Special thanks to TFH and the SoSF staff for everything they do!!
BanTom suddenly abandoning a premise he spent weeks setting up is certainly nothing new in the Funkyverse, he does it all the time. It’s called “writing”. It’s also annoying. But I forgot all about Mason Whatshisface as soon as I tried to decipher today’s brain-damagingly bizarre strip. The Jumbler? Finley’s Pharmacy? Holly pretending to be surprised by the sight of those two morons doing everything but working? What the f*ck?
Then I heard from the crack SoSF research team who informed me that within that massive wall of expository jibber-jabber lurk a few Dick Tracy references, which means that the long-rumored and much-dreaded Dick Tracy super mega crossover arc may be upon us…RIGHT NOW! For those of you not familiar with pop culture fads of the 1940s, Dick Tracy is a comic strip detective of some kind who regularly does battle with comically-named foes like The Jumbler (no doubt named for his propensity toward never properly organizing his comic books). I’m hoping this arc somehow involves Westview’s super-villain Dick Face, the man who paralyzes his foes with rage and disgust. “Watch out for the park bench, Mr. Tracy, it’s a trap!!”.
And once again Holly comes across as a total imbecile. I mean obviously they’re going to a police auction to bid on a huge lot of vintage comic books because of course they are. Duh. They’re not eating pizza or loitering around in that creepy store, so where else would they be going? To the library? The bank? To buy new clothes or fitness equipment? Home to their wives and families? Not bloody likely.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“The owner, Finley’s Pharmacy”? Owner of what? The comics? Then how are the police auctioning them off? I don’t think that people who have stolen goods hidden on their property automatically own them. This strip is so dumb it hurts sometimes.
A huge wall o’ text and it’s still as confusing as can be.
With any luck, the entire collection will consist of previously rare copies of Starbuck Jones and the market for them will collapse with the sudden glut.
With a criminal famous enough to get a nickname, the crimes would be prominent enough that the victims would be known. Isn’t it the case in situations like this that the stolen property is returned to the people it was stolen from?
Oh good: I’ll get ready to follow two shitty daily comics at two different sites: FW at Comics Kingdom and DT at http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/
And of course, Funky Winkerbean’s flagship paper, the Elyria Chronicle Telegram, doesn’t (and never has) carried Dick Tracy. So Funky Winkerbean’s imperceptible fanbase has no clue as to what is going on.
Here is the incident by which Dead Skunk Head and Crazy Harry are speaking of… which took place on MARCH 24, 2013.
Look closely at the throwaway third panel and the sixth panel.
TFH, I must confess that I do enjoy reading Dick Tracy – in fact, it’s one of my “go-tos” alongside “Phoebe and Her Unicorn.”
But that’s because I don’t take the strip seriously. And I don’t think anyone has taken it seriously since the Moon Maid era, let alone when Dick Locher nearly went full Batom® with horrible writing and worse artwork from 2006-2011…
Today’s strip should be used in creative writing courses as an example of how not to write the introductory exposition for your story.
Here’s a typical example of the Dick Tracy Wall O’ Text.
At least Staton/Curtis use a standard comic book font. If Batom® used that amount of text, there would be no room left for smirking.
I would imagine that all crime in Westview centers around comic books (and pizza, of course). Instead of meth labs they have clandestine comic book printing labs churning out bootleg copies of Silver Age classic titles. Instead of shootouts over turf, the street gangs battle over DC vs. Marvel. When you owe the Westview mob money they don’t break your thumbs, they dog-ear your mint covers instead. Then they threaten to return with inky fingers and ruin your whole collection if you don’t pay up. Street-level comic book dealers populate the “bad” part of town, hawking their wares to desperate comic book addicts on dingy street corners.
I like how the police and this Finley operation decided to divvy up the stolen booty amongst themselves as opposed to, you know, returning the comics to their rightful owners or something. I mean it isn’t that it matters or anything but it’s just so amazingly stupid.
The whole premise is not just stupid, it’s a whole new level of self-absorbed as the ongoing Starbuck Jones disaster takes on a whole other level of awful.
Were the comics ever even stolen? From the DT strip, it looks as though Dick Tracy foiled the attempted theft. The real question is, why was a detective of major crimes checking out the discovery of some old comic books?
Looking at Dick Tracy on Comics Kingdom right now… oh Lord.
So many questions. Like why were these comic books behind a wall? Why was there an ellipses? For that matter, why not just say:
-And they’re sharing the profits with the pharmacy where the comics were found.-
Why would the police be sharing the profits of some auction with a pharmacy that apparently was helping some criminal hide them? And, best of all, why is this comic having a crossover with Dick Tracy?
And remember people, I’m going purely on what’s in FW. When FW gets published in some papers that Dick Tracy doesn’t, the writer should try to keep the facts and situations simple and well explained enough that you don’t need to go digging up Dick Tracy comics from two years ago to understand it.
