Thatsnought Hewmore – Page 9 – Son of Stuck Funky

Everybody Had Matching Towels

Wow, it looks like Bernie and Thatsnought are determined to make this sale! In the second panel, it appears they are physically forcing the mattress against that lady, shoving her back into her own home! “Buy this mattress or we will kill you with it!” Wow, that eleven dollars is as good as theirs!

Many folks have pointed out the idiocy of this arc–you don’t lug the damned mattresses around, the same way you don’t carry around turkeys that are becoming dangerous by the minute as they thaw and incubate. No, you show pictures to folks and take orders, then you order the stock, and then you deliver the orders. But that’s not the way things work in the Batiukverse.

Okay, fine, comic strip rules are not the same as real-world rules. But here’s my question, specifically about what we’re seeing here, with Bernie and Thatsnought shilling a mattress.

What happens if they sell it? Are they done for the day, or do they have to go back and get another mattress, come back and start again at the next house on this street? Is there a flatbed truck just out of sight that has a dozen or so more mattresses for them? Has this arc been poorly thought out?

Uh, I mean um *cough*

Well, I’m sure there are at least half a dozen people saying, “Hey, you wanted him to do more funny strips and he’s doing them! There are jokes! You people are ungrateful and should be thanking him!” Well, okay, but honestly, this strip doesn’t give me much to be thankful for. The problem is, as far as “funny,” that ship has sailed many years ago. Tom Batiuk has no idea how to be funny.

And if you’re not going to be funny, at least get the logistics right.

November 20, 2017

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, all, BChasm back again for a spin on the Devil’s Tricycle. First of all, shout out to Comic Book Harriet, whose hosting last week was outstanding. Great insight and great humor–two things Tom Batiuk wishes he still had.

Today’s strip was not available for preview, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that Tom Batiuk’s ability to generate boring and uninvolving content easily beats my ability to predict what will appear. What will we get? More Lisa auction? Les on his book tour? Bull reliving his high school football career? Funky’s failing health? Why, it’s like some kind of monstrous game show, where the only prizes are terrible! IT’S A TORTURE DEVICE FOR THE MODERN AGE!

(Felt tip to Red Letter Media, from which much of the above was stolen.)

Porous Another One

I’ve had so much fun doing this. It’s like being a little comic book company…I’m going back and I’m going to dip into some of the other characters I created in the fifth grade…I’m going to resurrect them and put them to good use in the strip. I’ll tell you about one. I have a character, The Amazing Mister Sponge…

Tom Batiuk, 2014

A superhero with a name like “The Amazing Mister Sponge” gives us a good idea why the “big” comic book companies gave the air to young Thomas Martin Batiuk. I do like the name “Killjoy” for a villainous evil clown; but I wouldn’t need “porifera vision” to discern a frowning clown with a gangsta teardrop tattoo, toting a huge rifle, to be a criminal.

Thinking caps on, chums...
Speaking of superheroes, the only person I’ve ever heard use “chum” as a form of address is Adam West’s Batman, may he rest in peace. The superhero theme allows Rick Burchett to work a little more in his element in the first two panels. But he’s taken some liberties with the bricks in panel 3–they’re not consistent at all–and he’s drawn Bernie to resemble a bespectacled 8-year-old.

So much for my two-week turn in the barrel! Tune in tomorrow when beckoningchasm takes over for a spell.

Quiz Bowel

It is comics like today’s strip that remind me how good I have it. I’m not taking high school English from Les Moore. I never had to take high school English from Les Moore. It is as if he is intentionally trying to be the opposite of the teacher that successful people so often cite as the inspiration that got them to make something of their life. What a miserable experience in every single way this strip is.

Les’ senior students did poorly on their quiz last Monday and now his freshman students have done poorly on theirs… I see a common denominator here. I bet these students would too if Westview High had a math teacher.

How about a Fresco?

If I had told you a year ago that today’s strip was going to be the second in as many days to revolve around Bernie Silver’s forehead acne, you probably would have said “yeah, that sounds like something Tom Batiuk would write about.”

What a pompous and verbose response to a reasonable question. Does Bernie look at Les a role model? Because strips like this make it seem that he does. It almost makes you forget that Bernie is trying to use a pimple to justify an absence from school, a trope that became trite decades ago when the 7 billionth fictional teenager got a pimple on school picture day or prom night and sulked about it.

The traveling green shirt, meanwhile, lives up to its name and finds itself being worn by a third different student in as many days.