#IZ has always had issues with bullying fat people for comedy. unfortunately that is absurdly normalized in children's stuff

[shoechoe]

Seeing as you also read the Invader Zim comics, did you notice the opening of Florpus takes after the first issue? Also I'm not going to lie, I absolutely hated how the comic version is just an excuse to dish out excessive humiliation on Dib. Like Zim straight up fat shames the kid and it annoys me when people brush it off as just "dark humor." especially because Dib wasn't even being a jerk. Sorry to vent too much but I feel like the only one bothered by that.

Yeah, I noticed. I actually heard that Florpus was a "re-imagining" of the first comic issue before, so I wasn't surprised by it. One of the things that did surprise me (from what I've read so far- I'm struggling to find the full fifth issue online RN, I might have to find where to buy it) was how mean they are in general- like, meaner than the show got, I think. The first two chapters just being Dib torture (as well as how much it tortures Dib in general) is a big example.

(The comics seem weirdly like they try to change up ZIM and Dib's dynamic from "They each win their individual battles sometimes, but neither one gets what they want" to "Dib constantly fails at everything no matter what" which, to me, doesn't work as well.)

ZIM gets picked on quite a bit too, but his chapters struck me as a lot more fun to read than Dib's chapters. The one where the Tallests pick on ZIM and then it ends with him straight up killing them on accident was hilarious. I wish Dib's chapters were more like that.

Personally, if you don't mind me ranting about something slightly different, what I disliked even more from the first issue was Gaz's chapter. Like, Gaz didn't like how Dib tried to pull her away from her video games, so she tortures him by simulating him as a player character and has him die ten million times...?? I'm pretty sure that's worse than anything ZIM has even tried to do to Dib.

What really gets to me is the way that it makes Dib apologize to Gaz for "not respecting her interests enough" like he's the one in the wrong even though Gaz is putting him through I Have No Mouth-level torture just because he annoys her when she wants to play her video games. I'm all for Gaz being comically evil (I always thought she got too much shit in the fanbase for it), but not when you butcher a bizarre attempt at a moral in it.

The comics and Florpus definitely attempt to make Gaz and Dib feel more like a regular pair of siblings than just two assholes while keeping the IZ-style dark humor, but the last chapter of issue #1 failed pretty hard at it. It's especially frustrating because I feel like the comics do this much better later. The story where Gaz learns that Dib will explode if he gets sad so she spends the entire day trying to make him happy was one of the best ones, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I feel like that chapter is an exception. Most of the time, I think IZ is just not very good at handling wholesome emotional arcs and positive relationships between characters. (Like I've said before, I could go on a whole rant about how Dib and Professor Membrane's relationship gets handled in Florpus.)