Pete’s Plaid Shirt – Page 2 – Son of Stuck Funky

Damate Climage

Much thanks to Banana Jr. 6000 for slogging through Summer’s ludicrous Could Be A Book Deal Here moment over these past two weeks… which, despite revealing that Montoni’s is apparently closing (!!!) and launching Summer off to interview countless uninteresting people who appeared in this strip 30-40+ years ago, does NOT continue in today’s strip. I’m not mad about that or anything, but I am surprised.

But should I really be surprised? Over the past 5 years or so we’ve seen TB shift well away from the two workplace communities (Westview High School and Montoni’s) that have defined this strip for pretty much all of its existence, largely replacing them with this new one he’s created at Atomik Komix (toss in the Komix Korner scenes and the shift is even more pronounced). If you had told me 5 years ago that comic books would somehow become MORE important in this comic strip in the near future I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But it is and they are, as very clearly evidenced by today’s strip in which TB’s latest issue du jour has taken on even more critical importance because it has now directly affected his author avatar’s sad little comic-obsessed world.

P.S. – I am now refusing to use the asinine term for climate change that TB continues to flog even though no one else on the planet uses it. I’m going to call it damate climage or climage damate or issue du jour or nothing at all for the rest of this story arc and the foreseeable future. I am aware this is stupid, but it is not as stupid as the term I’m refusing to use. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

On a Blue Sunday

As expected, a sideways Sunday komix cover that’s 25% the work of Batty and Ayers, with the rest by James Pascoe and colored by Rob Ro. The same team gave us the Subterranean (1^{st ISSUE!}) cover. Judging from what’s on his rather homely website (“.net”, snicker), Pascoe specializes in drawing covers depicting the character flying toward you.

The rest of today’s offering is your typical Batomix Komix mess: the book title, set in distressed digital type (which really irks me when he does it on the “retro” Batom covers), the heavy Photoshop filters, the fictitious trade dress, and, Batty and Ayers’ contribution, the “reality bubble” (which really is a bubble in today’s underwater scene!).

Lord and Lady Douchebag

So apparently for every good idea Pete comes up with, you have to listen to two useless, shitty ones? Another “great name” for this new Elemental might be The Ordinaire…she’s just another buff Batom broad clad in a generic, formfitting superhero onesie. Why couldn’t she be a heroine who’s composed of water, and who needs a watertight suit to encase her, a la Doctor Atmos? A life sized, humanoid, water filled balloon animal would make for a truly original Sunday comic book cover (which, bet on it, we’ll be getting tomorrow.)

Even though Pete couldn’t afford an engagement ring, if and when he and Mindy ever do get married and start a family, at least he’ll be rich in “Dad jokes.” Webster’s defines these as “wholesome joke[s] of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny.” The key word there is endearingly: Dad doesn’t have to interject “…wait for it…” before striking a “har-dee-har” pose to sell the weak punchline.

I Want to Be More Like the Ocean

Banana Jr. 6000
December 2, 2021 at 9:16 am
They’ve already published a Subterranean book…they’re apparently working on another one, and they’re just now determining who their characters are? Going over their character roster is the only thing these Atomik Klowns ever do!

Batiuk famously builds story arcs set in milieux around which his lack of actual understanding becomes glaringly evident: think moviemaking, or military service. But we all know him to be a bonafide, lifetime consumer and aficionado of comics and comic books. They are his sworn passion. Young Tom Batiuk even followed his dream to New York. “I met with an editor at DC Comics who ripped not only my work up and down but me as well for having had the temerity to show up at his office with it.” OK, it didn’t lead to his dream job, and he had to settle for being a mere “cartoonist.” Still, he knows and collaborates with people in the industry. Which industry, with very few exceptions, probably operates nothing like the way he depicts it here.

Do You Hope to Pluck this Dusky Joule?

Hitorque
November 29, 2021 at 11:57 pm
…For all that money and all that artistic talent, this [Atomik Komix] outfit has the professionalism and maturity level of a bunch of neighborhood kids in a treehouse with a mimeograph machine…

In my dissertation yesterday regarding the traits of various FW characters, I called Phil Holt “a nasty, sarcastic little prick.” His partner Flash once diplomatically described him as a “grumpy guy who spent most of his time (emphasis mine) at war with the world and everyone in it.” Most of his time. Yesterday (or a few minutes or hours ago in strip time), Holt came thisclose to telling Pete to shove “all of these ideas of yours” up his ass. Today the Silver Alert, uh, Silver Age Duo have come a knockin’ to borrow a cup of Darin and Pete’s creative sugar.