What could be worse than another Dinkle band convention arc? Ordinarily the acceptable answers would be “Les” or “nothing”, but today BanTom has a wild card up his sleeve in the form of that stupid f*cking bus-driving asshole Crankshaft, once again in retcon form. He JUST DID one of these horrible Crankshaft retcon jobs and it’s WAY too soon for another one now. I really hate Crankshaft and not in a fun “I can’t believe this still exists” kind of way, but like I hate yellow jackets at picnics and garbage juice dripping from the bottom of a full trash bag and pus seeping from an open wound. I try to encounter it as little as possible and when I accidentally stumble across it I’m instantly disgusted. I’m never going to read it so stop trying to make me, OK? Nice “punchline” too, by the way.
As far as Becky goes, the sleeve is doing all the talking for her today. I told you, he never, ever passes up a chance to draw that sleeve. The Arm…never forget. Poor poor Becky, definitely one of the strip’s more downtrodden characters. She doesn’t really like her job, she’s married to a comic book store owner and she’s still always being overshadowed by Dinkle and his interminable stories. Plus there’s her mother, Wally and the arm thing too. She can’t even really smirk correctly either. It’s really quite a brutal legacy.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Dinkle, Crankshaft and a chullo-wearing kid getting on the bus who kinda looks familiar… yep. This is going to be yet a week from hell for readers of Funky Winkerbean who have double-digit IQs.
One of these days, I’ll go to Luigi’s and pilfer all the napkins so Batom® won’t have anything to write his learning disabled puns onto.
These crossover strips would be better if there was actually something unique about them. Like I wouldn’t really mind seeing Crankshaft be a jackass to Les. But basically what this is just Crankshaft being a jerk just like always, only now Dinkle’s standing next to him instead of Pam or Jeff.
Dear Tom Batiuk–
Hi, how are you? I hope you are doing well. I think I really should mention something. It’s about Crankshaft.
I know you’d love it if Crankshaft got as much attention as Funky Winkerbean, maybe even with a snarky blog called Doctor Crank-N-Shaft or something. However, and I hate to be blunt about this, it isn’t going to happen.
You see, Les Moore is loathsome in a multitude of ways. Often, a person will think that he can’t hate Les Moore any more, and then one of those other avenues opens up and he realizes that there’s a whole new world of hating Les Moore…and even more beyond that! You realize the true meaning of “infinite.” Okay, I have to confess–that person is me!
But Crankshaft is loathsome in only one way. He’s a rotten, hateful old man who can’t use English properly. That’s all. Once you’ve hated Crankshaft, that’s all there is. It’s over. You can’t hate him any more, it just isn’t possible. Everything that might have generated interest is over and done in a microsecond. Crankshaft in a second panel is a thousand miles of desert.
So please stop trying to cram him down the public’s throat. No one wants him. No one enjoys him. No one would shed a single solitary tear if he and his strip got cancelled.
Thank you,
B. Chasm
“Poor poor Becky, definitely one of the strip’s more downtrodden characters.”
ED, I really have an outright disdain for One-Trick-Armed Becky. If Batom® thinks that by pinning her shirt sleeves up is so we can feel sympathy for her, I certainly don’t feel that way… hobos have more dignity than that. She chose her job and the über-loser second husband of hers… am I supposed to feel sorry for her terrible choices in life?
And of course, Batom® entered her daughter Rana into the Witless Protection Program, likely because she wasn’t into comic books.
“Dissonance” refers to a lack of harmony, and “accelerando” means to speed up the tempo. So…Crankshaft’s voice was grating and he drove too fast? Harry Dinkle doesn’t know what certain musical terms mean, despite eating, breathing, and sleeping band for his entire life? Batiuk just opened a music dictionary and poked his thumb down a couple times?
Becky used to wear a prosthetic. She had several. There was a joke once about her wearing her date arm when she went out with John. But sometime for some reason she apparently just gave up on that. Probably when Batiuk realized it saves time only drawing one arm instead of two.
