Tag: sweat beads

Testosterony’s really neat! Hooray! For testosterony!

We’ve teased you with her face at the top of the page for a full week now… but she’s finally here folks! Please welcome Ruby Lith to the climage damate/pandemic/supply chain issues story arc (now with comic book misogyny or something) in today’s strip.

Is Ruby just annoyed that all of the damate climage comic books Atomik Komix is putting out don’t feature female characters or are too muscle-bound action man violence explosions so many explosions-oriented (did she forget about The Oceanaire?.. well, she doesn’t appear to be the only one) or does she believe that these issue du jour comic books would somehow be more effective in changing the hearts and minds of the world citizenry if they weren’t so… ugh, “testosterony”? And why is she addressing Batton like he works at Atomik Komix? Unless… oh no. Surely it won’t come to that, will it?

Climate-specific progress goes “broke”

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd, back to damate climage in today’s strip. I know we were all wondering how last month’s second issue of The Subterranean sold. Not well, which I am sure surprises absolutely no one. Flash seems especially put out by this… and it was Batton that got nicknamed “Bummer”?

You know, the climage damate books aren’t the only things at Atomik Komix not working…

The Trilogy Of Tedium

Link To This One

It’s called a “tetralogy”, you nimrods. Or a “quadrilogy”, if you prefer. It took me all of three seconds to learn this. But BatYam felt he really needed to drive Flash Freeman’s general imbecility home, again, so here we are. It would appear that once again he’s done the impossible and discovered something even more tedious than that “Elemental Force” arc from a few months back, and that “something” is watching Flash and Phil talking to Batton about it. That BatHam, always pushing his artistic boundaries.

That “Elementals” arc was absolute hell to get through and I really hope we’re not revisiting that fiasco again, because I am totally out of sub-atomic particle puns. It really is remarkable how quickly Flash Freeman became one of my most despised FW characters, as he wasn’t even in the strip until a few years ago. And it was better that way. Marginally, yes, but nevertheless.

Shooty Now For The Future

Link To Today’s

Keen observation there, Boy Lisa. Insight like that must be why they keep him around, in spite of his overwhelming blandness. Not that it would have helped or anything, but it’d have been way more in character if Chester had said something like “find out what next’s year’s hottest titles will be so I can buy all the first editions” or something that was, you know, related to comic books in some way. Because he’s Chester Hagglemore, the man whose entire life revolves around comic books.

But instead he just had him say the most generic thing possible in that situation, rendering the strip (and the Chester character) totally pointless, instead of just mostly pointless. This is a really, really bad premise, even by FW’s lowly standards. Usually the premises are semi-believable and it’s the execution where they all go hopelessly awry, but this one is just complete dog shit. He couldn’t think of any other way to work some “Flash” gags into the strip? “I know! I’ll have Batton Thomas inexplicably use the Flash treadmill at Atomik Komix”…I mean that’s really out there, man. Half the strip takes place in a comic book store and a comic book factory, and this was the best he could do?

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.