Leave it to a Tom Batiuk character to take a topic like “comics” and present it as a history lesson, complete with arched eyebrows and finger-pointing pontification. Way to connect with a teenager who despises school. The part of John in panel 2 is being played by Marvin Kaplan.
28 thoughts on “"Comics", Weakly”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
“Well Owen, as the “funny pages” began to lose relevance, some less-popular “comic strips” began to place their characters in more dramatic settings, giving them convoluted back stories and clumsily attempting to tackle “real-life issues” which usually centered around contrived “tragedies” and sad personal problems.”
“Gee, why’d they do something as stupid as that, John? Did the authors run out of jokes or did they just lose their senses of humor?”
“Little bit of both, Owen. As their already puny readership plummeted, they sought attention by resorting to grim, depressing stories that got a bit of media attention for being “groundbreaking” even though no one really cared. One of them even had a character get cancer and die, believe it or not.”
“How is that even possible? Why would they get media attention if no one cared about the strips in the first place?”
“Publicists, mostly, plus the comic strip syndication racket shook down the newspaper industry via a secret file containing all major newspaper editors in compromising sexual positions. Most people don’t know that and just assume these comic strips stopped running decades ago. It’s a huge racket and these lazy, unimaginative comic strip authors clean up big time through it.”
“Which comic strips do you mean exactly, John?”
“Ever hear of Funky Winkerbean, Owen?”
“F*cky Whatkerbean? What the hell are you talking about?”
That finger-pointing-side-talking bullshit artist in P2 is hovering dangerously close to an 8.76 on the 10 point Les Moore Punchability Index. Owen: “Ease up, Friend!”
What a coincidence – Funky Winkerbean lost me YEARS ago.
First of all, fuck you, Ohio.
Chullo Head appears to speak for all of us. Seems like Swishy Tom knows he’s writing boring dreck (filler) that nobody cares about. A rare moment of clarity for Mom’s Attic Boy.
Punchable Skunk Head now appears to be rambling on to kill time waiting for that date rape pill he slipped Owen to take effect.
Hey, by the way, fuck you, Ohio.
I can only presume the Beanie Wanker is really pissed that Ahia gave us TomBat.
“And then in 1898, Outcault aged the Yellow Kid by 4 years overnight and sent him off to the Spanish-American War, where he died of dysentery. All of the other characters became addicted to laudanum or had their leg cut off by a street car.”
Ya Beanie…Ahia produced allot of snark material yesterday.
Can we survive 4 more years of TB….I mean BO….no I mean TB
Well, we start off our elections giving all the choice to New Hampshire or Iowa, and end them in Ohio. So, i don’t know what you can expect from a system like that.
Goddammpunchablefaceinpanel2….
That’s OK, Milton Caniff (Ahia State ’30), Jeff Smith, and Richard Outcault (born in Lancaster) more than make up for Batiuk.
While I was pretty sure of this already, TB is proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that Joseph Pulitzer could neither see into the future nor travel through time.
Had he known that FW would ultimately result from his decision, he not only would have refused to run “sunday supplements” to the New York World but also probably would have started a crippling circulation war with any other paper that tried to.
Batiuk’s updated the blog on the official FW site; the post title made me think I was getting a tip of the Funky fedora, but I guess not.
Disappointed that Obama got four more years…but will Batiuk? With this nonsense of more Lisalisalisa and a scanner (now he can re-use stock art and comic strip covers with greater ease than ever, yech), I’m hoping NO.
TFH, you gonna send a C&D letter to Tommy for that? You should.
So the punch line for today’s strip is, “Today’s strip is really boring.”
First a thank you to everyone who sent in good wishes to Les and Cayla for their wedding.
I threw up in my mouth a little.
In the Funkyverse, a “punch line” has nothing to do with comedy. It’s the line queued up outside Batominc studios.
TB’s blog:
–someone is owed a tip of the funky felt tip.
–what a surprise, a Lisa story in the works. Next year in the promised land!
–the “snap” he’s blathering about? Typical death-related comics of course.
–yes, we can tell you love your scanner, we’ve seen your Sunday strips.
–i love MS Paint, probably for similar reasons:
Ye gods, Batom Inc.’s latest blog entry is more proof that the man is an awful writer. So many unnecessary parentheticals. A wall of text to make Les himself proud. Paragraph returns, use them! Especially cringe-worthy is “(he said lapsing into his native Latin)”: Yes, we’re all so impressed that you know what et al means.
I’d like to nominate the following sentence for the Bulwer-Lytton Award for Wretched Writing: “Events in the present will spark a sort of flashback/prequel which will crossover into real life with a visit to my old apartment in Elyria (check out the intro to Volume One of The Complete Funky to see the house where Funky was born) as well as a crossover with Crankshaft thrown in for good measure. “
At least Batom Inc. has given us fair warning that we will have to endure still more of Lisa’s Endless Story. LET HER DIE ALREADY.
So TomBat has figured out a way to bring Frankenlisa back to life. Someone please alert Inspector Kemp at once. TomBat is following in his own vootschtaps.