They’re auctioning the comics off for a “charity”? Oh….no. No, I’m jumping to conclusions, he wouldn’t do that…would he?
@Gyre: “And, best of all, why is this comic having a crossover with Dick Tracy?”
Joe Staton, the current artist for DT, is a personal friend of Batom® and drew a Starbuck Jones cover for him (the same one seen in the DT strip I embedded above).
Much like when John Byrne drew a nightmarish few weeks of FW while Batom® had foot surgery and when Joe Isabella made a cameo as a comic book retailer that unwittingly gave The Immolate Holly Budd the Starbuck Jones issue she needed (and seemingly had a heart attack), this is pretty much a personal favor between the two.
In Westview, there’s only one charity.
Do you think the first officer on the scene snatched the best issues for himself and then lied about what he found there, like bad cops do with drug money? I bet that’s the crime Tracy will solve.
Also, DT says the auctions for charity, while FW clearly says the cops and pharmacy are splitting the profits. It’s not a good sign when a crossover starts off contradicting itself.
Thanks Nathan. And Epicus, you are probably right. It’s probably for Lisa’s Run!!!!
This is a rather dangerous experiment…..for Batiuk. This is because Dick Tracy’s version of John and Crazy Harry will be sympathetic human beings instead of characters from Funky Winkerbean and leave us wishing that Staton and Curtis would take over the Batiukverse. It’s what he tried to avoid when he had that custody battle over John Darling My Father Who Was Murdered.
It’s official. This strip is unreadable.
More comic books. Dull and deeply weird at the same time. Does the Author really think dropping the Mason Jar the actor story line is a way to keep the readers off balance? I
@Professor Fate: Don’t fret. Mason Jarr The Goddam Movie Actor!!! is going to rear his ugly head in this crossover. Especially when he and St. Les the Righteous Smirker find out that multiple Starbuck Jones issues are in this trove of classic comic books.
Why would Les and Funky be depicted on those screens in the police HQ? If this crossover is literally just showing the characters together at an auction, with no related crime to solve, I would be amazed. Maybe they can hold the auction in that fat guy’s garage.
@SpacemanSpiff I dunno. I think the discrepancy could be a reflection of an imperfect communication of information. Dick knows what’s up, but John and harry don’t understand a charity that doesn’t make people run under firehoses in October.
@gleeb and @spacemanspiff85: Or it could be that the donation to Lisa’s Legacy is set to be a surprise for St. Les the Righteous Smirker, and Harry and John deliberatly lied to Holly.
Obviously the charity will be mentioned heavily in DT at the end. That is a given.
Three potential positives about this crossover:
1. The moment when Dick Tracy and friends first hear the name Mason Jarr, a name that even they find ridiculous.
2. The possibility of Harry’s words leading to a misunderstanding and the threat of Dick Tracy-style justice against him and DSH.
3. The likelihood of FW’s characters proving utterly useless in this crossover, confirming TB’s place well behind Jumble’s David Hoyt and Jeff Knurek, who helped Tracy solve the Jumbler case now being referenced, in the comic creator pecking order.
Some other options:
4. Abner Kadaver and Rikki Mortis kidnap both Mason Jarr The Goddam Movie Actor!!! and St. Les the Righteous Smirker on a contract by Pete “Plantman” Moss, who killed off My Father, John Darling Who Was Murdered.
5. The Nirtates (who were shown in DT last week hiding out at an abandoned drive-in) emerge and try to scam Mason Jarr The Goddam Movie Actor!!! and/or Harry and John with fake film footage of “lost” Starbuck Jones serials.
6. Vera Alldid shows up at the auction and reveals himself to be an expert on Starbuck Jones, taking Mason Jarr The Goddam Movie Actor!!! under his wing and pushing the storyline solely into DT, with crime and cancer aplenty.
7. Vera Alldid reveals himself to draw a parody of Starbuck Jones, which Mason Jarr The Goddam Movie Actor!!! reads, enjoys, and adapts as source material for a farcical take on the character.
If this arc ends with DIck Tracy pistol whipping Crazy and DSH John…I will forgive everything I ever said about Tom Batiuk.
I noticed something else dangerous: The Les and Funky appearing in the monitors actually look fifty instead of sixty-five. This means that Staton and Curtis might make the cast look their age instead of Batiuk’s age.
A trove of old comic books is recovered from a Chicago, Illinois, pharmacy, so naturally the big-city pharmacy that owns the books and the big-city police department auction them off in small-town Ohio. Have I got that right?
How much will Mike Curtis have to dumb down the writing in Dick Tracy to match what’s called “writing” in Funky Winkerbean?
this is absolutely great, at least potentially. If Dick Tracy brings a bit of the old Ultraviolence to visit upon Les and Funky – spotted in today’s Dick Tracy strip it will be almost great. If, in addition, Dick gets into a hatchet jaw contest with Dinkle it will then be great indeed. At least it’s a new distraction from the Pond of Misery covered with Greenish-Yellow Pun-Algae that is Funky Winkerbean.