Quoth the unshaven “Anymore”

If today’s strip is to be believed, Crazy Harry is completely unaware of a genre of music that has been a major force in popular music for three-and-a-half decades now, and is arguably well into its second decade as the dominant genre of music in the United States. Where has Crazy been? Living under a rock (booooooooo!) since the Reagan administration?

Funky lives up to his name for once, brimming with mildly more modern musical knowledge than Crazy, the Act I gang’s resident music fan and audiophile dating back even to his early appearances. I guess he’s now not only channeling NASCAR legend Mark Martin’s haircut but also Martin’s unexpected rap music fandom.

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 (1st 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!).

I Don’t Need No Doctor

none
September 10, 2021 at 11:16 pm
The only thing that he has ever conveyed in any of this Atomic Comic trash are the Ideas. That’s it. Here’s the name of the book, here’s the cover to the #1 issue, and everything else – story, marketing, advertising, criticism, reception – is irrelevant.

Banana Jr. 6000
September 11, 2021 at 9:20 am
…“This superhero is based on air” is not a story. It’s not even a character. But whatever, give us the goddamn Sunday comic book cover already so we can get this shit over with.

You asked for it, Banana Jr. 6000! Meet…DDCTDR ATMDS! Those who read Funky only in the Sunday funnies won’t have the benefit of knowing the backstory of the Doctor’s fascinating origin. I think they’d be more likely to assume the this comic’s title character was the figure flying in from the right. The one on the left looks more sinister, and appears to throwing off a whole bunch of “killer watts!” Nobody should be shocked that Batty uses the reality bubble at lower right for three weak electrical puns. Two puns, actually: Pete’s not pronouncing it “revolting.” He’s literally revulsed. Pete is as sick of these two as we are.

Medal of Horror

Today’s strip marks the third straight day that Dinkle is doing his eyes-closed, head tilted back, mouth-agape, peacocking thing… which I think we can all agree is seven days too many. Hopefully we can also all agree that the poetic tire fire that is “I believe this is the first time a man’s crew-neck undershirt has been seen in the choir loft!” is a sentence that is just too perfectly execrable to exist. Yet it does exist.

Yes, we have here a call back here to Dinkle’s May 2017 trip to Belgium, where he was showered with unearned praise, given this unbearably punny-named medal, and stood in front of TB’s uncredited tracing of the legendary Hergé’s work. I’m not wordly enough to know if the Belgians hate us, but I can’t blame them if they do…

If only there WAS a substitute for experience…

You are looking liiiiive at St. Spires Church and its odd, grass-covered exterior wall in today’s strip

At least the choir ladies are asking follow up questions now. The last two times Dinkle pulled his “a little” shtick no one pressed him for specifics. I’m half-surprised Dinkle doesn’t carry around a printed resume to hand out to the mere mortals who aren’t familiar with his life story, that really seems like something he would do.

At least we get that brilliant salmonella pun again4 and a half months was just too long without it. It’s a true TB original too, you won’t find it anywhere else.