Bravo, BC, bravo. Crankshaft is to FW as “Hello Larry” was to “Diff’rent Strokes”, a bad spin-off of a terrible thing built around a dumb premise featuring characters no one likes. If I was stranded on a desert island with nothing to read but a “Crankshaft” collection, I’d have some tinder, toilet and rolling paper at least. I’d rather draw my own comic strips in the sand with a stick. They’d be funnier than CS too, plus I’d probably get the noses right with just as much frequency, if not more. There will never be a CS snark blog, no one will ever do any CS puff-piece magazine interviews, no one will ever nominate a CS storyline for an award. He can do crossovers and retcon jobs all he likes, it only makes me dislike CS even more.
Nathan Obral: It’s like with Funky. While the character doesn’t generate any sympathy at all, you can’t help but shake your head at the sheer volume of the indignities that have been heaped upon her through the years. She’s almost right up there with Funky and Wally in that regard.
For more madcap FW zaniness check out the official FW blog, where the Lord Of The Funkyverse shares his thought regarding the recent DT arc (enjoyed it), how he felt about working with the DT people (quite a thrill) and whether or not he enjoyed DT as a kid (yes). That “thought” was supposed to read “thoughts” but I thing the singular works better there. Thus no correction.
Dissonance I can sort of get, but accelerando?
As for Becky and prosthetics, art might be part of the reason but also that the reader probably wouldn’t get she doesn’t have two arms. So he does have a reason. Of course it doesn’t mean much since unless you’re specifically looking for it you won’t notice it at all in this strip.
Too much, retcon bus! Ed Crankshaft, who in his own strip is just a cranky older guy who’s a softie at heart, is now a horrible, demonic, dragon-like figure (like Rose!) whose very presence causes adults and children alike to experience severe emotional issues, flashbacks, unnatural facial expressions, and….PTSD. Yeah.
As for Becky’s prosthesis. I’m almost sure that Tom did away with that simply to remind us all that she has only one arm. Oh, and that this is a “serious real life” strip.
Meanwhile, in his strip, Ed has to be subjected to an egomaniac band director with delusions of grandeur. This means that both strips have a jerk with a heart of gold dealing with a jerk with a heart of jerk. This is because they’re written by an exhausted talent with a heart of failure.
” whose very presence causes”
NO!
“whose very BULLYING presence causes PTSD…..”
Don’t forget, this strip has to support the anti-bullying industry and the Stalinist type posters they put all over schools these days to make the children like the French peasants who got massacred in every 30 or hundred years war………………………….
@ED: ‘Crankshaft is to FW as “Hello Larry” was to “Diff’rent Strokes”, a bad spin-off of a terrible thing built around a dumb premise featuring characters no one likes.’
And of course, MacLean Stevenson worked briefly for the Cleveland Indians in their PR department in the late 50s. Go figure.
True story: someone I knew from community college way back when was obsessed with “Hello Larry,” because the show was set with a radio theme. I tried to watch just one episode, and I damn near threw my PC out of my window. What a horrid, abysmal failure of a sitcom. (I was too young to remember “Diff’rent Strokes,” and have no want or will to view that program anyway.) As can be expected, I totally lost contact with that individual not long thereafter.
BTW, I saw CS today so no one else needs to. That Batom® is more willing to crossover FW with CS than with a legitimate, successful, likeable and LEGENDARY comic like Dick Tracy is absolutely criminal. It speaks volumes about Batom®’s self-absorption and delusional nature.
If I were part of Team Tracy, I would be furious at Batom® right about now. Team Tracy actually has won multiple awards.
@ComicTrek: “Too much, retcon bus! Ed Crankshaft, who in his own strip is just a cranky older guy who’s a softie at heart, is now a horrible, demonic, dragon-like figure (like Rose!) whose very presence causes adults and children alike to experience severe emotional issues, flashbacks, unnatural facial expressions, and….PTSD. Yeah.”
Consider the source. Why would I want to trust ANYTHING that Harry Dinkle says? (Same thing with that impotent Bad Santa ripoff last November; would I trust Crazy Harry to tie his shoes, let alone wax nostalgic on how CS was “a pistol?”) And the narrative distrust in CS is even more pronounced.
