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Before we announce the winner…here are the runners-up!
BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 2:20 am
Let’s have a contest. Who would be the lamest person unmasked as The Lord of The Late? This being Funky Winkerbean, the possibilities are endless. Funky? Frankie? Fred? Montoni? Pizza? Hatred? Chien? Doctor Octopus?
Rusty
March 22, 2013 at 12:25 am
Dead Lisa is everywhere.
Epicus Doomus
March 22, 2013 at 12:41 am
It’d be equally hilarious if LOTL was Batom himself and it’d probably make more sense than whoever it’ll actually be…
O.B. Dan
March 22, 2013 at 2:16 am
Pizza Twat!
Helskor
March 22, 2013 at 6:54 am
It’s the sentient computer from Act I.
Beanie Wanker
March 22, 2013 at 7:22 am
…consider this: LOTL wears a hoodie. Summer wears a hoodie. Anyone seen Summer since she went off to K*nt state?.
saturnino
March 22, 2013 at 7:42 am
Ed Crankshaft.
bad wolf
March 22, 2013 at 10:13 am
I’ll take…Durwood at 1:1. “That’s weird, why am I dreaming about holding down my high school friend in such a homoerotic manner?”
jackson53d
March 22, 2013 at 10:16 am
Come On Guys – It has to be “Evil” “Obama” from the “Bible“
Jimmy
March 22, 2013 at 10:20 am
You’re all wrong. It’s Stan Lee, defending quality comics everywhere from the likes of Pete and Tommy.
Bill A
March 22, 2013 at 7:43 am
It’s Colonel Mustard in the library with a hammer…
BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 10:27 am
I think I’ll go with Dead Comic Book John…
Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 10:59 am
I’m going with Aquaman.
$$$Westview Oncologist$$$
March 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Surprised nobody has brought up Ming the Merciless as a possibility.
As always, your suggestions are more entertaining…and no less plausible…than the actual denouement, which most of you had to have seen coming, even as you suggested/hoped for other scenarios:
TheDiva
March 22, 2013 at 12:04 am
It’s Pete himself–oops! Didn’t mean to spoil this shocking twist to anybody who hasn’t seen The Empire Strikes Back or a single episode of The Twilight Zone.sourbelly
March 22, 2013 at 1:09 am
Wait, LOTL is basically just wearing a blue hoodie. Can’t Pete already see his face? And yeah, The Diva, it’s probably Pete staring back at himself. If not, well, whatever.Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
It would probably be Pete, which makes no sense but it’s a lame way out (“it was me all along!”). Then again, it only makes sense at this point.
The good news in all of this is that this concludes this arc (I hope!), and that we’ve seen the last of the Lord of the Late. The bad news, of course, is that Pete just killed off the source of his “best” story ideas, and the ensuing creative drought will force him to move back to Westview, where he’ll spend the rest of his days playing video games with Owen and Alex at Komix Korner.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Some of those off-kilter expressions are horrifying…
Gaaaa…I’m sorry I suggested Dead Comic Book John, that looks way too…likely.
Excellent work TFH! Best laugh i’ve had all week, needless to say.
Hilarious TFH. Great work. Didn’t have a chance to snark yesterday but I would have suggested the one and only Less. “Here Pro-Crastinator, let me show you how to be a real writer!”
So Pete is his own worst enemy when it come to writing! That is…a completely obvious thing anybody could have pointed out to him without any need for a symbolic crossover dream sequence.
Wow, I can’t like this post enough! TF did the impossible and made FW entertaining!
For me, biggest laughs were from the unmaskings of Crankshaft and BatYuck himself. That was effin’ hilarious, TFH. The whole thing was effin’ hilarious.
… and it’s the idiotic grin on Unmasked Batty that totally slays me.
@DavidO: Wow, I can’t like this post enough! TF did the impossible and made FW entertaining! That’s almost every day for me and the only reason I even read the strip at all.
Regarding the mashups, Dead Lisa and Colonel Mustard are my favorites, though I can’t exactly explain why the latter makes me laugh so much. Maybe it’s his facing the camera. Also, kudos for an Act I character recall.
Looking back, Crankshaft is pretty funny too. It’s like he’s saying, “Get it over with, ya mailbox!”
No! No! No! That’s one way of putting it. So LOTL and “The Procrastinator” are one and the same. Color my mind blown. Advice for Pete: lithium and an alarm clock, that’s all.
Awesome work on today’s post TFH. How about Frankie as LOTL? “Pete…I am your father…too”.
“Looking back, Crankshaft is pretty funny too. It’s like he’s saying, “Get it over with, ya mailbox!”
Actually, the CRANKSHAFT strip today is actually entertaining and means a lot to those of us who have lost trees and or had damage because we didn’t cut the trees down when we should have.
“Something’s changed! That’s not your face–it’s mine! IT’S MINE!”
(With a tip of the Funky Fat Failure Fedora to Peter Gabriel.)
“Who saw that coming- who saw where that came from?”
