Collecting My Thoughts

77 thoughts on “Collecting My Thoughts”

1. I remember a sketch comedy show that had one of the performers talk about how he was frittering away his money. One of the examples he gave was that issue of X-Men….because before the Canadian government handed people fistfuls of cash to try to grow an entertainment industry, he could only afford it when it cost seventy-five cents. It’s only ‘valuable’ because Jean Grey was dead for a little while….for the first time. This was before we could make jokes about how the only people who ain’t coming back from the dead are Uncle Ben and Batman’s parents.

2. Also, it’s irritating to have to remember that Batiuk couldn’t deliver on his promise to feature the younger generation. Children only seem to matter if they can somehow make it clear that being a sheltered white dude from a gated community is mankind’s nation.

3. Thanks CBH, but these are strips that are best left forgotten. So many unlikable characters, so many stupid plots, so much butt listing of band directors.

   Band director’s widows, oh wow, they work so hard. I know a few band directors and they may work harder than your average teacher, but they are paid very well. And yes I am aware that they work through the summer (just like the rest of us), but they get extra pay for doing so.

   Anyways, I am happy for them, but why does Batty so desperately want to impress them? Is it that they are the only group that will have him?

   1. why does Batty so desperately want to impress band directrors? are they the only group that will have him?

      Oh, absolutely. Dinkle is the only thing Batiuk’s ever done that truly resonated with anyone. And he still oversells Dinkle’s importance, like that pathetic display at the Rose Parade. He built an entire three-week arc around it, made a big show on his blog, and was barely acknowledged. Then he wasn’t invited back the next year.

      I don’t think Batiuk realizes that Dinkle is a very unflattering depiction of the profession. Especially now that educators are more aware of hazing and bullying.

      1. The fact that Dinkle is by far FW’s most “iconic” character really says a lot about the strip in general. And it’s not saying anything good. If you were to survey 10,000 Americans (and Canadians too, because why not?) and ask them to name three comic strip characters, I guarantee that Dinkle wouldn’t crack the top two hundred names. I’d wager (I really would) that Dinkle mentions would be in the single digits…the low single digits. I’d even go as far to throw twenty bucks down at 15-1 odds that Dinkle wouldn’t be mentioned at all. Dinkle is revered by a smattering of high school band directors of a certain age, most of them located in Ohio, who taped a few amusing Act I Dinkle gags on the side of their filing cabinet back in 1982, where they’ve remained ever since. Those ancient, yellowed strips represent Dinkle’s full cultural impact.

         But hey, no one’s taping any Becky, Les, Wally, Summer or Flash Freeman strips to anything, so there is that. It’s like being the best hockey player in Ecuador, or being the biggest Styx fan in New Mexico. Big fish, small pond, I suppose.

         1. There is no pond too small for Tom Batiuk to declare himself the big fish of.

4. Why would some guy care if they called him Dead Skunk Head John? I mean, that’s his name, right?

   His parents was Greek…

5. CBH, I love what you do/have done with these deep dives. I would love to see your take on Cayla. I know you’ve touched on her a bit, but she’s a character that Batboy, seems to treat with equal parts contempt, pity, or love.

   1. I subscribe to CBH’s theory that Les is a convenience husband for Cayla.

      1. My own theory is that Cayla is less a character than a billboard advertising that Tom Batiuk Is on the Right Side of History. Yes, he WENT THERE, BIGOTS! Way out on a limb, saying an interracial relationship was okay, racists be darned!

         If memory serves, sure, Obama had already been elected by this time and was enormously popular, but had there been an interracial relationship in an Ohio-based newspaper comic centered around a pizzeria and comic shop?

         No! No one had been brave enough to dare even suggest such a thing till Tom came along! Pearls were clutched and fainting couches groaned under the weight of bodies falling unconscious with shock, but nothing could deter the righteous Puff Batty!

         (Later, CauCayla broke even more barriers when she had an interracial relationship with herself, but that’s a story for another time.)

         1. Actually, it’s centered around a pizzeria, a comic shop and a High School. As Billy Wilder might have said, “it may not have any home runs in it, no matter how often Les Moore runs the bases, but it has triples!”

            (Not unlike Buddy’s teasing of Mel on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”)

            Former President Obama is, if I remember correctly, a *Spider-Man* fan, but I don’t think he’s ever expressed an opinion on *Funky Winkerbean* or *Crankshaft.”