It’s two radically different versions of the same awful story. Written by a non-talent who specializes in taking likable characters and simply ruining them just because.
Is this some attempt to build up readership for Crankshaft? If so how is this intended to lure people in? Oh there’s a strip about an cranky old man how is a jerk to everybody? And I should read that why?
Wow. Just wow. You folks spend a lot of energy deconstructing something you hate so much. Make some jokes, poke a little fun, tease the artist a bit…that’s what you could/should be doing here. But you are all full of venom and vitriol and hate. I don’t get it. If I hated something so much, I would not give it the attention that you all lavish on it. I’d spend my time elsewhere. And I know you’re going to blast me for what you see as the usual, “If you hate it so much, why do you read it”, speech, but so be it. I enjoy the strip. It’s not perfect, but I look forward to the new one very day along with the rest of the daily strips I read.
Hi Dave – Welcome. I would genuinely like to hear what it is that you enjoy about Funky Winkerbean – the stories, the characters, the art, the atmosphere?
I ask not out of sarcasm but out of genuine curiosity. If you would be so kind as to tell us what you like and why, I would really appreciate it–not for the purpose of attacking you or being insulting, but just genuine interest in another perspective.
Thanks!
So I see TB is once again trying to tackle one of the great paradoxes, “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”. His approach, “what if both the object and the force are reprehensible fiends?”, leaves something to be desired.
Over on the Crankshaft side of this great thought exercise, Ed references auto racing legend Mario Andretti, who is now about as old as Crankshaft is supposed to be. Dinkle, of course, wasn’t expecting Mario Andretti but instead Roger Rager…
Nostalgia, I think. I grew up with it. My local paper in Toledo has always carried it…back to when it was a gag-a-day strip. I’ve always wished I’d been a cartoonist, and when I was a kid, Funky was one of the strips I’d try my hand at drawing what appeared in the paper. It was one of my favorites. I’ve always had an affinity for time travel stories, so I thought the time jumps were an interesting technique to use in a comic strip. I’ve known these characters for a long time, so I’ve taken some interest in seeing how the strip has grown and developed a life of it’s own over the years.
Do I think all of the story telling is Pulitzer quality? No. Sometimes Batiuk can be a little heavy-handed. I think he could have done a lot more with the Dick Tracy cross-over, but maybe logistics for two comic strip teams make that difficult. Who knows. I’m guessing it’s not easy to tell a well-thought-out story in 3 panels a day without dragging a day of comic strip time out for a year in real time. I get that.. Sacrifices need to be made to keep it concise and moving along. As for the art work, it’s fine. Again, it’s just a comic strip! I might pick a bit myself at continuity sometimes, but mostly I let it go. If it’s still actually being drawn by hand, I think Batiuk does just fine and mostly gets his point across. There’s stuff out that is pretty badly drawn compared to this. Look how badly Cathy was drawn, and it was still considered successful.. I’ve done enough drawing of my own…it’s not easy. Go ahead, try it yourself.
At the end of the day, it’s a comic strip. Nothing more. It gives me a little something to look forward to in the morning paper. It’s entertained me for 40 years. It has its flaws, but I’ll never tear it apart and examine it too deeply.
RE: “dissonance accelerando” – If readers have to use a dictionary, or Google, to get the joke, it has failed.
@Dave G: The problem is that Batiuk has simply been at this too long and is clearly running on fumes. In less exhausted hands, a clash between two proud men in which each thinks the other the annoyance who ruined a trip both had an equal hand in wrecking would be a rather serviceable plot. Given that Batiuk won’t rest even though he should, it’s going to look awkward.
I can not speak for anybody else but what constantly grates on me are several things – one the storytelling is either a little heavy handed or very heavy handed – or strangely non existent – as several folks have pointed out that the natural climax of Holly finds the comic book storyline would be when Cory is presented with the complete Starbuck Jones series (which is now to be used as reading library by one Mr. Mason Jar the actor but we shall let that go) but after two years did one see that? No. The story just fizzled out into nothing. It’s really almost Dada anti-narrative at times.
