Nerding Day: Pin-Up Pete, Revisited

I’ve let you down. Back in August (two years in digital time) I covered Pin-Up Pete. Cheesecake semi-comics that look like this:

And sound like this:

Any wordplay around “Queen o’ Spit Ballers” oversells the content. “But nothin’ happens” is Pete’s thesis, and he takes longer to say it each time. Publisher Toby/Minoan invented romantic comedy without either.

To be clear: Pete’s a marine that ruins pin-ups with memoirs about not-fucking. While my writeup’s hilarious and enlightening, I whiffed “basic, searchable reality.” My complete review of Pete’s catalog wasn’t. That shame’s haunted me all afternoon.

My bad–I thought that Marvel Method ecchi had a low ceiling. And it did. But publishing rejects mortal law. As the encore to titles like Commie Crushin’ Crew, Pete just had to exist to survive. Even if whoever asked for full screenplays with their fanservice said “thank you, that’s enough” two Petes in.

Toby/Minoan kept going. Perhaps knowing it’d age better than this:

Fun fact: if a witch curses you with “a thousand years of race war mascots,” they’re not fucking around. I don’t know what’s for lunch, but I’ve got years of genocidal Superman knockoffs. I’ll pass the leftovers to my child/intern/clone/grave robber. State News says our kids will have it pretty easy, so I’m sure they’ll crush it.

Anyway, I assumed that Toby/Minoan published sane amounts of Pin-Up Pete. That they quit while they were behind. That he even stayed Pete, or kept a consistent anything.

It’s Pete all the way down. This sex liar has more variants than Spider-Man okay, no. But you get the idea.

See, I’m wrong all the time. It’s nice to be this wrong without stakes. Not one nuclear stockpile’s involved. If I sound obsessed, I am. Think of all the time you spend not-fucking. You’re not-fucking now, unless you’re an elite multitasker. Pete writes a press release each time, and forces dying men to listen. It’s banal and insane at once, like the last thing I was wrong about. It’s like every line of “Mambo No. 5” took four hours to draw.

We’re touring four more Petes. More exist. While the lazy sleep, Pete’s not fucking. While the herd grazes, Pete’s fumbling a date with a hot mime. While the dead sleep, Pete’s getting slapped by an ethnic caricature. These are simply the non-conquests my mortal hands could hold.

First, our returning non-champion. After pitching every living athlete, isolation pioneer Pete One tries music. Who knows what’ll happen? You. Me. Pete. Pretend we don’t.

Refreshing failure. Our boy still doesn’t have it.

As Earth warms up for the finale, Pete One offers stability. Pin-Up 20XX: The 2nd Runner can follow a posthuman with no game. Pete One’s a desperate fuck with third grade literacy and kindergarten street smarts, so we’ll probably make him king. All hail Pete One I, first and last of his name.

Holy shit, continuity! Not between issues, that’s madness. But one page rewards reading the other. This changes things. We can put art in sequence to tell stories, instead of taping Playboy letters to Mormon porn. Patent it before Marvel catches on. Once capes hit a medium, it’s theirs.

I could use less stability from Pete One. He struggled with “no” last round, and I hoped Toby/Minoan would forget that habit like his face. Nope. Pete’s still the All-American Pepe Le Pew, and it’s more consistent than his accent, beard, or name. Popeye has spinach, The Spirit has his mask, and Pete One has court dates.

Time for some new blood.

Pete IV ditches the name. He’s Gil now, and concerned with optics for the first and only time.

While other Petes photographed their dates/crimes for ego, Gil’s a class act, helping out new models. Standard stalking synergy–we’re seventy years from every quip on your mind. If that sounds like an alibi waiting for a charge, you’re aiding the enemy.

While I’d love to say this harassment makes no sense and roll on, the logic scans. It’s just fucking pointless. Pete’s operating before we’d perfected Instagram boyfriends or felony producers, so he’s weaving an entire language. It’s not going well. Marilyn Beifong’s a long trip for a baseball pun, no matter how much you like sports, blondes, or metalbending. Also, didn’t we hit baseball puns with Abbie?

