Tag: Pineapple computers

Karmic Dread Mill

Link To The Strip

Special thanks to TFH, and everyone else really, but especially him! Lucky me, I’m back just in time for the unholy alliance of Batton Thomas and Atomik Komix, perhaps the second or third most sickening development of 2022 so far. Les getting that Oscar is gonna be tough to top.

So this Batton guy just “started coming there”? He just showed up at random local businesses looking for gym equipment he could use? Did someone invite him? How did he even know about the treadmill? This was the only way a guy with fifty years of writing experience was able to work a character based on himself into the story? Why not just use “magic” next time? Would it really be that much more ridiculous?

Batton is in the strip all the time now, yet Batty is still explaining who he is, which means that either a) he thinks his readers are forgetful dullards or b) he has no confidence in the character and probably shouldn’t be using him at all. I’m kind of surprised that Batton doesn’t already work at AK, as everyone else even loosely associated with the comic book business (turns and glares at Mindy) does. He could write and illustrate “Apathy Man”, whose superpower is that everyone forgets interacting with him immediately. He could use that ability to solve crimes or save the planet or something, or he could just half-ass it and milk it for fifty years. Either or.

COVIDiot

Link To The New One

When I first saw this one I just stared at it for minutes on end, unable to decipher or make sense of it at all. For the first time ever, I seriously considered asking my fellow SoSF hosts for help with figuring out what the hell this is supposed to be. Was Mason saying “COVID 15” or was he saying “COVID is”? I had no clue.

But eventually I figured it out. “COVID 15” is one of those clever little turns of phrase BatYam makes up when he’s trying to capture the way people talk in “real life” and, as usual, it fails spectacularly on every conceivable level. What Mason needs to do now is to pack on another COVID-75 so he can play Funky in the movie adaptation of “Singed Hair”. After that, all he needs to do is play Crazy Harry, at which point his life’s work will be complete.

Obligatory artwork critique: check out that photo on Marianne’s wall. My, such attention to detail. I mean, why even bother drawing it at all?

Lisa’s Story, The Cure for Insomnia

As an avid reader, I do kind of like this strip, just because I like bookstores and seeing people read. I would really like to know what they’re reading, though. It’s extra funny if you assume they’re reading part of Lisa’s Story and that’s why they fell asleep. I would like to know what time of day it’s supposed to be, because if it’s first thing in the morning and they’re already passing out, that’s very different then if it’s night time.
I do like Funky’s expression in the third panel-“Yeah, that’s right, I have a credit/debit card! Aren’t I awesome?”.
I am very tired of these little crossovers. It’s funny how after years of these strips somehow being ten years apart and taking place in the present day at the same time, he’s just given up on it making any kind of sense. I won’t be surprised at all if somehow Sunday’s Crankshaft involves the title character and the annoying newspaperman being waited on in Montoni’s by Adeela.

Subterranean Holt-sick Blues

Happy Labor Day! and a tip of the SoSF hardhat to the estimable Epicus Doomus for seeing us through the latest installment of Les’ Story. Epicus usually throws himself on the grenade of having to post on a holiday weekend, but I have seen fit to give him the holiday off for a change. You’re welcome.

Though he’s really not dead after all, Phil Holt has arrived in that Old Comics Creator Heaven known as Atomik Komix. He’s even greeted by Saint Mopey Pete himself. Phil and Flash have leeft behind their earthy grievances (to the point where they are now living together), and, thanks to Chester’s beneficence, have reunited to “write to life” the Subterranean, the project that led to the team’s breakup years ago. This development easily pushes the median age of the Atomik Komix staff  well north of sixty.

Many of us have wondered why Phil felt it necessary to fake his own death in order to “work without being bothered.” He was already toiling in obscurity when Darin spotted him doing caricatures at a kiddie party. If Phil wanted Darin to have those original Batom covers (which Darin immediately decided to liquidate), it didn’t have to be via his last will and testament. What I think was behind it was this: Phil knew that his “death” would cause Flash to be wracked with guilt over losing the opportunity to reconcile. Now that he’s turned up alive, Phil gets to bask in Flash Freeman’s beaming bonhomie.

Terminal Tedium

Oh, so we’re pretending the Atomic Komix crew actually works in today’s strip, are we? I suppose we are also pretending like it is normal for all of these people to fly to San Diego together for Comic-Con (not @home then, I guess)?

We’re pretending like Darin doesn’t have a wife and child to be concerned about? Wait… we’ve been doing that for years.

Well then we’re pretending that Flash has literally nothing better to do in his few remaining years (months? days?) than hang around a comic book company he never worked for? Oh… I guess we’ve been doing that for years too.

At least Chester appearing to care that his employees do their jobs is a new thing here.