This post. This whole arc. Wally’s return. It’s been a struggle for me to attack. For a very long time I couldn’t really figure out why. On paper, there’s a lot to work with. Maybe too much, maybe that was part of the problem.
At first I wondered if it was because I was, once again, taking this marathon half-year of a deep dive away from John Howard. Should I save some of this stuff for a potential Wally retrospective in the future? But with the literally hundreds of stupid minutiae that the Funkyverse waves around in my face, begging me to snark and dissect, would I ever get back around to it? After all, I’ve got green pitchers and Jinx Bushka waiting for me! This is a John dive, yeah. But you can’t talk about DSH without talking about Lefty, and you can’t talk about Lefty without talking about Wally. And you can’t talk about Wally without talking about…this.
Then I wondered if it was because the Google rabbit holes of research this arc offered: POW stories, US Military procedures, TBI’s, and the legalities of bigamy, just weren’t appealing to me. I poked into them, but they’re very wide, very depressing, wells of knowledge. If Tom didn’t bother to look into them, why should I? (Because proving him wrong is fun, of course, but this time I just wasn’t in the mood.)
I made my normie bestie read the arc, and she just shrugged. “Seems like an outline of a longer story,” she said. It didn’t jump off the page as awful to her. Not like the time I made her read the ‘Les Makes Bull’s Death All About Him’ week, which enraged her before she even got to the last panel. I pointed out some stuff that bothered me, and she agreed that those things were dumb.
It’s like The Last Jedi, it almost works until you really start thinking about it. Then you hate it. (Note: If you don’t hate The Last Jedi, that’s fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Even if it’s the wrong one.)
And as we talked, I realized what made me hate this arc so, so, so much. And keep in mind I don’t blindly hate everything in Act III Funky Winkerbean.
Way back in the introduction to The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume I, Batiuk talks about a single Peanuts strip:
The strip in question had come after a week during which Linus had had his blanket taken away, and he was lying on the ground shaking as he went through withdrawal. In the second panel, Snoopy walks up wearing his WWI flying helmet and scarf. He pauses to look down at Linus shaking on the ground and then walks off saying, “Poor blighter, his kind shouldn’t be sent to the front.” It was an elegant strip that Schulz had taken twenty years to set up. Twenty years in which he had developed the theme of Linus and his blanket, developed the character of Snoopy and Snoopy’s fantasy world as a fighter pilot in WWI—all so he could create the opportunity to eventually dovetail them into that one perfect strip.
Tom Batiuk
Batiuk was jealous of Schulz for having 20 years of set up with which to build his stories.
Well, by 2009, Batiuk had nearly 40 years of set up. He had over 15 years of time with Becky, and Wally, and DSH John. And he CHOSE to place these characters, with their complex relationships and years of backstory, in a massive emotional minefield. And then he deftly wrote his way out of it while avoiding nearly every single drama mine.
Lets take a look.
In Ancient Greek theatre, there was a convention that major action didn’t happen on stage. Murders, battles, animal sacrifice. They all happened off stage and were described later by the characters. But even Aeschylus as his most prudish and reserved still let us actually have the moment Electra first saw her long lost brother Orestes again. On very rare occasions, Batiuk gives us the moment of maximum drama, but 9 times out of 10 it’s like we see here. Funky the messenger recounting his tale to Holly the lowly chorus. So mine one dodged, Wally and Funky seeing each other again and viscerally understanding how much time had passed between them.
SPEAKING OF THAT. How many character’s reactions to the “Wally’s Not Dead.” plot twist have we been allowed to see? Cindy, Becky, and John. Would have been pretty cool to see these poor kids learn that their first dad is actually alive, a figure of story and legend, whom they have mourned with solemnity for as long as they can remember.
How do they feel about this? How did their parents break it to them?
You know what else we don’t get? Wally first learning that he was declared dead. Wally first learning his wife had remarried.
Wally’s reaction at the first sight of his son, now a young boy. A child he would have only seen in pictures and videos of as an infant. His realization that he doesn’t know these children. These children don’t know him. And he has missed half a lifetime of milestones, firsts, and experiences.
More emotional bombshells…just duds.
