Teamworking Day: WorldWatch, Issue #3

Chuck Austen is the Uwe Boll of comic books. Or wait, Uwe Boll is the Chuck Austen of movies. I don’t know which is more insulting, I only know that each would violently disagree with the comparison. “No!” They would screech, “I’m a brilliant satirist! He’s a pointless edgelord who mistakes parody for dumb violence and surplus titties!” They would both be right and wrong in exactly the same ways.

Today we’re covering the third and final issue of Chuck Austen’s pornographic Justice League parody, Worldwatch.

Brockway: If you missed parts one and two, I’ll catch you up: Chuck Austen hates women, but he’s just kidding. Why is it none of you bitches can take a joke?

Seanbaby: You know how superheroine costumes are weirdly sexy? That's the only observation Chuck Austen is capable of making. It's the only conscious thought he's ever formed and the rest of his brain is dedicated solely to secreting the chemicals needed to masturbate to it and rage against it. If you ask Chuck Austen what he's thinking for dinner, he calls Wonder Woman a fucking tease, and furthermore a slut. He'd have no recollection of how he got to the restaurant as he told the waiter, "Oh... how smug, how satisfied Wonder Woman would be if she could see this tiny boner, but I'll show her. You want to take my order, sir? I'll have WONDER WOMAN'S PANTIES TORN OFF AND NO ONE CAN HELP HER! And a refill on my Pepsi."

Brockway: Imagine if this had gone on for ten, twenty issues, more! Was there a stopping point to this series, an Avengers: Endgame of hating women for having tits? Or did he hope this would still be running in 40 years, hot new writers and artists hopping in to yell at strong ladies in panties for wanting dick too much? Luckily, we do not have to ponder that future because in this issue, Chuck Austen gets Malibu’d: He’s fired in issue three and they replace the story with an apology-

Brockway: But here’s the difference -- a Malibu writer gets fired because they were only ever a seagull that wandered into the office seeking potato chips, stepped in ink, walked across a page, and accidentally wrote part of a comic book. No amount of bribery, Cheetos, or controlled chasing could duplicate that success, so they were shooed out with a broom on issue #3. Their work is garbage... but it’s pretty funny and kind of inspiring when you think about it. Chuck Austen pulled the same move, except he didn’t actually get fired and he didn’t really apologize. He just pretended to get shitcanned as an excuse to write his fans the kind of obnoxious, passive-aggressive dig you’d expect to find on a fridge that always has free leftovers.

Chuck still wrote this issue, just under the pseudonym Sam Clemens after Mark Twain’s pen name, because he thinks he’s a genius for the ages, and also because he thinks a reference is a joke. In a later interview, he would laughingly recall how those idiots, his fans, didn’t get this joke either. They’d bring him the first two Worldwatch books and talk shit about that Sam guy who replaced him. This didn’t happen for many reasons -- because nobody missed a punchline that was actually on the curriculum in 7th grade English, because nobody bought Worldwatch and that’s why it was cancelled after this issue, but mostly because Chuck Austen said it, and every word out of his mouth should be treated like it’s an excuse about why you can’t meet his Canadian girlfriend.

Seanbaby: The thing I love about Chuck is that he's too stupid to be anything other than transparent. Every reader is so far ahead of him in his own gag. He got his feelings hurt because they all knew his sincere love letter to sexual assault wasn't a parody, and now his insecurities have called for revenge. These pathetic idiots will regret hating Chuck Austen after he takes away their precious Chuck Austen, masking it all behind a clever, deep cut reference like the most famous writer in history's pen name. It's first draft cringe. It's like watching a kid who just peed his pants in class practice his explanation in a mirror. It's li-- holy shit, Brockway, we still haven't started the comic.

Brockway: I can be mad for a long time just about a man’s existence. Ask Jon Hamm. But fine, let’s get started. Let’s see how long before we regret it: The story kicks off with our heroes losing badly to Atomika, a fiery superhulk, because they’re too distracted arguing about how much titty out means it’s okay to molest.

Wow, I wound up regretting it in the first line!

Seanbaby: No one would ever believe us if we told them how much dialog is dedicated to how naked these women are. But I swear to you, TWENTY ONE out of the first FORTY FIVE word bubbles are either about women being nearly nude or about sexually assaulting those almost naked women. That's not "parody." At the risk of writing Chuck Austen's next pitch, that's like dedicating one full hour of Spaceballs to Princess Leia not wearing a bra and having every droid, man, and Jawa spit on her for not giving them sex. Robert, I think I lost track of the plot during my statistical analysis. What the shit is going on?