         2. Cayla is less a character than a billboard advertising that Tom Batiuk Is on the Right Side of History.

            True, but there are a lot of those. I find the “convenience husband” theory more interesting, because it nicely fits what we see. They have no reason to be married. Les isn’t the tiniest bit interested in letting go of his dead wife. Cayla has no affection for Les, or any reason to have any. What she does have is a daughter who needs to go to college on a high school secretary’s salary.

            And as convenience husbands go, you could do a lot worse than Les. He’ll never cheat on you, because he’ll never cheat on Lisa. He has no discernible need for sex or romance. And he’s so clueless he’ll have no idea you’re playing him until you tell him you’re leaving. Which should have been one minute after Keisha got her Kent State diploma.

         3. I agree, Batty told did this on purpose to show that he, I mean Les, is more evolved than everyone else. No other reason for it.

   2. Cayla, especially early Cayla, would be a pretty interesting dive.

      In rereading Act III, she basically picks Les out and takes him, after a brief battle with Susan. And we get no idea what sparks her interest other than that they have basketball playing daughters on the same team.

      1. I’m still bitter we never got a follow up on the promised Hong Kong anniversary (Lisa production) trip. TB’s travelogues could be amusing on both intentional and unintentional levels.

         But that was right around the moment he seems to have given up completely.

         1. Or at least Les being called out for failing to fulfill that promise.

            Which is why “it’s called writing” is such bullshit. You can’t bash your readers for not trusting the details you give them, when your use of details is never the tiniest bit clear.

            Funky Winkerbeanwas full of important details that were brought up and never brought up again, like the Hong Kong trip, or Melinda Budd badgering Holly into a serious injury. And important details that were just plain ignored. like Dinkle’s deafness and Mort’s dementia and Montoni’s closing down. And details we were supposed to treat with more importance than they deserved, like Bull being Les’ friend because he tried out for the football team for one week in 1980. Or details that rewrote old stories out of existence, like Lisa’s pregnancy becoming date rape or Cindy Summers having a crush on Les in high school.

            “It’s called writing” doesn’t work because we can’t trust your writing, Tom.

6. I should be writing an encomium to the beauty of this post and its accompanying “cover,” but maybe I have a touch of the ol’ Aspergers myself, because I got stopped short by the details in a couple of the strips:

   1) Band directors’ “widows” have regular meetings. Seems to me that, with the extra responsibilities on their shoulders from a spouse who works long hours, the last thing they’d want is a regular meeting to add to their schedule. But okay, it’s a cartoon, fine, we’ll let that one pass as humorous exaggeration.

   2) A bunch of middle-aged suburban women, when gathered together for a klatsch, prefer — nay, demand — only M&Ms and beer for refreshments. Is Puff Batty a Martian? How could you live your whole life in the suburbs, including a stint in a high school band, and then raise a child in those very same suburbs, and think that this contains any truth at all?

   (NB: I will humbly apologize, again, if someone comes on and tells me that their mom’s preferred foods were M&Ms and beer. Admittedly, I’m a stranger to the suburbs so maybe I’m just shooting off my damn fool mouth again. I would have guessed… Diet Coke, wine, and something with some kind of nutritive value. Crudités and dip? Chips and salsa? Cheese and crackers? Suburban moms/band wives, please chime in and “change my mind,” as the meme has it.)

   3) The BDW meeting has regular assigned reading, and the gals (looking to be in their 30s-70s or so) were assigned X-Men #137. No Oprah picks for them, or novels recently made into movies or TV shows. No romance, history, or gossipy biography. Middle-aged to senior women are happy to read X-Men comics, obviously because they’re easy to get through. Real intellects, there.

   I’ve always wondered why band directors love Dinkle, who is portrayed as an arrogant ass, and now I see their wives are portrayed as bubble-headed idjits.

   Perhaps it’s akin to the reason Y. Knott gave last month for the seemingly inexplicable praise for “Lisa’s Story.” Medical professionals were portrayed as lazy and uncaring, and Lisa pretty much laid down and died instead of fighting, yet praise was heaped upon this dreck by cancer orgs. Y. Knott speculated:

   Of course, that sort of praise is not really written for the work of [Tom Batiuk]; it’s designed to encourage the NEXT person to write something. The subtext: “See? Write about this topic! It needs more publicity! And if you write something, ANYTHING, on this topic, it will get praise! Like this! Promise! And hey, maybe one day, someone will actually write something on this topic that’s actually good! That’s our goal! And when that day comes, we’ll give it sincere praise! But until then, we’ll be here, encouraging people to write further about this topic by writing blurbs for anything and everything people are already writing about it!”