Batiuk nudges a drama mine here, making a big show of threatening to have it go off. John is worried about Becky leaving him for Wally, I guess. Why? There are reasons we can think up. Have DSH and Becky discussed this at all, or has John given her so much ‘space’ to work things out that they’ve avoided deep discussion. Either seem plausible, but it’s left to our imaginations. We’re also given a little hint of Rana maybe being concerned about her parents’ mental states, just like when we saw her peering around the corner to watch them hug earlier in the day. Nice bit of beginning character building, for a character that would go nowhere and do nothing.
Becky and Wally are sitting on a park bench next to the Westview Veterans Monument, (ooooh thematic). And he’s apparently telling her his entire tragic tale. Except, no. Because this man spent somewhere around a decade as a lone captive in a hostile culture and situation. But the story doesn’t operate that way. Wally doesn’t act like he’s been captured, held, and potentially tortured for years. He acts like a veteran who was in a coma for a decade. Every experience he recounts is mostly from his time serving, not his time a captive. Batiuk didn’t want Wally’s trauma to be from his captivity, because the trope is the Vet with PTSD from Iraq/Afghanistan. Not singular story of captivity and survival that would have reporters and media people breaking down his door looking for exclusive interviews, book deals, movie rights.
But something familiar with a built in ‘audience’ to pander to, and a built in narrative to copy.
We’re barely halfway through this minefield… how many more duds will we pass before we’re through…
Son of Stuck Funky 
Didn’t TB already do this story in Crankshaft?
At least wait for Rick Burchett to start penciling the strip before taking these kind of shots, TB.
Classic Batty Puff Piece:
“ As always, my first goal was to write as interesting and as readable a story as I could: A story about someone who has harbored a secret from his friends and loved ones all his life . . . and ultimately, a story about how he deals with it. This story isn’t preachy or judgmental, but I have worked hard to make it factual.”
You judge for yourself if this story fulfilled any of those goals.
OT, but RIP Johnny Hardwick.
Your mentioning Hardwick (yes, RIP to a great voice actor) reminds me of one of the many things I loved about King of the Hill.
Dale Gribble is a conspiracy nut. He suspects everyone, sees hidden plots everywhere, and prides himself on knowing what he thinks others are too blind to see. But he never sees the obvious resemblance between his own son and John Redcorn. He never questions his wife’s “migraine treatments.” He’s the only person in Arlen who doesn’t know his son isn’t his.
But the show never tells us this. No one ever says, “Wow, Dale sees conspiracies everywhere but never notices the one that’s right in front of his face.” We just sort of pick up this irony over time. It deepens Dale’s character and makes him more sympathetic.
It takes a really good writer to hold back and simply trust the audience to make connections… and that writer must resign themselves to the fact that some viewers won’t make that connection, and their clever twist will go unnoticed.
Batiuk doesn’t trust us like that. He puts up blinking neon signs to make sure we see his clever twists and poignant ironies, thus rendering them neither clever nor poignant.
Dale is the best part of a very good show. A textbook case of how to make a self-centered weirdo who mostly causes trouble for those around him endearing.
Yes was sad to hear of Dale’s passing. Great show. Batty could learn a lot from Mike Judge.
“It was an elegant strip that Schulz had taken twenty years to set up.”
This has got to be in the top twenty of the dumbest, most blind things Batiuk has ever said. But it perfectly illustrates his thinking.
Schulz wasn’t fishing for awards for twenty years; he knew his characters and knew how they would act and react. They were remarkably consistent over the course of the strip. Schulz knew his world with a certainty. For him, the strip in question was one more strip; the idea that he was working toward this moment is ridiculous.
But that’s how Batiuk thinks. He thinks he is working toward some grand moment that will illuminate mankind as our nation. Instead he just shows how crass and shallow he is.
Batiuk is the ultimate horse’s ass–a man utterly bereft of talent yet so certain he possesses it in buckets. It’s a shame he ascribes those characteristics to those whose brush he is not worthy to hold.
He’s just phenomenally bad at this….whatever it’s supposed to be. Serialized drama, sort of? Without the drama?
I can see why he has no editorial oversight, though. How do you edit this? Except by saying “throw this out, then burn it, then burn the ashes, then go back to the gag-a-day stuff you were marginally adequate at for a couple of years, and never, never, never submit anything even remotely like this to us ever again.”
I guess the syndicate was only interested in publicity. They love those Batty Puff Pieces (see first post above for an example) but could care less about the quality of the strip. As long as the checks keep rolling in, everything is fine.
Besides, he wouldn’t listen to an editor anyways. And as you said, how do you edit this mess? So the syndicate saves money and doesn’t have to listen to Batty whine, win-win.