And I completely reject ‘it’s just a comic strip’ The Author does not see it as such…he continually presents himself to newspaper reporters as someone who has expanded the scope of the comic strip so that it can take on ‘real’ issues (the existence of say Doonsebury is typically ignored in these stories) however his handling of said issues is so awful so full of Butler-lydon Melodrama (they thought wally was dead! They got the x-rays mixed up!) that the stories demand mockery (see Masky Mcdeath) or simply scorn – (the gay hand denouement of the gays’ at the prom storyline – where we never got the names of the couple about whom the whole fuss was about) What he’s going to do with with his “bullying is bad” arc gives one pause.
You add the rather off putting grasping after prestige, the hamfisted story telling to the utterly hateful main characters – Les’s self absorbed world view, his dickisness and his complete loathsomeness for example – and you have a strip that cries out to be shredded on a daily basis.
I love comic strips, the great ones occupy a special place in our lives as we check in with them every day, it’s not that I don’t think comic strips can or should take on serious issues – Pogo took on Joe McCarthy in the 50’s something that was – forgive the expression – as serious as cancer. It’s that among his other sins the author does it so badly that it’s going make anybody coming afterwards (presuming the comic strip still exists) have a much harder time ‘no you can’t have that happening in your strip – FW did that and look what happened.”
Dave G: Welcome to SoSF. I’ve been participating here for 4-5 years now and yours is the very first pro-FW comment I can remember. Thanks for the contribution and don’t be a stranger!
Thanks. I found this page via Comic Curmudgeon, as I figure many of you have as well. I never shrink from lampooning the absurd. I can be as sarcastic as anyone here. Most of the time, I chuckel at what I read here and move on with my day. Sometimes, like today, I can’t help but voice my opinion and say that I do not have the hate for for Funky that some of you have. Now, if you all want to rip Mark Trail, Rex Morgan, or Judge Parker to shreds…I’m on board. I read those every day, too. In my mind, those are far more absurd and ripe for skewering than Funky is. Those strips take themselves much more seriously, and demand to be lampooned.
Dave G: I’m honestly glad to see a dissenting opinion, feel free to jump in whenever you like. Stay on topic (the FW strip), no personal attacks, no over-the-top vulgarity just for the sake of it…that’s all we ask here. There’s no rule that says everyone here HAS to dislike FW, dissent or differing opinions are welcome.
David G – thanks for your answer, I really appreciate it. Nostalgia can certainly be a powerful force, the problem with it is that it tends to be very personal–it all has to do not only with how the artist was, way back when, but how we were as well. Personally, I have nothing against Tom Batiuk; if he’s able to earn a living doing this, more power to him. But when I read what he’s doing now, and see what he was doing back then (I liked the strip as a kid, too) all I can see is a very lazy fall from standards.
What I find most irritating is his notion that these characters have some kind of authority to speak on common human issues. They don’t; for the most part, they are arrogant, self-important blowhards. Nothing wrong with that on the comics page–it’s full of ’em–but treating them seriously needs to be done with a much finer hand.
Again, thanks for your reply, and we hope to see more of you around here!
And yes, I will concede the fact that today’s punch line fell flat. I assumed that it was a musical reference, and after Googling it, I was right. I does pain me that more often that not, Batiuk does not deliver a true “punch line”, and sometimes I scratch my head over what he was going after.
Add me to the Dave G welcome wagon. I enjoy snark about the absurdities of most any comic strip as well as genuine discussion about the merits of most any comic strip. Hope to hear more of both from you.
And to add my 2 cents on the subject of the hour: I think the biggest reason this strip and its author receive such backlash here is that TB has both directly and indirectly poked at his critics, and poked at them in a manner that was not interpreted as especially light-hearted. From the interviews about “the weight of substantial ideas”, to the strips of Susan defending a school drama production of Wit against strawmen parents, to the cease-and-desist letter (a heavy-handed approach to legitimate concerns) that shut down the original version of this site, examples abound. This is why us regular SOSFers see him and his strip as taking themselves too seriously. For me personally, its worth a little time and effort to take something needlessly self-important down a few pegs, even if we’re only doing that in the eyes of a few.