   Maybe it’s just that there’s not much in the mass media about band directors, so what there is is going to be embraced wholeheartedly, no matter what.

   1. There was lot of truth to Dinkle, at least Act I Dinkle. He’s an arrogant bully who thinks the school revolves around his program, and everyone else’s purpose is to fuel his ego trips. Every band director I ever met was like that. So I think his fandom wasn’t manufactured.

      What’s weird is that I don’t remember Dinkle getting much pushback, like the Pointy Haired Boss got. IT Managers understood what he was satirizing, but realized he was a caricature of their negative traits, and made him into an example of what NOT to be. Not band directors and Dinkle. They straight-up loved him. And it’s even more appalling nowadays, since schools are more aware of his style of abuse. No band director under age 55 should see him as anything but a toxic, outdated stereotype.

      1. Maybe the love for Dinkle is an unintended meta-gag: The self-absorbed jerk character is loved by self-absorbed jerks because, ironically, they are too self-absorbed and jerky to realize that the character is not a hero, but a satire of self-absorbed jerks.

         “He’s just like me! That means he’s an awesome genius!”

         1. That tracks.

   2. You know, I read *The Dark Phoenix Saga* in a handsome trade paperback edition, collecting *X-Men* #129-37…and that was in 1986! Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Band Widows to turn to that rather than a single issue?

      Think how erudite John Howard would be explaining the time-slips we didn’t see in that volume! Or how he would deserve to win a No-Prize (not as cool as a Pulitzer, but close) for explaining how Colossus “slew” Proteus yet insists that he never killed when he’s part of a reverse “Fastball Special” on the Moon and doesn’t slay the Phoenix!

      As they say in Dylan Horrocks’s *Hicksville,* comics will break your heart…

7. Wait…THOSE are the three things people say that they are going to do, but never happen?

   Christ on a cracker, I’ve been telling that joke wrong all these years.

8. Ahh, so that’s where the comment “It’s called writing!” that shows up in the comments so often (in comments for both strips) started? From Batty’s blog that was linked above (Nov 9, 2007)?

   1. Oh yes. Those words should go on Tom Batiuk’s tombstone. it really takes an elevated ego to bash your readers for not understanding your continuity, right you after you admit you made a continuity mistake:

      (Readers) were also concerned that Wally Jr. was missing as well (as Wally Sr.) Wally Jr.’s omission can be explained with a term of art known as a big dumb mistake. I simply forgot to include him in the cast picture. The explanation for Wally Sr.’s not being there is due to something else… it’s called writing.

      Yes, Tom, it’s called writing. The problem is that you suck at it.

      1. Fortunately, to keep the level of discourse here respectable, you will never see me say
         “Yeah, Tom. It’s also called sharting.”

         1. A nice nod to “Along Came Polly,” BTS, and a sad reminder, as someone noted on YouTube, that “losing Philip Seymour Hoffman was a real SHART to the HEART.”

            Even nine years later.

9. “Hi, I’m Mason Alfred Jarry! You may remember me as the French writer of such pre-Dadaist plays as ‘Ubo Roi,’ and [checks notes]…I guess that’s it!
   “Today’s CS: Ever play with a kitten, and it starts to get sleepy, but totally wants to…stay awake because…[nods, wavers, wakes in startled movement] OH! Sorry, but I might have missed something a kitten would enjoy just now! Is your finger my new worst…enemy…And kitten starts to fall down in like slow motion, until…it can’t stay awake…any…more”[slowly collapses to floor]

   That is today’s CS. Only 2 more days of inaction to…go…of BUS SAFETY…
   [passes out again; didn’t even get a darn cat treat]

   1. BTS, I hereby confer on you the Order of Merdre, which, like the Order of Merit, can only be held by twenty-four people at a time.

      Vive Pere Ubu, both Alfred Jarry’s character and Cleveland’s band!

10. At first glance, my sleep-deprived mind thought this was chemotherapy era Lisa. Must be the bald head and ball cap.

    

    Pizza Lisa?