I like how Batiuk called it “a week”, as if every other cartoonist follows his ischedule. Peanuts arcs were as long or as short as they needed to be – which is why they’re so much better than Funkyverse arcs.
I wonder what Charles Schulz thought of Funky Winkerbean?
Any number of duds, I think. There’s a reason Batiuk kept the spotlight on the morose boomers he’d started out with: he can’t imagine how a child would react to anything if that child isn’t him. It’s why we had the time skip that pole-vaulted over an actually compelling story: “single father raising a child alone and how that child sees the world.”
That’s always puzzled me — the inability to write/understand the world of children. TB is a father. Presumably he helped to raise his child. Just from observation, you’d think he would have picked up more than enough to create realistic child characters.
I don’t think he can actually create characters period. All we get is vehicles for punchlines and he can’t think of a kid’s sort of line.
I don’t know if Batiuk has a complete inability to write younger children. He’s done it a few times and it’s worked.
I think part of it was a conscious decision not to do too much of this, because he didn’t want his strip to become another early FOOB or Baby Blues. Fair enough.
But that doesn’t excuse ignoring the children in cases like Wally’s Return, where their very existence should be a major focal point and concern of the adults in the scene.
I get it, and it is reasonable to not want FW to turn into Kids Say the Darndest Things. However, as a parent myself, I can say that when you have kids, your life essentially revolves around them for years and years, or at least it should. And it’s not just your day-to-day life that changes; your priorities in life change. The way you view your life, and your place in the world, changes.
If you want your characters to grow up, through young adulthood, marriage, and middle age, and if you want to stay a quarter-mile from reality, let alone a quarter-inch, then it’s absolutely essential to show how their kids affect their lives.
Batiuk certainly did make some credible stabs at this, but seems to have gotten bored, and thereafter young kids would disappear for years (presumably into Narnia?) and then come back younger or the same age. Sometimes their names would change.
As the years went by, the kids fell victim to the same thing as the adults: They were dusted off and trotted out to make some point (like the final Skylær arc’s guns ‘r bad, nnnkay?) and then shoved back into the Wardrobe. Result: a total fail at showing his characters actually entering mature adulthood, family life, and/or middle age.
Your Grease:
When I last read a Faye Kellerman mystery featuring Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus,* Peter’s old partner Marge Dunn had undertaken the care of a little girl, the survivor of a cult.
Marge is unmarried and has no romantic partner; she’s shown very little interest in children (Peter’s daughter Hannah doesn’t seem to call her “Aunt Marge,” so it may be mutual; nor do Peter’s stepsons interact with her). When she talks to the male detectives she knows about her ward (it’s not just for millionaires like Bruce Wayne and the original Oliver Queen) in the following novel, she takes comfort in something ridiculous:
“And when they’re eighteen, they’re out of your hair for good, right?”
The male detectives laugh at this, informing Marge that “they’re never out of your hair.”
One day I need to return to Kellerman and see whether Marge has learned that. (My current mystery reading is Eric Ambler’s *Light of Day,* which became the 1964 movie “Topkapi.”)
The odds strike me as better than Susan Pevensie remembering that she was once a Queen in Narnia.
*
Peter married Rina Lazarus in the fourth book in the series. She’s been Mrs. Decker for a long time, and as an Orthodox Jewish wife, she must think of herself as Mrs. Decker. Yet the books continue to use the original description. Marketing, I guess…or else the harmful hand of Pete Reynolds, once Pete Roberts!
As a 3 time deployment vet, I always saw these strips with Wally, post-captivity as TB, thinking he was addressing veterans PTSD, TBI, etc. You know more of his ‘moral high road, award winning strips’. Except, he was never actually brave enough or cared enough to research it, to do it correctly. So, we got these half-assed slap- dashed pieces of garbage that left more questions than answers.
Worse still for TB, Gary Trudeau did it before AND did it better. Much much much better. I’m pretty lukewarm on Doonesbury overall, but BD losing his leg in Iraq was an excellent story arc and Trudeau was rightfully praised and awarded for it. Trudeau even gave the running gag of BD always wearing a helmet tremendous poignancy, a wonderfully deft bit of writing.
Like with TB’s misguided quote on Schulz, BD wasn’t constantly depicted wearing a football helmet simply to set up this moment. Linus, Snoopy, BD… these are well-written characters and their various quirks and characteristics are the building blocks of great comic strips, but those things don’t exist simply to be building blocks the way they so often do in TB’s work.
