The Daily Cartoonist site reports (sort of) on the recent legal kerfuffle:
Batiuk lawyers force down Funky commentary blog
By “sort of” reporting, I mean that they couldn’t be bothered to email me to comment, but instead lifted their quotes from my post. They didn’t reach out to Batiuk for his thoughts either. I was extremely humbled, however, to have SoSF described as being “similar to Comics Curmudgeon”
UPDATE: I take back the “sort of”. Alan Gardner of the Daily Cartoonist not only emailed me for comment, but posted my reply to the site mere minutes after I hit “send”. A tip of the SoSF Stetson to the Daily Cartoonist! Alan also has contacted Batiuk, who probably will reply through his legal team.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Crank Shaft”? Is that anything like “Super Fly”?
Hmmm, they didn’t email you for comment, but they did email Josh for comment. Perhaps they felt the quotes from your post were sufficient. Lazy journalism.
Nice comment from Ed Power of My Cage. My (already high) opinion of him just shot up several notches.
Drew Beran must be a pseudonym for Tom Batiuk.
So it would seem it WAS only SoSF that “got served” courtesy of “Batom Inc”. It would have definitely been nice to hear what FW’s grim overlord had to say about all this commotion but I guess he’s too busy coming up with new ways to injure his characters.
And the Streisand Effect continues…
“Even though it was for critical purposes and wasn’t for profit in any way and the people visiting it didn’t stop visiting online newspaper comics sites and that wasn’t what Josh actually meant, it -was- the same as syndicating it. Because it just was. And it -did- steal money from Tom. Somehow. Somehow! It just did. Fair use doesn’t actually exist.”
I think you have a decent case for fair use, and because of that you probably don’t have to worry about Batom taking any further legal action against you, as long as you don’t replicate the strips any more. It’s a shame, because having the strip as part of the comments really added to the SoSF experience, but the comments are the gold for which I come.
I salute you for the efforts you are putting forth with this web site, and I’ll be happy to chip in if you need financial help to keep it operational.
Someone in the comments section at the Daily Cartoonist article linked to this site…
http://www.angelfire.com/va/funkyw/
If you Google “Funky Winkerbean” this is the first “fan site” that comes up. Wow. I didn’t know Angelfire still existed.
Yeah, or BraveNet.
@ EP… that “angelfire” fan site has not been updated since 2003.
Lazy…. just like the official FW site
MP: I saw that, the forum there is a little more current but no less sad. The fact that this is probably the #1 FW “fan site” makes me smile.
My attorney and I just looked up the term “passive aggressive lunkhead” in the encyclopedia and found Batom’s (copyright protected) picture.
What else can you say about an arrogant, self absorbed, has been cartoonist who haphazardly “blogs” but doesn’t have the courage to allow comments on his own blog?
If he was indeed concerned about de facto syndication and potential lost income, he could readily have contacted TFH and the author of SF and asked for the changes he felt necessary to protect his intellectual property rights. Other mature cartoonists have done just that.
But no. What he and King Features are no doubt most concerned with is the fact that the dominant voice on the subject of Fu(ky Wankerbahn is not his blogs, the Official FW website or King Features itself, but this blog. And there isn’t very much said here that is very complimentary.
If TB has shown any consistency of late, it is in the expression of his boundless ego depicting himself and his views through his characters, especially Loser More. He does seem the type that loves reading his own press, too. He can’t have enjoyed knowing that “fans” searching for FW topics on the internet would easily find comments on the subject of Lesterbation, the riffs on his stilted dialog, utterly clueless and insensitive depictions of serious matters, and his increasingly sloppy art (two words: hatchet face).
He may continue this legal action, if only to garner more attention and publicity to his rotten and tiresome soapbox of a strip. The man does love hearing himself blather on…
TF, I too will pitch in if the a$$wipe continues this misbegotten legal threat. I hope he reflects maturely on this first and thickens his skin enough to see that most of us here started off liking this strip, liked it for decades even, and have only recently grown frustrated with his lazy, inconsistent, and self centered work of Act III.
Personally, I think the “Lesterbation” comments zinged him off the most.
Good.
Bite me, Batiuk.
Ed Power has now made me feel bad about never being a big fan of My Cage.
Sorry Ed.
Glad to see some good pub for SoSF, seems like most folks are on your side TFH.
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