Has Coach Bull already abandoned the “project” of whipping Les’ sorry ass into shape? He’s nowhere to be seen today. No matter: here comes motivation in the form of none other than Ed Crankshaft! Yes, it can be no one else; just peep this Crankshaft comic from July 2009:
The above strip is from that weird flash-forward arc where Crankshaft becomes unstuck in time, leaping Billy Pilgrim-like between scenes of his present-day, younger and older selves. This appearance lends support to the theory that Crankshaft, while also set in Ohio, takes place ten years in the past.*
Note to Cayla: if the prospect of being left to plan your wedding on your own, while your fiance goes off with his daughter to climb Kilimanjaro, doesn’t convince you that you’re making a huge mistake, well, you’re on your own.
*…while the Crankshaft strip from September 11, 2011 disproves this theory.
Son of Stuck Funky 
So that’s where Crazy Harry’s old hat went… Why couldn’t Crankshaft have stolen Les’ now collarless yellow shirt too?
Like I said a few posts ago: always leave ’em questioning their own mortality, right Tom?
So finally we get some confirmation that a wedding WILL be taking place sometimes soon…oh, dandy. I’m sure Cayla will have no problem at all with planning the ENTIRE WEDDING herself while Les goes off gallivanting with Queen Jockolonius of Jocktown. I mean sure, most women would freak, but not the unflappable Cayla, who can barely be bothered to make a facial expression. Besides, planning Les Moore’s wedding should take about two minutes…”Hello, Funky, is Montoni’s available on the 14th?”.
Cayla: “You want me to plan the entire wedding while you’re gone?”
Les: “Yuppers!”
Cayla: “I can deal with all of that by myself, no problem!”
Les: “Great! Well, I’m off to complain to Summer!”
Cayla: “Come back here! Can’t you tell I was being sarcastic?!? That does it. I’m to spackle his entire library of #$%^&* Lisa Vids into the wall!
Nice that “the coming wedding” gets a passing mention, but death and mortality always gets top billing in Batiuk World!
In my experience, the groom’s contribution to the wedding planning usually amounts to saying “Yes dear, that’s fine” anyway. Generally speaking, men don’t have as big an opinion on these things as the women do.
….What am I saying, this is Les we’re talking about. Of course he’s going to going to have an opinion on every little detail of the wedding, and he’s going to demand that they be adhered to. God forbid Cayla try to display the giant framed picture of Saint Dead Lisa anywhere other than the head table–her matron of honor can surely find another seat elsewhere!
guess bull wondered off with Les backpack,anyway this strip sure sucks aways !
TheDiva: I will be stunned if Lisa isn’t actually AT the wedding in some way, shape or form. Disembodied head, Les vision, VHS, whatever. But she’ll be there, you betcha.
I picked a bad week to stop smoking.
You know, it occurred to me that Bull’s diabolical plan was to woefully under-prepare Les for his mountain trek (principally by taking him jogging, what, three times now? With a week off to look through old yearbooks). Les’ natural ego (which is formed entirely from the core of a collapsed star) would also make him think he is now an expert in mountain-climbing.
Les’ idea then, will be to start at the base of Kilimanjaro and sprint his way to the top, then quickly dropping dead from exhaustion, dehydration, lack of backpack, heart failure and cancer. Bull will then get the recognition he has always craved from the town, and maybe the town will build a statue of him in the park for pigeons to crap on.
The only flaw in Bull’s plan is that Les, like Gauron from Full Metal Panic or The Master from Doctor Who, cannot be killed.
I could be reading way too much into this, but I’m really enjoying the word “deal” in “Cayla said she could DEAL with all of the wedding plans.” Not “handle” or “take care of” or “administer to”, but “DEAL WITH”. As in, “I’ll deal with taking care of all of the wedding plans while you’re selfishly preoccupied with climbing that damn mountain, and don’t be surprised if you return to find that I’ve replaced you with a better choice in groom — deal with THAT, Asshole!”
Gotta love TB’s depictions of old people:
Sunday: They can’t form new memories because they’re old and stupid, so they repeat the same shit over and over again, much to the consternation of real, functioning people. What a buzz kill!
Tuesday: They are grim harbingers of death. Nothing more. Hear their words and flee in terror!
O! The hilarity!
Now we know what’s in Les’ backpack- a nearly complete change of clothes for him and Summer. And if that’s supposed to be Crankshaft, where’s his lucky red trucker hat?
The nurse is startled because that’s the first time Lap Blanket Geezer has said anything other than “I go poopie in pants” in two years. But forget about the suddenly lucid conversation — How about the HEARING on a guy with one foot in the grave? Picked up that conversation from a pretty fair distance. Contrived much, Tommeh?
Slumber and Goatee Boy are shown running away like the old guy is about to set off a Death Bomb. Are they suddenly motivated by his words, or are they afraid the icy hand of death will reach for him but grab them?
I think that’s really Dale “Beanball” Bushka in the wheelchair, not Ed Crankshaft. Beanball is the grandfather (?) of Bull Bushka, and is always depicted as being someone who is near death.
Helskor: And if that’s supposed to be Crankshaft, where’s his lucky red trucker hat?
Yeah…I guess I could be wrong…
[img]http://i.imgur.com/SAl93.jpg[/img]
@ bobanero: Nope.
I imagine it went down like this.
[img]http://billytheskink.com/LesDeal.gif[/img]
Don’t worry Les, even when you’ve lost most of your motor skills and mental capacity, you’ll still be able to act like an annoying douche to everyone within the vicinity. Just look at Ed Crankshaft there, still an irritating prick at age 127!!!
Ed Crankshaft, you are truly an inspiration to assholes everywhere.
I think it’s terrible the way the newspapers will crop the comic strips just to squeeze more of them on a page. Because I’m like 78 percent sure there was a fourth panel in which the old guy said, “No, by ‘do it now while you still can’ I meant buy The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Vol 1, right now because they’re selling like hotcakes!” He could then detail all the ways Les could buy this book, which would be a handy thing to pass on to the reader, too.
Third and fourth….
If he somehow knows before anyone else does about an ebola epidemic or a civil war about to break out in Tanzania, then that’s definitely Crankshaft.
Crankshaft also takes place in the present day, with unfunny Twitter jokes and other references to pop culture. There was even Black Cayla a while back. FW also takes place in the present day, as indicated by “Gay Prom” 2012.
Yes Senor T, I think we get that. I think we are trying to reconcile how in one strip Crankshaft is a doddering old fool and in the other one, he’s a slightly older doddering old fool in a wheelchair.
Billy that was epic! 🙂
Oh no, not the timetable again. It’s all so hopelessly convoluted now that there’s no point in trying to figure it out…there’s no sense to be had there. Just a fool’s errand, courtesy of a fool.