NO! Tom was the FIRST! He bravely went where NO ONE ELSE EVER DARED, those SCAREDY-CATS, so where is his PULITZER PRIZE?!
Sorry. Guess I’m still het up from my rants here yesterday. It still chafes.
Anyway, it really is baffling to think that Schulz’s whole career was dedicated to setting up payoffs. That’s not how it works if you’re any good. You’re not leading up to some perfect pinnacle; you’re creating a body of work. You’re world-building, not setting up a punchline like a stand-up comic. Funny moments, dramatic moments — they should come organically from the world you’ve created.
TB has never understood this. The characters don’t live inside him. They’re just delivery vehicles for whatever punchline or “dramatic” event he is trying to set up. That’s why Lisa was a mousy loser, then a tenacious crusading lawyer, then limply resigned to egregious malpractice. You see, there was no “Lisa.” There were only Important Events that happened to be assigned to the all-purpose “Lisa” puppet.
Well, it stands to reason that he thinks that. If all you have is a hammer, everything ends up looking like a nail.
That last paragraph is one of the keys to understanding the totality behind what makes TB’s work so objectively bad and prone to derision.
As more time passes, the characters and events in TB’s strips become more undefined. The world is formed by amoebae whose shapes are only identifiable as whatever TB wants them to be right now. Funky is a middle class person who resides in a seven-figure mansion and operates a business which was simultaneously operational through and bankrupted by the pandemic. Lisa’s Story is a movie which simultaneously flopped and flourished. Pete Reynolds-Roberts is the highest paid comic writer in the country and cannot afford an engagement ring of any kind for his fiancee. Characters are constantly cycling between buying comic collections and selling comic collections, with spurious justifications on both ends of the transactions. As you say, Lisa is ultimately three different people. Time Mop is his elegant solution to give in-world justification for all of this collective contradiction. What TB seems to not understand is that this treatment is what undermines the credibility to his work.
And then he writes lines like this in the blog:
“I was contacted by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who wanted to see if the Hazelden Foundation, a group that helps people escape the disease of addiction, would consider collecting the work in a book. I said that he could run it by them and then pretty much forgot about it.”
without a hint of irony or self-awareness. That seems like a pretty flippant attitude to have about another organization wanting to use your work for a good cause.
“Huh, you want to publish my strips in a collection? Sure ok whatever.
…
Why doesn’t anyone take me seriously?”
This whole thread is amazing. The insights in the comments are spot-on.
Tom: “Misery Loves PULITZERS!” and that’s as far as he identifies with his Not-Me characters. “Write what happened off-panel? That’s not writing! That’s WORK!”
A thing about Doonesbury is that Trudeau never seems to forget his backstories. Another thing that differentiates it from FW, and I believe this to be key:
It’s never pretentious. Doonesbury has been rerunning old strips for…20 years, maybe, but remember Lacy Davenport? The ancient member of the Senate who got dementia? It was heartbreaking and hilarious. And it was real.
And he built on that. Lacy, quite senile, befriended a homeless woman she thought was her sister, and left her fortune to her after she died.
Tom would just write “old lady goes crazy!” Or becomes all Mort, “brain dead, dying, then super horny, then cured! By cigarettes!” Then he’d flog “LACY’S STORY” for 20 years.
There’s only one character he cares about, and it’s Tom.
For you who remember Lacy, do you also remember Jeremy? Who WAS that guy?! I mean, I got who he was, but you can’t describe him as a character. Maybe an odd shift here, but Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove? Every Disney evil sidekick is a dumb clumsy comic relief character, but I think Kronk’s possibly the smartest guy in the movie. But can you sum him up easily? Like DB’s Jeremy, there’s just so much going on. Like, I dunno, how human beings are.
Now, name this character: Whiny sad-sack with terrible things happening to them, but instead of doing something about it, they just roll over and feel sorry for themselves non-stop? And never got a free Oscar?
Yeah. That eliminates only one FW character.
CBH, I stand in line for your research and presentation of these Wally arcs. I find it hard to say any more, because this whole story, to me, is so boring that my eyes blur by the second panel of the strip. I just don’t care about any of these people or anything that’s happening to them.
This whole arc could have used a lot more wordless strips. So many things work better when the reader/viewer fills in the blank with their own emotions.
