I always thought that “bastiches” was a swear word made up for Lobo. It’s obviously a gender-neutral combo of “bastards” and, begging your pardon, “bitches”. (Odd thought: Can’t a woman be a bastard if her parents aren’t married?) It’s an interesting way to disguise moderately-offensive curse words into a form that can make it into a cartoon.
I was listening to one of James Lileks’ The Diner podcasts, “Triskettasketphobia” from October 13th. I’d link you all directly to the episode, but Lileks keeps hosting the Diner on Mac.com and he exceeds its bandwidth restrictions constantly. Anyway, while watching a local baseball game, he curses the opposing players as “bastiches”.
It’s possible Lileks is a Lobo fan. It’s also possible that I’ve been wrong all this time and bastich is an old expression that wasn’t coined by Lobo comics. Anyone know the answer?
I’m not sure where it was first used, but my research shows that the word was used in “Johnny Dangerously” (which came out in 1984).
Definitely comes from Johnny Dangerously.
“You sumanabatchin’, fargin’ iceholes!” The whole joke was built around a mobster who would say the most obscene things in a moderately unintelligible manner.
“My mother hung me on a hook once. Once!”
Yeah, but I doubt they were using the term “fragging” to be a replacement for the F-word.
Keeping fully in mind that the Lobo that appeared in 1983 had little in common with Lobo as we came to know him….
I’d bet that Giffen pulled it from the movie.
Some of you people watch some pretty sick sounding movies!
“Fragging” dates back to World War II, when unpopular officers and NCOs were occasionally assaulted with fragmentation grenades. Would-be assasins of superiors used them because they couldn’t be traced to individual soldiers.