Is the Watchmen smiley face currently negotiating its own spinoff? – Smiley the Psychotic Button #1

You can’t tell me that the Comedian’s trademark button hasn’t at some point called its agent to harangue him for a new deal. “You mean DC put together this whole Before Watchmen thing and you couldn’t even get me a one-shot special? I’M THE GODDAMN SYMBOL OF THE WHOLE SERIES!”

Smiley may or may not be the symbol of the Evil Ernie franchise, but yes, he did indeed have his own one-issue spinoff title. (For those unaware, Smiley is the sentient button attached to the undead Evil Ernie’s jacket, and he forms a part of that character’s extended family of oddballs, as well as being the passage through which Ernie’s dark powers are channelled. As you can see, he looks like a cross between your generic Have a Nice Day button, a skull and crossbones, and a Mr. Yuk sticker.) You might be asking “Hey, how can they make a whole comic book out of a button?” And you’d be right to question the wisdom of such a move, my sage friend. Because this comic book is loud and stupid and juvenile and crude. Those might be the things to which Evil Ernie aficionados are accustomed, but I’m not an Ernie aficionado. And you know what? Most people aren’t. So this comic is offensively awful to most everyone, right down to plankton.

The “imaginary” story in these pages (Script: Jesse McCann, Pencils: Ivan Reis, Inks: Joe Pimentel) focuses on the dream life of Smiley, who dozes and fantasizes as he’s pinned to his owner’s lapel. And what does he dream about? What all heterosexual men (and buttons) dream about — BABES:

Most of the dreaming is centered on not just any babe, but Lady Death, another of Evil Ernie’s coterie. Smiley’s unconscious mind whips up a dream where he’s a dashing knight (with arms and legs) seeking to find Lady Death and win her heart. (If you’re a guy trying to impress and bed a female personification of mortality, maybe you should go the Thanos route and put the Silver Surfer in bondage. Or maybe not.) Smiley, despite this being his dream and therefore his playground, has limited success in his amorous quest. He even has to resort to cribbing some mindless muscular rage from the Hulk:

But Smiley does indeed triumph, eventually getting Lady Death alone and ready to rock and roll. Only to discover that — and I here present you with graphic evidence that I am not making this up — he doesn’t have a penis:

One could quibble with the notion that, since this is Smiley’s dream and he’s been able to forge himself knight’s armor and various augmented powers, not to mention arms and legs, he should be able to make himself some junk. Or maybe this is dream-symbol gobbledygook, with castration imagery that’s caused by your mother not loving you enough or some other nonsense. I have no idea. All I know is that the grand climax of this tale was a yellow button with big thick eyebrows had no dick. THANK YOU COMIC BOOK.

This comic has a five-year old mentality, yet it delves into sexual material. It’s insipid and useless — but perhaps we should expect no less from Chaos Comics, who also brought us the colossally dumb Undertaker World Wrestling Federation comic book. It’s terrible on pretty much every level. Enough said.

Apologies to all the Evil Ernie devotees out there if I’ve insulted your franchise, as I begrudge no one their fandom, and people in the glass house of comic books shouldn’t throw a lot of stones. Perhaps there’s some deeper meaning here that’s flown over my head. Barring that miracle, though, this is wretched. And apologies to the plankton for that.