Funny how “one perfect strip” involves the intersection of two character quirks having a quirky interaction. Mildly amusing to see a sad Linus called a blighter, yes, and someone with better Peanuts memory than me can correct me, but AFAIK recall Flying Ace Snoopy didn’t really do anything meaningful for Linus on that occasion. Him digging up Linus’s blanket when Lucy buried it had more of a nice moment than that.
The landmines metaphor is particularly apt; this strip always seems to want to avoid covering certain kinds of moments in service of the story and emotions it “thinks” are important. We get a whole week of dramatic “walking to a quiet place to open a letter” or vague “someone’s coming to town from the airport-but WHO?!” to build up suspense. A dramatic-irony moment when John’s mom drinks herself down over her son not coming home for a surprise birthday cake is given with no greater context or follow-up. The ending of Lisa’s Grand Cancer Story focuses in on the hopeful note of Les and Summer’s new life with the immediate jump-cut to the future to vilify that hope, and in the same jump-cut John and Becky have the emotional reunion that leads to their marriage being condense to the same kind of “Surprise!” twist that Wally’s second homecoming was presented as. And in spite of whatever marketing or “pass the torch” press statements are given, the kids are treated as an afterthought even when something as important as their birth/first-adopted fathers should be worth at least some deeper points of view for a strip or two.
In spite of Funky being the first to be called about Wally, his personal reaction is an afterthought simply because he couldn’t be shown in the meeting for the sake of that “dramatic suspense”. Nobody is shown engaging meaningfully with him because “shocked, awkward and uncomfortable” is the dominating emotional tone. Wally having been a prisoner for a decade because the “drama” is in him being gone long enough for the world to move on, not the fact that terrorists for some reason kept him locked up for 10 years without telling anyone and threw him back to the army as an afterthought with more important POWs (to say nothing of the further convoluting of the timeline that 10 years locked up in Afganistan suggests). The “twists and turns” of the narrative are all spent in the “suspenseful” introduction and meandering flashback, and now it’s just a straight line of throwing the character in and out of the Howard household. We’re literally building up to the only big change is a sad bachelor living in Westview again.
The humor of Snoopy’s remark and his use of the word “blighter” stemmed specifically from his long-established fantasy world: “Here’s the WWI flying ace….” It was funny because Snoopy was interpreting the real world through this fantasy lens.
If some random character had used that line or the word “blighter,” it wouldn’t have been funny; it would have been puzzling.
It was funny, in short, because it was character-driven. Batiuk praises the strip and yet utterly misses the point, as if Schulz thought up this devastating bon mot in a vacuum and then created a dog character just to spout it.
1. Unlike most of you, I have never read this particular arc. If I may use Be Ware Of Eve Hill’s word, I won’t go out and pay $40 for the ‘Omnibus.’ I do like the story with all of its faults. TB is trying. I always appreciate it when he tries. Back in 2022, I do not think he tried much at all. Even during his final week, I think Byrne wrote and drew that story.
2. We will get into Anonymous Sparrow territory.
I understand the limits of Greek theater. Small stage. Limited number of actors. Inability to show large action scenes. None of these apply to 21st century comic strips. It does illustrate TB’s total slavery to the maximum 3 week arc. Please correct me if this story went longer.
3. Thomas Hardy follows the Greek theater pattern. In “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” 1891, Hardy cuts away before every important scene, regardless if it is the rape, the birth, the murder, or the trial. Then he picks up the aftermath. Poor theatrics and narrative, but Hardy does write a strong woman. By the next generation, times have changed. Consider D. H. Lawrence, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, 1928. You might feel you want less information as you read.
4. I don’t know the middle of the John and Wally story, but I do know the end. For all this drama, DSH John ends up selling comics, and Wally sells pizza. And that’s all we need to know.
SP:
Feel free to venture into “my” territory whenever you like. You do it much credit.
I won’t say that I’m going to re-read *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* soon because of you, but if the Polanski film (highly recommended, and the cause of a little extra enjoyment in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” when Sharon Tate picks up the book for her husband) comes to a big screen soon, I’ll be there. And I’ll keep requesting the 1967 “Far from the Madding Crowd” for Film Forum JR.
The French playwright Pierre Corneille retired from the theatre in 1652. Friends encouraged him to return to it and offered three suggestions for the play.
