Today’s strip was not available for preview. It will no doubt be very disappointing.
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Son of Stuck Funky · The web's premiere source for Funky Winkerbean snark
Son of Stuck Funky 
It being five days in a row with no preview, is it fair to assume the Comics Kingdom may have shut down early preview functionality? Possibly with the idea that saving people from early FW exposure may ultimately lead to a healthier, better world?
Hi, Y. There’s a little trick we use here at SoSF to procure upcoming strips by editing the image URLs. Comics Kingdom recently changed the format of these URLs. We can still get to some future strips, but for the first 10 days of a new month, we haven’t cracked the code. Also FYI readers (and guest authors), Sunday and Wednesday strips are unavailable in advance.
A rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of blogging! Thanks for the info. No snark here — I appreciate what you all do on this site.
Mindy: “PETE! There’s smoke everywhere, burning embers are raining down from the sky and that man over there is on fire and screaming “we’re all doomed, we’re all doomed!”
Pete: “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. California isn’t really known for having much dry and flammable vegetation. Hey, look at that cool rectangular building over there! Stop the car, I wanna take a few dozen pictures of it from every possible angle.”
Jff: “I get so backed up when I fly. Is there a crapper around here somewhere?”
My guess is that we’ll have another day of foreshadowing, when Mopey, Dopey and Drippy walk through a food court. They’re serving marshmallows, wieners and crepes suzette
No preview?! I wouldn’t worry about it.
Y’know, I never put odds on Jff burning up in this fire. No one would bet against it now, though.
Uh-oh, looks like tragedy is about to strike the Crankshaft gang! So how will Jff’s path cross with the “Lisa’s Story” gang? We’ll find out in only a few short months!
Hot diggity dog, Jfff is waltzing right into the heart of the fire!
I for one am looking forward to Atomik Komix’s new character, Wildfire Willie, who gained his powers after he was bit by a radioactive California wildfire.
Mindy seems to be discovering that she and Pete don’t have much in common, but that he has a lot in common with her dad (and Dullard). What will she do about it? Nothing. Her future as Cayla 2 is assured.
She’s a silly female. They just don’t understand the comical books.
Why does Pete even have Mindy as a girlfriend? He’s not the leaat bit interested in her. His sudden interest in the making of Phantom Empire just seems like avoidance.
Pete has Mindy as a girlfriend because it got too weird that he was spending all his time and going on trips with his married best friend.
Yes, that’s why Tom Batiuk wrote Mindy as Pete’s girlfriend, but it doesn’t make any sense in the story. If anything, it makes Pete look even more gay, because he’s very unconvincingly trying to hide it.
Explain again, please, why Pete invited Mindy to join him and Jeff on their California vacation.
Mopey needed Mindy as a chaperone.
“I’ll guess today’s strip will be the introduction of another boring and random plot thread.”
Hey, I was only one day off!
This reminds me of the funny time my wife and I spent unpacking our luggage on our honeymoon only to discover we left our swim gear back home in Ohio.
For more information on these hilarious hijinks, email me at tom@batiuk.ru.
Well, that’s it for that moron. If only we cared about characters from Crankshaft.
The screenwriter’s in town for the red carpet premiere, and books a room in a motel for himself and his fiancé? Was the “no vacancy” sign turned on at the Chateau Marmont? Pete, always the friggin’ cheapskate.
Cindy and Les are busy….talking about high school
As I’ve noted before, between his Hollywood checks and the Patrick Mahomes contract he signed Pete should be making over a million a year… Remember that Chester literally made him and Darrin the highest paid bros in the entire comics industry…
Story would’ve been more interesting if Pete (who’s always wearing long sleeved shirts, and pants, works indoors) caused the fire by bursting into flames when he went out in the sun.
A couple of quick questions, TomBa.
They flew in for the premiere, right?
Where are they staying that Jeff can go to Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park, located between Hollywood and Burbank (and miles from the Malibu fire location), while Pete and Mindy go to the beach (presumably in Santa Monica)? Did they rent two cars? Is Jeff using mass transit?
Is the purpose of this arc to show that life can go on unimpeded for much of LA while a wildfire is raging? Does TomBa find it remarkable that that can be the case in a major city encompassing hundreds of square miles?
I’m sure that, despite having been there, Batiuk’s idea is that everything in Los Angeles is within walking distance.
But…nobody walks in LA!