Now I miss Betty, since that was a story. This one, like Gil’s deposition, leaves out what happened with Jellybean and why. I can infer, but we’re all innocent until proven guilty, and Petes confess compulsively. After all the text crowding Jellybean, we’re still stuck writing our own punchline. Though she’s dressed like a burlesque wizard, twice the nouns a timely sketch needs. I’ll pitch America’s favorite live comedy show:

In any case, I cited Toph too early. This page is all rock puns, zero restraint. I’m surprised her name’s Jellybean instead of Brickhouse McStalactite. I know twelve-year-olds didn’t have options, but I’d give up around “rock you on your heels.”

We just did this.

We just did this. Switching implicit crime for explicit crime adds clarity, but it’s not a new story. It’s barely a new sketch. Jellybean clearly switched wigs.

There, jilting’s new. As any appointee knows, losing to another predator hurts. All you can do is stand tall, pick up the pieces of your joy, and strangle the world’s.

My fault for trusting a Pete. At least his brothers embrace their legacy and sentences. Gil grips respectability like a fleeing model.

These ran long enough for Pete to lead. Pete. A soldier half as dedicated as Yossarian. History smiles on Pete’s “meh” attitude to dying for Domino Theory, but ethics don’t win medals. He still hit on Red Cross nurses long enough to draw disciples. You’ll notice a change:

His underlings suck.

Maybe that’s a master stroke. So far, aiming for scrappy underdog has had insane results. A heel stable could be the twist this concept needs.

Nope. Pete leads museum tours of real people, with results between stupid and terrifying. He might as well have a tour bus and megaphone. “This is Carol, a local ten. Turn flash off before any photos, she startles easily. And shoot quickly: we still have to hit LA Fitness and the Reptile House.”

Note: I’m merging Pin-Up Pete and Lover O’ Leary & His Liberty Belles. Because they’re the same bit from the same publisher in the same year with the same cast in the same style. And Lover O’ Leary ends the Pin-Up Pete special. If you’re the wikia type, call him Pete O’Leary. Either way, his friends hate him for the wrong reason:

Heavy is the crown. Some goons talk behind your back. Others submit articles at 4 AM. But all is forgiven, because we have panels. Glorious, golden panels!

Panels of minion chatter, not Pete’s weekly disaster. You know, the story. I don’t know why I try. Anything, at any time. Nothing’s ever needed a Greek Chorus less. A band camp liar’s only half as grating as his sycophants. These ran after stories like Patriotism vs. Air, and they’ve convinced me enlisting kills my mind long before my body.

Granted: you can argue that these are about bullshitting. Totally. They suck. You proved that tall tales suck by telling me shitty stories. Make up better ones. The last liar I met described a 3-on-1 subway fight like fucking Hammer Girl. Awesome. Lie like you mean it. Now that we’ve slowly, painfully remade comics, we can start fiction.

As for the florist scheme: by clown law, only two endings exist. Either Pete sees a non-model and bursts into flames, or:

You can’t keep my man down. He does it himself.

All that change in the previous two Petes? Terrifying. Luckily, Toby/Minoan has months of the same shit.

As appearances and redesigns go on, the machine breaks. As it should. What God would let this go on forever? Don’t answer that, I’ve been outside. The demiurge punches in for once, and puts Punished Pete to sleep. Creative thrashes hard on the way down. It’s my new favorite Man vs. God conflict.

“Beach Pete? Is anything there?”

“Sorry, that’s nothing. A dead well in the desert. I lost my lifeguard fetish after printing it. What if Pete talked even more? Christ, was that out loud? Don’t do it just because I–”

“Whose novel is this? We’re making jingoist jerkbait, not a prequel to The Odyssey. It already has a prequel. Fighting fate ends in ah shit..”

Look at the dissertation between line dancer and kicked me in the face. It’s impossible yet real, like turning Silmarillion footnotes into studio debt. And pointless: this isn’t our first rodeo. Pete’s already explained multiple 4chans of chastity. When we read IcyHot saleswoman, we know his balls are doomed.

While Punished Pete appears after Monty Hall of the US Marines #10, the dream dies here. He fills two pages, and both look like surrender. But one page leaves Punished Pete’s body, dignity, and criminal record intact. I can’t think of a better place to leave him. Other than prison.

Punished Pete knows love for a second, even if they’ll shortly explode into coins. He taught me a valuable lesson: ignore feedback. Plug both ears and smile like God’s most perfect creature. Maybe Pete lives on in Cumbrain Valhalla. Or for six hundred issues with a slightly different name. I’ll never find out.

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