The one he chose, and which opened in 1659, was *Oedipus.*
It’s not a very good play — Corneille’s forte was tragicomedies, and there isn’t much room for humor in Thebes (he gives Laius and Jocasta a daughter named Dirce, who’s certainly not in the original) — and he leaves out something which the Greeks, for all of their economy, did show: Oedipus with his eyes put out. Corneille leaves you with the impression that this action may just be a piece of malicious gossip!
Racine would have done it better. In fact, Racine and Corneille both dramatized the same subject — the love of Titus and Berenice — in 1670, and it was the more favorable reaction to Racine’s version which helped lead Corneille to retire again from the theatre in 1674, this time for good.
By the way: you mentioned that you have two collections of Shirley Jackson’s short fiction in your reading pile. I hope one of them is *The Lottery. *
Hey AS — I’ve seen you mention Film Forum a couple times, so I assume you’re a New Yorker. I used to live in the West Village, way back in the 20th Century, and went there all the time.
The last time I went, it was to take my teenage son, a film student, to see “The Maltese Falcon” for the first time. The print was in execrable condition and I would’ve asked for my money back if the kid hadn’t been with me. The story is hard enough to follow as it is without crackling sound and 10 seconds missing here and there. I felt bad that his first experience with this classic was so wretched.
So now, regretfully, having recently had terrible experiences with paying 20 bucks to see mutilated prints at both Film Forum and the Angelika (Kubrick deserves better), I watch most of my movies at home and have discovered the Criterion Channel, which streams the Criterion/Janus collection, but also has wonderful thematic “festivals” that last a couple months. It’s about evenly distributed between classic/foreign/indie films. This month I’ll be watching the “British Noir” themed movies , some of which overlap with the great films I saw at the Film Forum “Brit Noir” festival probably 20 years ago. Thankfully, it includes Jules Dassin’s “Night and the City,” one of my favorite noirs of all time. And every film on the channel is in impeccable condition with clear sound and gorgeous picture, restored if necessary.
I think they had “Far From the Madding Crowd” for a while, but stuff rotates in and out.
Anyway, 100 bucks per annum and the best C-note I spend all year. Sorry for the unsolicited plug, all, but every film buff should know about it. Especially you, Anonymous Sparrow.
PS: No, they do not currently have “The Phantom Empire.”
And I see, upon further inquiry, that they do have Polanski’s “Tess,” and no less than 5 documentaries about it as well.
Your Grease:
Happily, in the twenty-plus years I’ve been going to Film Forum (I live in Flushing, for what it’s worth) I’ve had very few experiences with bad prints: the most annoying involved William Wellman’s “Island in the Sky” (introduced by his son), which didn’t even limp to a conclusion; the projectionist turned it off and we got a credit for another picture.
I should explore the Criterion Collection beyond links to very good essays online…Tom Hanks’s current book says that it’s okay to watch a movie at home, but a part of me likes being in an audience and noting to someone in the same row why I was surprised that no one laughed but me when Spats Colombo snatched a flipped coin away from Johnny Paradise in “Some Like It Hot”…and then needing to explain why. (Because the “cheap trick” Spats complains about is one we traditionally associate with his actor, George Raft.)
What? No “Phantom Empire”? Zounds and gadzooks!
Film Forum did a series of British Film Noir in 2009. Naturally, it included “Night and the City,” which shows that Jules Dassin could do great noir in the U.K. as “Thieves’ Highway” showed that he could do it in the U.S. and “Rififi” showed that he could do it in in France. (Not sure whether to include “Topkapi” for Turkey, because it seems too bright and sunny to be considered noir…and the Ambler original is most rewarding as a study of Arthur Abdel Simpson, who becomes Arthur Simon Simpson in the movie…because we’re meant to see him as an ass?) Still fondly remembered from the series: “The Small Back Room,” “Seven Days to Noon” and “It Always Rains on Sunday.”
And, of course, “The Third Man,” which may be the greatest British film noir of all.
The original for “Night and the City” is Gerald Kersh’s novel of the same name, which is very different. (Kersh joked that he’d been paid handsomely for the four words of the title.) Kersh is an author I’ve heard many good things about, but whose books I’ve never been able to find, save for one, *The Thousand Deaths of Mr. Small.*
I’ve never met Corporal Cuckoo, for instance (he’s a Colonel in *League of Extraordinary Gentlemen*), though I read a Swindle Sheet Morris story in *EQMM.*
AS & DoD,
1. I just finished reading Duck’s reply to you, AS. When I read the two of you, I feel as if I am wading in a literary sea of joy.