    1. Though that does raise the question, who IS that? They’re delivering for Montoni’s, so they must work there (it’s not like DoorDash or GrubHub or whatever existed back then, and they’re wearing a Montoni’s shirt and cap anyway), but have we ever seen this person before? (Or after, for that matter?)

       1. Good observation. We never saw nameless employees inside Montoni’s. I believe when Adeela was arrested by ICE, she was making the delivery because the unidentified delivery person had already gone home or was out making another delivery.

          This must have been a nameless-never-to-be seen-again Westview High student who temporarily worked as a pizza deliverer.

          1. Like everything else in the Funkyverse, Montoni’s has faceless employees when the story needs them, and doesn’t when it doesn’t.

             It’d be demeaning, though perfectly accurate, for someone like Les or Rocky or Adeela to be delivering John Howard’s pizza. Normally this would be forgivable, since you don’t want to insert a main character into a story that doesn’t pertain to them. But Batiuk is so far up his own ass with his “realism” that he should have done this once or twice.

11. Have we ever seen HAH/DCH/DSH John attend any of Becky’s band concerts or marching band shows? Is he frightened off by Becky’s work husband, Harry Dinkle? Is he a bitter band director widower, or just an unsupportive jerk?

    1. It’s interesting how the wives of band directors are obligated to take part in that world, and support their men even though they don’t seem to much help.

       But this duty doesn’t extend to John Howard. Even though Becky is the family breadwinner (which she acknowledged in-universe) and she needs more support than most people because she’s missing an arm.

       1. “Don’t seem to need much help.”

       2. I have a thought, but it would give too much credit to Batiuk’s writing. Considering their history, John may not go to band events because Becky’s mom could still be involved as a “band mom.”

          1. Which would be even more sexist. Wasn’t Becky’s mom a city councilperson? She’d have a lot less free time than John Howard and his failing comic book store. The message is clear: supporting your spouse is women’s work. When you’re Mrs. Dinkle, you’re expected to show up and help out at all his stupid-ass band functions and ego trips. When you’re Mr. Becky, your comic book time is more important.

12. By the by, it looks to me as if no one has mentioned where Beckoning Chasm picked up those round and rectangular blurbs on their wonderful cover. I knew the circular one looked familiar, and in checking my Avengers Marvel Masterworks volumes, I found both came from the cover of 1974’s issue 119, “Night of the Collector.” Earth’s Mightiest Heroes journey to the sleep town of Rutland, Vermont and take part in real-life comics fan Tom Fagan’s annual Halloween Parade. The Fagan that they meet, however, turns out to be the villainous Collector (you all remember Benicio Del Toro playing him in the “Starbuck Jo…” er, “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise). It’s a fun Bronze Age story from writer Steve Englehart, back in the day when the Avengers and Justice League would visit Rutland and almost encounter each other.

    Funny thing is, this was the second Avengers comic I bought after swearing off them for several years at age 12 because I thought I was getting too old for them. Now four decades later I’m typing this in a room filled by boxes of back issues, hardbound reprints, action figures, original art, and a FOOM poster signed by Stan Lee and Jim Steranko. Maybe I should have listened to 12-year-old me.

    1. Great detective work, but alas I can only claim credit for the artwork, none of the captions are mine.

    2. I remember the Rutland stories, particularly the one in *JLA* #103 where Glynis Wein was Supergirl…and someone named “Commando America” did the bidding of Felix Faut.

       When I was twelve, I thought Stainless Steve Englehart was the greatest scripter comics would ever know.

       The cover of *Avengers* #119 sh0ws four Avengers (Mantis, the Scarlet Witch, the Swordsman and the Vision: call them the Little Four) coming to the rescue of four “collected” Avengers (the Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor: call them the Big Four.).

       The latter quartet all had their own series at the time, while the former were dependent on *The Avengers* for their appearances. A minority (but a noisy minority) thought that the Little Four should have the title to themselves, with the Big Four appearing mainly in their own books.

       Two years later, three of the Big Four were still active (the Panther had left to deal with his own affairs) and two of the Little Four had left (Mantis and the Swordsman).

       Avengers Assemble!

