash #123, but one of a series of recent reprints of the issue. You think Batton Thomas is going to try to pay DSH a dime for it?

Frisket Business

Whew! I am so very happy to report that today’s strip doesn’t take place at the optometrist office, we’ve instead moved to a world where two Northern Ohio-based nonagenarian comic book legends are somehow meeting for the first time. It is, remarkably, a welcome respite.

Are we really supposed to believe that Flash and Ruby Lith, alleged fans of each other’s work, are meeting for the first time? Ruby Lith (hired in September 2019) wasn’t in the office during Flash’s last visit, when he dropped by to kvetch about “Turtle Thompson” (wait, was “Thompson” part of the guy’s nickname?) back in December 2019? Yes, Ruby Lith’s Miss American was a Capitol Comics title while Flash worked at Batom, but these two have both presumably been alive since the Coolidge administration working in the same industry in presumably a similar geographic area… they never met at a convention? Trade show? Art supply store? Comic book store? 3:30 PM dinner buffet?

While the plot seems a stretch, the puns today, however, are… well, they certainly are present. Though I incorrectly guessed her relation, I knew Amber Lith was coming. Really, I think we all knew Amber Lith was gonna be a gag in a Ruby Lith strip at some point. Didn’t see the dog’s related punny name coming, but it feels incredibly uninspired and unsurprising nonetheless.

Buck off

Today’s strip seems almost tame after yesterday’s turn of events, but still… Yes! To think, we all called Pete the creepy one.

Everything about this continues to be bizarre and off-putting. Why is Linda apparently conflicted about backing away from Buck’s advance? Heck, why is Buck making these advances to begin with? I mean, sure, he talked to Linda a bit when he came to visit Bull but… that’s just it, he came to visit BULL. Prior to Bull’s death, he spent 95% of his time at the Bushka house with Bull. Even when he was talking to Linda, they talked about Bull!

We know nothing about Buck other than that he played high school football and that he was miraculously diagnosed with CTE. Did he have a career? Prior relationships? Family? Friends? We have no context for this behavior, which means TB has painted himself into a corner without a way to make Buck come across as anything but gross and way out of line.