Brockway: No, that’s the plot. That’s all of it.

Seanbaby: So, gulp, War Woman picks up the woman wearing a necktie wrapped around her erogenous zones who lost consciousness while literally pleading for no one to have sex with her unconscious body. War Woman refuses to hand her to her colleague because he's too eager AND has an actual history of fingering unconscious women? This is a nightmare. Bill Cosby would call Chuck Austen a "gloozle booble" for this, which means something close to "brother" in our language.

Oh my god, War Woman decides to give Ecto-Lass to a cowboy who immediately jokes about the boner he's getting thinking about having sex with her while she's asleep. This is a life-and-death fist fight and five different superheroes have stopped to weigh in with their thoughts on sexually assaulting their wounded co-worker right now, and two of them are in favor of it. I don't know how much clearer Chuck Austen has to make it, world: he is absolutely the very first opportunity away from an unspeakable sex crime.

Brockway: There is only one male superhero in this world who does not raisin his pinkies in trauma victims… and even he explains that, no, the only reason he wasn’t molesting before now was because there were too many zippers to get through on the old costumes.

But wait, what are the stakes here? What is this fiery superhulk after -- revenge, chaos, world domination? Chuck? Hey, Chuck? Can it please be revenge, chaos, or world domination? Chuck? You’re holding that copy of The Fountainhead suspiciously over your lap as you draw this page-

Okay, that’s not- that’s not great. That’s not a great place to be in just the cold open of this issue. So far it could be argued that at least Chuck Austen is condemning this kind of behavior, but that’s only because I’m a gentleman and I’m leaving out the next page which is a fully nude, spread-eagled War Woman for 14 year olds to beat off to... if mom’s using the phone and they can’t get on dial-up to download Kari Wuhrer nudes.

Seanbaby: Most of Chuck's characters are bitter, hateful idiots who complain about everything. He hates writing almost as much as he hates women, but there's a tone shift as the rape approaches. Every single character involved starts setting up and delivering jokes. They're terrible, of course, but they each betray a dark truth: Chuck Austen is finally having a good time. He loves this. He is inspired by this.

Brockway: Don’t worry, Worldwatch can’t get away with being too graphic. But do worry, because Badtouch Superhulk is a completely invincible rapist on the verge of penetration and they drew that, they actually drew that. But don’t worry, because there’s a new hero in town! He’s here to save the day! But do worry again because he’s only doing it to get War Woman to go out with him. And then do worry some more, because he asks her for that date as he’s lifting her attempted rapist off. Seriously do keep worrying, because he gets mad at her on the date she accepted(!) later that same night(!) because she’s not being much fun, and actually just… just keep worrying, because she agrees with him that she’s being a total bitch.

Brockway: That’s where we leave this story -- the woman who was nearly raped three hours ago apologizes for not being a fun date to the man who only conditionally rescued her from being split open by a flaming cock. The rest of the comic is just about superheroes fucking and non-consensually watching each other fuck, while also talking about how huge the dick of the one black male character is-

Seanbaby: I want to ignore the racial dong stuff. We all knew the second Chuck Austen decided to include an African American superhero, the entire issue was written backwards from the first line in his notes: "RAM YOUR BIG, BLACK COCK INTO ME!"

What's funnier to me is that he is still talking about how weirdly sexy superheroine costumes are after they're gone. He had seven different characters talk about them, had a full-on super battle themed around them, and even after everyone is fully nude and being penetrated, it's still the only thing on Chuck's mind. And speaking of Chuck's mind, he was so proud of this jerkoff fantasy he pulled back to reveal a character jerking off to it and literally screaming, "OH MY GOD, IT'S JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!" It's amazing. No one will ever be as proud of anything as Chuck Austen is of his below average imagination, stunted sexuality, and sad penis.

Brockway: Wait, I lied -- we do briefly cut back to the date that happens if you do the opposite of everything a workplace sexual harassment training video says, and discover that War Woman’s all-powerful boyfriend just caught her cheating because she, like all women in a Chuck Austen comic, is a whore waiting to be properly punished.

Brockway: But hey, at least that’s the start of a story -- it took us 23 pages of panty anger to get here, but we’re here, aaaand it’s over. That’s the end of the Worldwatch comic! The final issue of Worldwatch mostly complains about how it’s too hard to finger unconscious women nowadays. That’s seriously the ending. The rest of the book is just photoshops of pinup girls from fictional in-universe publications with names picked out of the trash after a Mad Magazine brainstorming session.

