Because today’s strip wasn’t available at editing time, I’ll go all meta and describe my SOSF workflow. If you don’t care about such geekery, feel free to skip to the comments and snark away! Cheers!
I don’t like editing posts directly in a web browser, because I don’t like rich web editors or plain text fields for writing, and I really don’t like losing a bunch of work due to a silly web error or browser crash. Also, I like working in Markdown.
I made a little template (just a simple markdown file with all the relevant bits of a SOSF post), so when I start a stint as guest-snarker, I copy that into a folder and modify it for the first strip in my series. On each subsequent day, I duplicate the previous day’s file to make a starting point for the new post.
I put the title and tags up in the markdown metadata headers so that I don’t forget them. Because they’re in the metadata, when I export to HTML, they don’t mess up the actual body of the post. Looks like this:
Title: No One Mourns the Comics
Tags: Holly, Chester the Chiseler, Comics
Because
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.nj.com/comics-kingdom/?…
I then separately paste the title, tags, and body into the corresponding fields in WordPress.
I’m on a Mac, and use Byword to edit my markdown and Marked to preview and export it to HTML. Because Byword is also on iOS, I often start a post in Byword on an iPad.
Here’s what my Mac screen looks like, with Byword on the left and Marked on the right.
In today’s strip, a bitter Funky Winkerbean tries to crap all over cousunclin Wally’s wedding plans, because he’s a bitter man, old before his time, who wrecked his own marriage to Blonde Wife #1 with small ambition and cheap Montoni’s wine. It deserves none of our attention, except maybe to note that Wally’s first marriage ended because of two stints as a POW. Just saying—keep it classy, Tom Batiuk!
However, the phrase “bad Winkerbean vibes” did catch my eye. Vibe→Zeitgeist→this Google trends chart. Hey, it’s the way my mind works.
Also, no, Alanis, after all these years, it’s still not ironic.
For posterity, I transcribe the Funky Winkerbean overlay that intrudes on today’s Starbuck Jones Cover, in which SJ himself seems to have awoken one day (perhaps after uneasy dreams) to find himself transformed into a drooling chimp:
Holly: This happens to be a key issue that kicks off the Xaxian-Krull war saga!
Funky: Sorry… I must have missed that while I was living in the real world.
Seth MacFarlane & I came up with an improvement for the chimp:
“How can I kill Funky Winkerbean?”
Funky is just being an arse—— to his wife, here. No bones about it. This is the guy who went back in time to admonish his teenage self to hang onto Starbuck Jones #1 for the world-shattering ambition of saving a suburban-Ohio pizza parlor. Not to mention that he was a kid, not in the real world, when this issue was putatively published. He should talk! No! He should shut the f—— up!
Also, a tip of the poison pen to Batominc for crapping all over the guest artist’s work with FW’s inexplicably bitter comment.
Christ! What a Funky Winkerbean!
Update: I couldn’t read the credit in the scan, but TFH has identified the guest artist as Terry Austin.
Because today’s strip is about comical books, Mr. Oddnoc has enlisted perennial sophomores Owen and Cody to do the daily commentary. They will provide the puerile perspective and gravitas that Batominc bloviating about comic books warrants.
Note: the part of Holly in panel 2 will inexplicably be portrayed by Olympia Dukakis.
Owen: Mr. Oddnoc, do we have to do this one? It sucks!
Oddnoc: Oh, jeez, you’re right. Take the day off, boys! Go for a hike!
Cody: That’s what Batominc should do—take a hike!
Oddnoc: Haw! For sure. Anyway, here’s what Tubby McHagglesalot should have said:
Alternate-reality Chester the Chiseler:Ahhhhhhhhhhh! You cursed b——tch! Look what you’ve done! It’s decomposing and dropping in value. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world! Who would have thought that some woman like you could destroy my beautiful comic book?
Son of Stuck Funky 