13. Now, regarding the Saturday 6/24/2023 installment of “Crankshaft,” may I take a brief moment to say:

    OH, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S PURE AND GOOD IN THIS WORLD!!! “LISA’S STORY”!? “LISA’S STORY” IS THE VALENTINE’S GRAND RE-OPENING MOVIE!?!? ARE YOU FRACKIN’ KIDDING ME!?!?!? SO HELP ME, IF LES MOORE SHOWS HIS FACE IN THIS STRIP…

    Or, in the quiet words of Michael Scott in “The Office,” “NO, GOD! NO, GOD, PLEASE! NO, NO, NO, NOOOOO!”

    1. IT BEGINS.

    2. Months ago, I predicted Les by the end of June.
       I am not proud of this fact.

       Wasn’t Lisa’s Story a box office bomb, that somehow won an Oscar? I suppose people might say “At least it’s not Phantom Empire again!” Then again, you’d think that they’d already seen Lisa’s Waterworld by now, given that it was SET IN THEIR TOWNS.

       1. Wouldn’t you see a movie set in your town? To see what they got wrong, at least.
          Circa 1988 I was reading the Silver Surfer. The most cosmically themed of all the Marvel books. The Surfer was going to visit Mantis, the Guardians character, but also not. In this version, she’s the Celestial Madonna, due to give birth to Space Jesus I guess. Norrin Radd flies to Connecticut, specifically Willimantic.
          God how I laughed! I lived there for a year! I guess the writer just wanted the least likely place for this to take place. Of course, back then there was not internet, and possibly no photo references. So the artist winged it. If you’ve ever taken Amtrak to NYC from CT’s direction, you know you’re almost there when you hit a flood plain of 1000s of 5-story brownstones, stretching to the smoggy horizon. That’s what he drew it as. Romantic Willimantic had those houses, but not population of a million. Its 2020 population is 18,200. It’s nothing but hills. Where are the local landmarks? The Thread Factory? The Frog Bridge? The Hooker Hotel? The Rexall with the sign “RUSSEL STOVER CHOCOLATE/COLOSTOMY BAGS”? (D0n’t get confused and buy the wrong filled one!)

          I’m surprised the Surfer hasn’t looked in a mirror, thought “I look like the Oscar!” and given himself to Les.

       2. It did bomb at the box office, but then it (inexplicably) did well on streaming, so the Academy decided to nominate Marianne Summersclone for Best Actress. (More realistic would have been if it did well on streaming because people were treating it as the next coming of “The Room”, but, y’know… it’s called writing or whatever.)

          1. The Room isn’t a bad comparison. Quote:
             “Claudette : Everything goes wrong all at once. Nobody wants to help me. And I’m dying.
             Lisa : You’re not dying, mom.
             Claudette : I got the results of the test back – I definitely have breast cancer!”
             And it is never mentioned again. Unlike our Lisa, where she spends all eternity dying of cancer and malpractice…And it doesn’t really bug her. So, in a sense, it never does get mentioned again, beyond how cancer makes Les pout.

             1. “You are tearing me ah-paht, Dead St. Lisa!”

                Now we need a scene of Funky, Less, Crazy, and teenage Wally playing football in wedding tuxedos.

             2. It’s a fantastic comparison. Funky Winkerbean and The Room make so many of the same mistakes. And not just the trivial similarities of the main character being overly obsessed with an unremarkable woman named Lisa. They both think they’re so rich with drama, when they’re both so laughable. Except Tommy Wiseau acquired a non-zero amount of self-awareness about the actual reaction his work got. Tom Batiuk doesn’t have a clue.

             3. “Oh hai Les. How’s your sex life?”
                “The playground is open!”

                Seriously, who do we need to bribe to get Tommy Wiseau to write and direct a Funky Winkerbean movie?

             4. Was Les’s Lisa tearing him apart as was Johnny’s?

       3. Les has already been in Crankshaft. As Lillian’s writing mentor. You have to admit, it makes sense for the Funkyverse.

          1. Yep, April 2017, Les was busy preaching about his methods. Others offered slick gimmicks and tricks, but Les was the only authentic writer on the stage.

    3. They were going to go with Phantom Empire, but they thought someone might actually want to watch that, so… Lisa’s Story it is!

       (The funniest thing about today’s strip is one of your detractors made a comment that they’ll stop reading Crankshaft now because they were tired of all the Dead Saint Lisa stories in Funky. If so… congratulations, Tom! You even got the anti-snarkers fed up, and you didn’t even have to go full Scott Adams.)

       1. At least one of the “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” respondents seems to have taken their own medicine, but it’s too bad that it needed to reach that point for that person to realize what has been repeatedly said since the end of last year.