“…sometimes I scratch my head over what he was going after…”, you and me both, Dave.
@Dave G: I think that Batiuk is starting to suffer from the same debilitating defect as Lynn “For Better Or For Worse” Johnston in that he’s got a funnier strip inside his head than the one that manages to reach the readership. The obscure technical term that Dinkle used to describe Crankshaft was much funnier to him than it was to us.
@Paul Jones: Well….to be honest, I like to cut Lynn Johnston some slack. In my 18 years of life, I looked forward to a daily adventure with the Pattersons every day. FBorFW was always one of my top favorites. I mean, yeah, the strip could be pretty corny and a bit overdone at times, (especially toward the end) but at least she genuinely cares about her characters. She also worked hard at research, did her best to keep things consistent, her characters spoke real English, and any of the “real life” issues that she tackled were genuinely real–often taken from her own life, but at least it was “real”, you know? I’m not saying the strip is perfect (Noooo way! It had it’s retcons and puns and other bad moments, too!) but unlike Tom Batiuk, she realized what FBorFW was becoming. So eventually she had everyone “start over” and started making those light-hearted “new-runs”. I thought that was really nice of her to do. 🙂 Sometimes her characters had their own Dethroning Moments Of Suck, but she didn’t make it out to be a regular part of their personalities. They just did stupid things and learned a lesson after. Nobody learns lessons in this strip. And if so, they’re promptly forgotten. There’s very little to nothing that’s heartwarming. Almost everyone is an obnoxious jerk. Especially Les, who used to be a sweet kid/young man. Life is NOT all gloominess and thunderstorms and band directors and comic books! Mr. Batiuk could fix it all if he wanted to! But he’s such a stick in the mud now, he thinks he’s creating art. And he isn’t. At all. We are not full of hate. Funky Winkerbean is. And sometimes Tom Batiuk seems to be.
Dave G, I agree with you on the others. But as for Cathy, that strip was poorly drawn, but it was funny. Mark Trail…that strip *used* to be good until about 5 or 10 years ago. And in these James Allen days it really stinks! Rex Morgan sucks now, yes. Especially since nowadays it mainly focuses on Rex and June’s sex life and their spoiled devil spawn of a daughter. I actually stopped reading both of them.
Hi Dave and welcome. I am only a semi regular poster here but I read it every day. I think you have a few good points that have been made. Take for example the “Dollar Store” joke FW had a week ago. Nothing wrong with it but some here felt “well we gotta skewer it everyday anyway.” There have been times I have given TomBack a pass.
But like many here I enjoyed it as a kid, but in recent years it seems like Mr. B. HATES his characters – especially Funky. Les was never this big of a jerk in the high school days and TB has a really nasty habit of retconning what does not need to be changed. Do I feel sometimes it gets really heavy handed with blasting TB out of the water? Occasionally. But just as it is hard to look away from a traffic accident, many of us read and discuss FW here out of the fact that its creator seems to hate everything, is depressed by everything, never gives one a glimmer of hope, and really seems to hate his audience.
Dave G, I liked FW back in the old gag-a-day years. It was lighthearted, silly, and fun. Then one day, Batyerk woke up and decided he needed to show the world he was a Serious Author. He tried to “take on serious issues,” but didn’t have the chops for that sort of writing. It all came off as sappy, maudlin, mawkish dreck, like the sort of garbage Lynnuck Johnston spews in Foob Better or Worse.
He also has no ability to realize when a character is creepy. Dead Skunk Head John? And to a degree, Mopey Pete? And the way, way, WAY too boyish Summer? And once you get past the business of comic books, pizza, and school band, he seems to know nothing about anything.
Worst of all, he takes himself so goddam seriously. He’s defensive and snippy with anyone who doesn’t openly adore him. He’s snotty to anyone who dares ask him a question, As he told one ignorant non-cartoonist bedwetter, “It’s called WRITING!.”
Dumb plotlines, poorly written, detestable characters, lame jokes… This is what FW has evolved into. But I fully agree it used to be entertaining and fun.