2. As for New York, I find myself born too young. I have mentioned that because of AS, I am reading Shirley Jackson. In her story, ‘Paranoia’, she mentions, the Trylon and the Perisphere sculpture from the 1939 World’s Fair. I had to look it up. It was beautiful. Alas and alack, it was torn down in the 1960’s. Bummer.
This might interest both of you. The story before was titled, “Louisa, Please Call Home.” It is in the similar family as the movie, “From Noon til Three” starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland. Both story and film are studies in memory and actual participants. Both are shocking and the film is tragic.
3. I highly recommend Bronson in “Hard Times” with James Coburn. But to me his best film is the full version of “Once Upon a Time in the West.” Henry Fonda sure does act in that film. Never wear a belt and suspenders around Fonda.
4. One last hors d’oeuvre served to our Duck of Death. Maybe she will share with you, Anonymous Sparrow. On February 12, 1956 Charles Bronson and Claude Rains played a detective and ventriloquist from “And So Died Riabouchinska”. It was season 1 episode 20 ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents.’ Since it is Hitchcock, you know no good can come from a ventriloquist. Perfect acting, story, and characters all in less than 30 minutes.
You both are always fun to read.
SP:
In “The Spirit of St. Louis,” Charles Lindbergh meets a suspenders-salesman named Schultz who scoffs at the notion of belts. (Lindbergh, by his own admission, is a belt man.) Needless to say, I thought immediately of Frank with “Wobbles” in “Once Upon a Time in the West,” who wore both suspenders and belt. (“You can’t even trust your pants.”)
In “Ace in the Hole,” Chuck Tatum says that he’ll never lie to a man who wears a belt and suspenders.
Frank’s employer, Mr. Morton, is James Bond’s father-in-law in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” (I almost wrote “Once Upon a Time on Her Majesty’s Secret Service”!)
Sergio Leone, the director of “Once Upon a Time in the West,” hoped to make a film about the Battle of Leningrad. It’s a shame he never did, because he had a wonderful knack for historical absurdity, and the history of the Soviet Union is full of them. (For instance, during the Civil War of 1917-21, Lenin wanted to have bands go out and rouse the people with revolutionary songs. Chief among them would be “The Internationale.” But the musicians didn’t know how to play that, and until they learned, they made do with “The Marseillaise,” the anthem of a bourgeois revolution whose nation had become an imperialist power. Oh, the pain!)
I think my first awareness of James Coburn is in Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker,” which I didn’t come to appreciate until later. (Something similar occurred with “Once Upon a Time in America,” too.)
My eye will be open for “Hard Times.” Thank you for the recommendation,
Ventriloquists and dummies make for good horror: see “Dead of Night,” the 1945 British anthology film, a couple of “Twilight Zone” episodes and Graham Ingels’s “Ventriloquist’s Dummy” for EC Comics.
There’s even an episode of “Suspense” from 1957 called “Flesh Peddler” with this theme. Its star is none other than the future Dr. Leonard McCoy, whom the opening credits hail as an up-and-coming star (someone must have liked DeForest Kelley’s appearance in that year’s “Raintree County” a lot).
The Trylon and the Perisphere are the headquarters for the All-Star Squadron in the DC series.
“Louisa, Please Come Home” is a great story. Let me know what you make of “The Summer People” when you have the opportunity.
1. The 2 books of Shirley Jackson short stories are “Dark Tales” (it has Summer People as its last story.) and “the Lottery and other tales.” I read ahead and enjoyed the Lottery. Perfect story for mob thinking and behavior: don’t question it, just do it. Having lived later, I am surprised at its reaction upon publication. I say that, but by even 20 years later, @1968, there was an uproar concerning “I Dream of Jeanie” showing her navel. Still, there is also Rob and Laura sleeping together in a queen size bed. I remember being offended in Omaha that a political commercial used ‘damn’ in 1974. (Excuse my profanity, Be Ware of Eve Hill. I forgot a lady might be reading this.)
2. I did enjoy ‘Paranoia.’ It brought to mind me reading in 1972, “Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to get you.”
3. Maybe Ms. Jackson’s most intriguing and open ended story is “the Honeymoon of Mrs. Smith.” I bet that last page got read, reread, and reread all over again.