Yes, Jeff wants to go to Bronson Canyon to see where they filmed Phantom Empire. Not where they filmed Star Trek, Batman, Flash Gordon, The Outer Limits, Bonanza, Rawhide, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, The Lone Ranger, Perry Mason, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Army of Darkness, Little House on the Prairie, V, Dukes of Hazzard, Twin Peaks, or any of the other hundreds of movies and TV shows that were filmed in Bronson Canyon in the last 101 years. To say nothing of the rest of Griffith Park, and Griffith Observatory. No, he wants to see where they filmed Phantom Empire in 1935. Give me a break.
There was a little foreshadowing of this in Crankshaft last week. I guess Jff’s been obsessed with Bronson Canyon for the past 10 years? Anyway, it looks like they’re staying in the place where Memento was filmed.
Well, he probably hasn’t visited Pam’s canyon in the past decade, so…
Of course it’s disappointing. I admire those of you who can continue to expound at length, or pithily comment on this drivel, If only Todd would hurry up and have the Dumb Canyon fire destroy the studio.
I’m hoping that the fire kills Pete and Mindy, and a grief-stricken Jff is forced to become Atomik Komics new head writer. His superhero creation, the Wet Fart, becomes a comic sensation because of course it does. His most popular villains are Mr. Colonoscopy and the Unemptiable Bladder, both members of the Irritable Bowel Syndicate.
Missed opportunity: Crankshaft could have parachuted in and lit a grill, sparking a counter-conflagration that Red Adair-Chance Buckman-John Wayne “Hellfighters” style conveniently blows out the wildfire like a birthday candle.
Sigh. They have filmed EVERYTHING in Bronson Canyon – so from that vast number of films what does our author pick – a 1935 serial with Gene Autry – at least he could have mentioned oh Robot Monster or Teenagers from Outer Space.
And again may one mention that this film is 85 years old so unless what’s her face’s dad is in his 90’s his interest in this film is just another example of the Author’s baffling nostalgia. That Pete’s all hopped up to see the canyon isn’t that convincing either – but never let it be said that the author let consistency get in the way of his meandering plodding story telling.
And wasn’t the news that there was a fire already on TV? In Ohio? And it doesn’t occur to any of the dullards to see maybe if this side trip to Bronson Canyon is safe?
As others have asked – is there an editor and do they do anything but check the spelling?
Joe Shuster would say, “They don’t check the spelling. Trust me on this.”
I think Batiuk had it that Jff’s grammar school ran the serial as some kind of afternoon babysitting deal, and seeing each episode it was the high point of his childhood. Which would say a lot about how tragic his life was, if anyone cared about him. Watching the serial still makes no sense–if his school was part of his miserable experience, why would he want to spend any time around his classmates? And why would any of them want to sit through a rotten movie with him and not give him a hard time?
There was an arc where Jff revisited his childhood home and encountered his childhood ghost in his bedroom closet, where it was reading comic books. But did Batiuk ever give any details on why Jff was so miserable back then?
I think as part of that arc TomBa did show a series of panels where Jeff’s mom destroyed one of his comic books with a knife. One of our main contributors (billytheskink?) has an encyclopedic knowledge of these strips and might be able to link to it.
This strip showcases one of the most annoying traits of Batiuk’s writing. Why didn’t Jeff tell Pete what he was doing? Why is Pete having to ask Mindy what Jeff’s plans were? Setting aside the fact that the three of them were just on a plane and then a taxi together, and presumably would have had time to talk about their plans, is Jeff not in the room anymore? Did he just take off when Pete wasn’t looking? It breaks one of the biggest rules of writing, that you shouldn’t have your characters just blatantly standing around telling each other what’s going on. It happens all the time in Crankshaft, where Pam basically exists just to walk up to Crankshaft and ask “Is that [NAME OF TV SHOW] you’re watching?” or “Is that [NAME OF GARDENING EQUIPMENT] you just bought?”, solely to set up a joke.
About the only possible “benefit” to having Mindy tell Pete her dad’s plans rather than the much more natural way of Jeff telling Pete himself is that we get more of the “haha, women don’t appreciate the finer things in life” humor that Batiuk finds so delightful and nauseates me every single time.
Yes but his method makes it easy to stretch things out which means less work on his part. That’s how he can have years worth of strips done in advance. And no way is he ever going to go back and update things to reflect current events.