          The snarkers have told you that this would happen all this time, Ms. SS. This is the fundamental reason why the snarking exists.

          Truly, having those two panels side by side – one with a marquee about Lisa’s Story, and the next with two characters smirking about how a certain type of man will never stop talking about himself* – encapsulates a basis for one aspect to the criticism in total. If Tom was a different kind of writer and person, it could be argued that this is actually a clever and very subtle kind of self-effacing joke. As it stands, though, and with the knowledge of everything else that Tom does, and how and why he does it, the strip shows how completely tone deaf and unaware of himself that he actually is.

          *Crankshaft said more about Mason’s career than Mason has said about Mason’s career this week, by the way.

          1. Not to mention, an actor at Maison J’arre’s level (someone like a younger Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford) has long ago tired of press junkets and interviews.

             It’s not too likely they want to give interviews to the West Asshair Pennysaver on their time off; their publicist arranges their interviews and it’s part of their job, not something fun they do in their spare time for any smug one-armed weirdo who requests it.

             But I guess the only person Maison J’arre loves praising more than Les is himself. Christ, what an asshole.

             1. J’arrecuse, said Emile Zola.

             2. Masone has no publicist, agent, stylist, attorney, or assistants of any kind, based on what we’ve been shown.

    4. Amazing how ten little letters can kick up a hornet’s nest.

       I unfollowed “Crankshaft” on Thursday (again) but this development has piqued my interest. Can the smug one be far behind? How can anyone resist reading Les snark? I’ve definitely missed it.

       Am I back? As John Wick would say, “Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back!”

       1. I pulled a Crankshaft. You kick up a storm. You stir up a hornet’s nest.

          1. Not if you’re Lisbeth

             (not to be confused with Lizardbreath Patterson, now Mrs. Anthony Caine)

             Salander, who kicks hornet’s nests freely. But she’s practically a law unto herself.

       2. “Just when I thought I was out…dogpiling on Less Moore pulled me back in!”

    5. Cindy’s absence makes a little more sense now. Scenes we’d like to have seen.

       Masone: The Valentine has announced their grand re-opening. We have to be there!
       Cindy: That’s great. What film are they showing?
       Masone: Lisa’s Story!
       Cindy: (Smile fades) I’ll pass. Have fun, sweetie. (Pats Masone’s chest in sympathy and walks away)

       1. Judging from the artwork, Cindy also de-aged back to 24.

14. Sunday’s strip is either going to be 1) Another 5 panel with 3 disposable panels ending with an inane Crank stupidity (“Lisa’s Story?! Why, that movie had me on the edge of my FEET!”), or 2) if sideways, maybe a poster of the Lisa’s Story movie, looking like a 1963 comic book someone’s Mom threw out.
    My guess is 1. The readers NEED another week of buildup to The Beginning of The Burnings! Then–a Sunday sideways of JULIA LISA & ROMEO LES! 2 good 2 b 4gotten.

    1. And here we go, it’s all about Lisa’s Story. That didn’t take long.

       Give it up Batty, nobody cares.

    2. Looks like it was #1 (although it sure feels like a steaming pile of #2), but I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for THAT level of Ed inanity. (Seriously, are we supposed to believe that Ed knows the words “Romanesque” OR “countenance”? Or even “Romanian”, for that matter. “Incontinence” I can believe is a word he knows, however.)

    3. The “joke” in today’s Crankshaft is that Ed says Masonne’s profile shows a “Romanian incontinence.”

       Minty says, “You mean a Romanesque countenance?”

       That’s the joke.

       As a fan of Romanesque architecture, my curiosity was piqued. I have never heard the term Romanesque used to describe a human being’s features. So I used Grandpa Google and searched for the term. I found only two occurrences. One read:

       The over-scale arches, the rusticated sandstone blocks that make up the lower floors, and the extensive carvings give the building its Romanesque countenance.

       The other was from some guy’s blog where he was self-publishing some kind of fiction. “St John allowed a moue of distaste briefly to cloud his Romanesque countenance before restoring his features to their usual combination of bland skepticism and dyspeptic martyrdom.”