If they supposedly love the strip so much, why don’t any of Batiuk’s “sincere” fans display the same level of effort and creativity that’s displayed on here every week?
To our host – well done, sir! Well done! You have become the best thing about Funky Winkerbean without a doubt…
Nice work. A parade of characters who are all potentially better writers than Pete.
I think wearing Red makes Flash look heavy – he should try another color.
I don’t have any photoshop skills – but no Darth Vader?
And tomorrow, Mopey Pete wakes up in his tiny apartment in the back room at Montoni’s to realize his job as a comic book “writer” was only a dream too.
I’m as shocked as Claude Rains in Casablanca.
Fred or Lisa would make a lot more sense if Darrin was the one with the inflatable suit, and the expressions on Darrin’s and Comic Book John’s face are creepy, especially when combined with the hand.
Who’s the blonde-haired woman(?) between the Star Trek computer and Batiuk?
Who’s the blonde-haired woman(?) between the Star Trek computer and Batiuk?
It’s Pizza Twat, aka Rachel
Yeah – we didn’t see this in the last episode of the PRISONER or anything – did we Tom? Lame is as Lame does.
Or in Being John Malkovich?
Or in Being John Malkovich?
Wow. That is going in my Netflix queue (even though you spoiled it for me!)
Oh no! Les is back with a punchable expression!!
You’ve outdone yourself. I now wish that I had made some random guess at who it was just so you’d have done a mashup.
KHAAAAAAANNNNN!
Actually, thinking about it now, I’m also surprised that no one mentioned Les originally. After all, according to Batiuk through Les himself, no one torments a writer more than his former English/Comp teacher. You also know Les is the kind of teacher who delights in the struggles and failures of his students.
I’m puzzled by this last panel, however. Is this not simply a shocking revelation for Mopey, but also a devastating one? Why is this something that would leave him writhing around shouting “No!” over?
Actually, the sentient computer from Act I would have been pretty cool. I expected it to be old man smithers from a Scooby Doo episode.
Since Tommy Boy uses this westview’ers as his personal Avatars.. what he is really saying here is that “He” is his own worst enemy in preventing this to be a decent and memorable comic strip vs being mocked for it’s lack of creativity.
or:
Pete is Tom as Tom is Less as Less lame as they are all the same.
hehehe, hahaha, ohohoh
See how the write like dicks from Kent , see how they fail…
Oh @ Rembrandt….I immediately thought of the Prisoner also.
Great stuff, TFH!
As for the strip, I’ll just second what everyone above has said and call it a day.
Very funny. TB could take some lessons!
Well, now that the Lord of the Late has finally been unhooded, Batiuk can’t use him anymore in his strips…
Wait……What am I saying??? That would imply Batiuk understood the concept of continuity.
How much do you want to bet that the LOTL will show up in six months and Mopey Pete will have no knowledge of his real identity?
I also love how bored Dale looks in panel 1.
She’s like all “Yup. Saw this coming a MILE away.”
I suspect tomorrow will be another comic book cover ripoff with Lord of the Peters there with Flash Bazbo and super-stoned Dale Smales, all whiny about how many deadlines Peter’s alter-ego TomBox faces and how its just sooo hard being the wonderful creature he is.
Saturnino–according to Batiuk’s most recent interview, he talks about storylines with Ayres every couple of weeks, and one may assume that Ayres is not himself a year ahead of schedule. So he is given two-week portions of story, and feels deadline pressure to get them out. Which may be why Crankshaft storylines wrap up faster and tighter than the parent strip.
Tom, can we talk a moment?
You’re fond of thinking of yourself as a writer.
Guess what a writer of serial fiction MUST do, Tom?
No, not go on self-indulgent tangents.
No, not conduct bogus interviews where he fantasizes about how mature and awesomely cool his work is.
A writer of serial fiction must TELL A STORY.
This is especially important in comics, a medium where the story is largely (if not exclusively) carried by the illustrations. EVERY LINE OF EVERY PANEL MUST BE IN SERVICE TO THE STORY.
C.S. Lewis once said that Hell is filled with artists who can no longer tell you anything about the subjects or content of their art, all they can feel is how -clever- they must be to tell it so well.
And Tom? It’s the same for comic strip guys. Sooner or later, the people who read the strip because of residual affection for Act I or who thus far have convinced themselves that you Write About Cancer Therefore Must Be IMPORTANT are going to catch on that you haven’t told an actual, honest to goodness -story- in over a decade.
Think about that, Tom. If there’s any shred of true creative spark, think about it. Let that bother you. Let that make you CARE again.
Because none of us are really looking forward to you reducing Date Rape into a cheap attempt to troll for awards and accolades.
Prove you can write a coherent arc. Then maybe we’ll trust you to tackle an issue.
Based on the masthead I see we’re due for a visit from a REAL super-villain….Lord of The Smug Obnoxious Assholes. Or “Les” for short. Just look at him there…what a dick.