Given that Les has married Cayla already, I’m kind of wondering if anyone notices its tactless to see more Lisalisalisa. I’m hoping that Ghost Lisa haunts Les and/or Cayla, or perhaps Lisa will become a zombie, infects Cayla, then Les watches as the two fight to the undeath (or something).
Yes, we’re all so impressed that you know what et al means.
Except he doesn’t know that it’s used in reference to people, not “other things”. When you want to talk about “other things”, use et cetera.
What a dope.
And Gross John looks like an upside-down used vomit bag topped with rotting lettuce in panel 2, and I think Sgt. Sanders is underrating his punchability quotient, or PQ. It’s got to be over 9.
Also, Gross John’s lecture is incoherent, and that’s just going to get worse as the week progresses.
In addition: ” I’m hard at work on what is turning out to be a bit of a coda to Lisa’s Story.”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(GASP)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Addendum: Batiuk’s repeated use of “And I love my new scanner.” Reminds me of those parody confessional stories where the first person narrator talks about how badly he or she wants to drink alcohol or masturbate.
“God I love my vibrator.”
When you want to talk about “other things”, use et cetera.
I learned something new today! Thanks Charles!
Thanks to ole Batshit for confirming that he does indeed follow us here on SOSF. what with that blog titile it leaves little doubt.
So it seems to now just come down to his personal use of newsprint space just to phuck with us snarkers. I’m glad to see we have really gotten under his skin.
The syndication might keep him going… but the tide has turned. TB is turning into a real Captain Ahab and we are the Blue Whale of his nightmares.
Re: the blog post…..a “coda” to “Lisa’s Story”??? Isn’t that called “Act III”? Man, he will just not ever let that go, will he?
I’m going to translate/make commentary on Batiuk’s blogpost.
First a thank you to everyone who sent in good wishes to Les and Cayla for their wedding.
He means his dozen unironic readers, all in the Ohio area. Of those, maybe four sent him something.
The good thoughts were all very nice although I wouldn’t have said no to a waffle iron either.
The waffle irons aren’t for you, you hack. They’re for your face.
You can never have too many waffle irons here at the Cartoon Castle.
That’s even worse than the “Taj Moore-Hal”.
And also a thanks to everyone who came out to the signing last week for the Medina Historical Society. Great venue, great crowd.
He didn’t get punched in the face this time!
Speaking of great venues, this past weekend’s Buckeye Book Fair was a blast as usual.
Got drunk again.
I hadn’t been there in awhile thanks to the car accident et al (he said lapsing into his native Latin), but it was like I’d never been away.
He’s trying to imitate Brooke McEldowney, but he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. Moron.
And with The Complete Funky rolling out a book every year, I may never be away again, which would be fine with me. It was great to touch bases with a lot of old friends there.
Ex-friends, I presume.
And I love my new scanner.
He can now use clip art!
At the moment, I’m hard at work on what is turning out to be a bit of a coda to Lisa’s Story.
Here we go again.
Events in the present will spark a sort of flashback/prequel which will crossover into real life with a visit to my old apartment in Elyria (check out the intro to Volume One of The Complete Funky to see the house where Funky was born)
Cross over into real life? What are you talking about? Time to put the drugs away.
as well as a crossover with Crankshaft thrown in for good measure.
Which character will Crankshaft run over?
Oh, and lest I forget, a long lost character as well. The whole thing was sparked by a drive past my old apartment a couple of summers ago.
I see where this is going.
For some reason I stopped and took a lot of pictures without knowing exactly why (I don’t love cell phones to the extent that most people seem to, but at times like that, I’m glad they’re around).
Really? Your “technology is evil” strips say differently.
It wasn’t until a little later that I realized that an important part of Lisa’s story happened near there involving characters from both Crankshaft and Funky.
Which is weird since they both take place 10 years apart.
The story won’t roll out until next year, but when it does it will change everything
Really? Lisa faked her death?
(not really… I’ve just always wanted to say that).
…oh.
Stay tuned.
At least you didn’t say “‘tooned” or something.
Did I mention I love my new scanner?
Yes.
Let me close by reminding you that my almost last big appearance of the year will be at the Akron Comic Con on Saturday November 10th.
Where were you at the real one?
I’m looking forward to meeting the great Joe Staton
With Mike Curtis, they revived Dick Tracy. Don’t puff up yourself, or you may see a Les look-alike get killed in some hilariously gruesome way in Dick Tracy. Actually, do puff yourself up. That may be interesting to watch.
and Gerry Conway as well. I’m going to ask Gerry who put the “snap” in. If you have no idea what that’s about, you missed something great.
???
I hope to see you there. For now, that’s about the size of it.
Tom Batiuk making up slang again.
I’m going to bet that the “Snap” referred to is a panel in an old Spider-Man comic, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” As Spider-Man tries to save Gwen from a fall, there’s a “Snap” sound effect placed by her neck.
Good lord, I can’t believe I remember that. Hope I’m not turning into Tom Batiuk.
Looks like I picked a good day to be without Internet access for several hours. (Not that there is a bad day for that where this strip is concerned.)