"Oh, is this yours?"

April 18, 2010: the day that Funky Winkerbean completely lost any sembelance of linear, logical storytelling, and in the process sent a big “kiss my ink-stained ass” valentine to us, the readers.

Oh no she didn’t: By the way, here’s the manuscript you lost. I have been holding onto it lo, these many years. Sorry, but the last four chapters are missing; I used ‘em for asswipe. Bam, closure. The rest of the panel is taken up with little vignettes supposed to fill us readers in on the whole entire chain of events from the last ten years. Except, I thought that’s what the last three days’ strips were doing. Now the reader is expected to sort thru these postage-stamp size scenes and put them in order.

So Crankshaft did spend some time living on the streets? He sure looks it, as Summer Less pointed out. Where are his huge glasses? What clue is he getting from seeing Annie’s bio in a Playbill that must be 25 to 40 years old? Did Fallen Star get published (we see a hardcover copy), attributed to Les, making Annie a successful agent without her client ever knowing about it? Is this not the laziest, most inept, slapdash attempt at storytelling the comics have ever seen? Batiuk (and you too, Armstrong) present to the readers this steaming, senseless mess of a story, and the readers are expected to grin thankfully, just as Les does when he finally gets his stolen masterpiece handed back to him.