Seanbaby: Ha ha this goddamn horny idiot still had more ways to express "superhero costumes are for masturbation." There are multiple pages where some untalented artist drew pasties and superhero masks on pornography. This is the world's most indoor kid's idea of erotic. It's something an ancient 12-year-old would hide on a floppy disk labeled "viruses."

Seanbaby: One of the headlines on the Roi??g Stain magazine is "Hilary Duff (NOT!)" Is this a joke about how they took Hilary Duff's head, who was 17 years old when this was published, and put it on a stripper's body and then painted "superhero clothes" on her? And then made that superhero a stripper since they forgot the pants? I truly don't even know what he was trying for here. If I had to guess, I'd say someone got kicked out of graphic design school for being too much of a virgin and now he makes his living letting psychologists implant false memories of what magazines look like. This fucking sucks so hard. It's like a strip club flyer someone would shove into your hand at Bangladesh Comic-Con.

Brockway: I’ve been to that strip club and it rules. Ask for a Chuck Austen -- the stripper puts all of her clothes back on, tells you her real name and one goal she had as a child, then lets you cry one out in the corner.

We actually delve into one of those magazines for a long interview with Plinks, a character we haven’t met yet, but have seen the tits of, which is the only kind of development you’ll find in a Chuck Austen joint.

Brockway: Plinks is, needless to say, an incredibly hot woman. Being an incredibly hot woman she is, needless to say, super horny all the time for all men and also somehow a bitch for it? You can really see Chuck Austen working through every time he heard “gross, security!” on the page. Plinks is so indiscriminately shotgun-spread horny that she tries to fuck the interviewer and the whole thing turns into a Chuck Austen wank fantasy. You can spot the point where he shame-came and tried to play it off as a joke, but at least that means Chuck Austen finished something.

Seanbaby: "To us, a blow job isn't sex. It's kind of more throwing a loser a bone when he's not cute enough or big enough for the all-access pass." Did Chuck Austen get kicked in the head by a horse at the exact moment a sixth grader was explaining sex to him? Thank god this is over.

Brockway: Did you think you were free after reading Chuck Austen get himself off? No, we need several more pages devoted to how much Chuck Austen’s fans suck for not liking Chuck Austen, which is a strange supposition that plagues every waking moment of his life.

Seanbaby: Oh, sweet. Finally the plant for that sweet Sam Clemens payoff the comic opened with!

Seanbaby: I can't believe Chuck even fucked up the letters section. There's not a single aspect of comic publishing he didn't invent a novel new way to fuck up in WorldWatch #3.

Brockway: After taking special time out to explain that he’s still awesome even if nobody likes him, Chuck finally has the decency to stop writing Worldwatch. Don’t rejoice! He would go on to create Tripping the Rift, which was Worldwatch with aliens.

Brockway: Chuck Austen has lovingly detailed the entire contents of his ass in every single comic he’s ever done. There’s nobody out there confused about what kind of guy Chuck Austen is, how he feels about women, gays, or minorities. He put hate crimes on splash pages and then wrote “jk lol” in the margins. He’s an obnoxious little troll who thankfully disappeared from pop culture…

Only to come back as a Supervising Producer for Steven Universe, one of the most gentle and progressive shows in children’s television. He left that job to co-showrun the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power reboot, critically acclaimed for its portrayal of women.

Seanbaby: This is like the cup from "2 Girls 1 Cup" getting a job as Flavor Executive for Baskin Robbins and then leaving that job to co-showrun She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Brockway: There are two possibilities. One: There’s no justice in this universe and Chuck Austen is still a huge piece of shit who stumbled into success and critical acclaim because he finally figured out to save all his “c-words” for the pillow at home that he also cums into and punches.

… or, and here’s what I like to think: This is a redemption story.

Chuck Austen fell so far down a hate hole he came out in Hate Australia (just regular Australia). But somehow he realized he’d hit rock bottom, and wanted to change. Maybe three huge-tittied ghosts visited him one Women’s History Month to show him his life, or maybe he went on a Batman-style journey of enlightenment, training at a mountain monastery run by monks who practice the ancient art of positive consent. However it happened, I like to think Chuck realized he had to make a positive difference in media not for a paycheck, but because he owes a karmic debt for Worldwatch that will take several lifetimes of queer-positive children’s shows to pay off.

Seanbaby: We'll know his debt is paid off if She-Ra ever rips off Skeletor's battle skirt and says, "Your boner is too small for the all-access pass! By the power of Grayskull, you must accept a mere blow job!"