       I think in the second case the guy was just misusing the word “Romanesque,” perhaps thinking it was a fancy way of saying “Roman.” It is not. Merriam-Webster’s definition:

       : of or relating to a style of architecture developed in Italy and western Europe between the Roman and the Gothic styles and characterized in its development after 1000 by the use of the round arch and vault, substitution of piers for columns, decorative use of arcades, and profuse ornament

       TL;DR: Once again, Tom reaches for what he thinks is erudite and embarrasses himself.

       1. Good grief! “Moue of distaste?” “Romanesque countenance?” “Dyspeptic martyrdom?” Did you stumble upon the secret blog of Brooke McEldowney?

          1. I’ve heard of “Roman features” before. So Crank could have said “Romanian pizza” and it would’ve been closer to words he knew, and just as funny! (not at all funny)

             1. In *Antony and Cleopatra,* the Queen of Egypt becomes concerned when “a Roman thought” strikes her beloved.

                “Age cannot cayla her, nor custom lisa her infinite variety…”

          2. I was thinking it was the secret blog of Tom “Highbrow” Batiuk, PhD in All Things High Culture.

             Either way, a profile is arguably not a “countenance,” another thing he got wrong in his strip.

             I was puzzling over what, if anything, TB was trying to have Crankshaft mean. There’s no such thing as a Romanesque countenance except as it relates to the face of a church or other building.

             Then it occurred to me: Did he mean a Roman nose? That’s something that you would actually see best in profile. Wikipedia:

             An aquiline nose (also called a Roman nose) is a human nose with a prominent bridge, giving it the appearance of being curved or slightly bent. The word aquiline comes from the Latin word aquilinus (“eagle-like”), an allusion to the curved beak of an eagle.

             Reading TB is like trying to comprehend snippets of Old English verse salvaged from tattered scraps of vellum. With all the historical and lexicographical resources the modern world can muster, and all the best guesses of the most learned scholars, sometimes the true meaning remains forever elusive.

             1. I was thinking it was the secret blog of Tom “Highbrow” Batiuk
                I was thinking “That kid who wrote ‘Eye of Argon’ bought a new thesaurus!”

15. …and my interest in reading Crankshaft is waning again. It appears the GoComics moderator was quite busy late yesterday. The last time I looked, there were more than 50 comments on yesterday’s “Crankshaft”. This morning, there are 33.

    Among the comments missing was the comment from @ms-ss, one of the “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” people, who said she was unfollowing the strip because she had seen enough of Lisa in Funky Winkerbean. Did she have a change of heart and delete her own comment? Or is it possible the GoComics moderator didn’t want her leading a possible mass exodus from the strip?

    The GoComics discussions are a real no fun zone. What’s the difference between snarking on “Crankshaft” and the many GoComics political cartoons where some cartoonist gets slaughtered in the comments of every one? Does every acceptable post in a non-political strip have to be limited to mundane elements of the strip, personal physical ailments, work experiences, alive and dead spouses, childhood memories, children and pets?

    I’m sure as hell not going to read strips about Les Moore oozing into “Crankshaft” and not be able to read/write snark about it.

    1. I’m sure as hell not going to read strips about Les Moore oozing into “Crankshaft” and not be able to read/write snark about it.

       That’s why we’re here at SoSF!
       And believe me, they do sweep the political comments all the time, for truly innocuous stuff. Why do they even have comments?

16. Wait, how did I miss this?
    “Max’s grandfather–so I guess your grandfather-in-law? Have you not met, Generic Blonde Trophy Lady All the Nerds Get? He did say something about ‘restraining orders’ and ‘JUST COVER FOR ME BEFORE THEY CALL THE COPS AGAIN!’ Anyway, Max’s Grandfather, here’s Max’s Mother! (whispers) call the poliiiice!”
    An…HOUR tour of Cancerville? The theater’s the only thing we know that’s there! ED: “Here’s the school, note all the busted mailboxes and roadside memorials for children run over by buses! Here’s the old mills. Once we were Ohio’s top leader in asbestos entirely made of lead! STUPID EPA RULES! Here’s where the CVS closed. Here’s where the Wendy’s closed. Here’s the medical building where we burned those demonic doctors at the stake! My hideously rotting nose is NOT from syphilis! Oh, and there’s one of the many craters my BBQs have left! And behind it, the busiest building in town, the Burn Ward! Someday, a REAL Burning will come, and sweep all the trash from the streets!”

    What? That’s not too dark, I got the light turned on in here!

17. Happy birthday, Harriet!

    1. You membered! 😀

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