Month: August 2020

Saved by the Cave

It took all of a month, but at last the Point Dume Fire is finally out. And Jeff is alive. And Skppy is a real boy, and Murania really exists as a city thousands of feet below the earth’s crust. Thus winds up an arc that Batiuk teased last month (with Dan Davis’ much more competent artwork) in Crankshaft. You might also recall a Sunday four years ago when Batom Comics editor Brady Wentworth dragged his staff (retro Darin and Pete) to a Phantom Empire screening for some inspiration.

Today’s strip is likely the last we’ll see of Murania. Batiuk and Ayers could have spent a little time showing Jfff and his youthful alter ego Skppy exploring the fantastic underground city and interacting with the Queen and her subjects. But after all the buildup, the climax has Jeff meeting the queen on Friday and then waking up oustide the cave on Saturday. And as far as what we got to see of the underground city:

Banana Jr. 6000
August 26, 2020 at 8:08 am
Murania just looks like The Jetsons moved to Detroit.

If you want to see a place that looks even worse than Detroit, this week we get a look at what the fire did to Masone’s place in the hills!

Jfff’s Not Ded

Mela
August 26, 2020 at 11:22 am
…Jeff is not going to die in a cave. Comic book nerds and sci-fi geeks do not die in Funky Winkerbean.

The part of the blind firefighter will be played today by Ringo Starr

Face it. It would have been cruel even by Funkiverse standards for Pete to invite his prospective father-in-law all the way to California only to have him die in a fire. Looks like Skppy’s survived too.  Who’s paying his airfare back to Ohio?

Maybe This is Heaven

William Thompson
August 26, 2020 at 1:31 am
Even money that Queen Tika will be played by the actress-queen who had lunch with Les. It’s a dead certainty that she’ll smirk at her guests and offer them hot chocolate.

queenA big missed opportunity for Batiuk right there. The Mauve Queen’s ostensibly Elizabethan attire looked much more  sci-fi than those renfaire rental robes that Queen Tika’s wearing. Wikipedia calls her “the icy, blonde, evil Queen Tika,” but in  today’s strip she comes across as downright friendly (aaaand, brunette).