4. Thank you again for steering me to Ms. Jackson. She is well worth my time.
I just watched a beautiful blue-ray transfer of “The Haunting,” Robert Wise’s film version of “The Haunting of Hill House.” Still one of the scariest movies ever made.
I am terrified of scary movies. The last one I saw was “An American Werewolf in London.” 1981. I admit I get scared, but I do recognize quality. No way in ‘H…E…hockey sticks’ (you are welcome BWOEH!) will I watch “Human Centipede.” Obviously, “Haunting of Hill House” is nowhere near Centipede scary. It’s probably closer to American Werewolf in quality. It is recommended by Beckoning Chasm. I will find out where I can stream the Robert Wise version. I am sure that Anonymous Sparrow will recommend the written version by Shirley Jackson, so I will add that to my reading list. But I warn you…one cold chill, one scary dream, one sound creaking from under my bed, and I am blaming ALL of you.
It’s almost all psychological. You see nothing (a bulging door, what might be a stylized face in the wallpaper). The rest of it is sound–loud poundings, indistinct voices. But it just creeps up on you, and the atmosphere and the performances are outstanding. Plus it has a line that I’m sure you’re familiar with–“Whose hand was I holding?”
A universal question! I hope the paw belongs to Robert the Cat!
@SorialPromise said,
I meant to respond to this sooner.
Mr. bwoeh would have said:
“That’s no lady. That’s my wife!”
CBH wrote: (If you don’t hate The Last Jedi, that’s fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Even if it’s the wrong one.)
I don’t hate The Last Jedi. I’ve never even seen The Last Jedi.
I swore off Star Wars after The Phantom Menace. I have not seen any new Star Wars related stuff since, and I can’t imagine I ever will.
You haven’t missed much, although “The Mandalorian,” “Rogue One” and “Andor” have their moments . I’ve always suspected when “The Last Jedi” was being planned, someone said, “No one can ever make a worse Star Wars movie than “The Phantom Menace.”
To which the director responded, “Just watch me!”
No matter their faults, neither The Phantom Menace nor The Last Jedi can even compare to the awfulness of Rise of Skywalker. Even Oscar Isaac couldn’t hide how done he was with that one.
Rise of Skywalker was awful. But it was awful partly as a consequence of the nothing and nowhere The Last Jedi left for the story to go. It was so bad. But at least it gave us the three ‘main’ characters who had serious chemistry in the first movie going on a little adventure together.
It was a horrible trash fire that I enjoyed watching burn. Laughed out loud in theaters when Ray blew up Chewie and again when Kylo Ren died. It was too bad to make me angry.
This was a great video explaining why every horrible decision was made.
I have resentment about The Rise Of Skywalker, not because it was bad or anything (I’ve seen worse, but I can’t refute most of the criticisms), but because it allowed itself to become such a punching bag that Boolio will probably never get the overcomplicated off-screen back story that used to be obligatory for 10th-string Star Wars characters. Yeah, he was a character created simply to be decapitated… he’s also a Mark Hamill voice cameo and the last guy we meet in the movie before it derails.
The Last Jedi swerves around expectations at every opportunity, which seemed to earn it a lot of critical praise for whatever reason. I found it frustrating watching the movie run away from every table set in The Force Awakens AND most of the tables it sets for itself. Is that really clever or subversive when Luke Skywalker is literally saying “this is not going to go the way you think” while it happens?
It also struggles badly when deploying humor (outside of Yoda’s scene) and bogs itself down with oodles of ill-fitting bits and pieces. Yeah, I like a good UHF or Hardware Wars reference as much as anyone (what, Pink Five wasn’t good enough for you, Rian Johnson?!) but they just don’t work when plopped into an actual Star Wars movie.
It swerves around expectations in the same way Tom Batiuk does; by setting up a perfectly satisfying story, and then avoiding it every chance it gets.
The Last Jedi lost me at the heroic sacrifice that turned out to be a middle school meet-cute instead. Not to mention the ludicrousness of how that whole scene was supposed to work.
I’m the kind of Star Wars fan where I don’t think there’s a single terrible film except maybe the 80s Ewoks movies. They’re OK and entertaining on a watch, but enough loose screws that there’s plenty for us nerds to argue all night over, and at this point it isn’t that worth it to me.
That said, as a child of the prequel trilogy generation, I will say the sequels would probably rank less in general for me. The Force Awakens was fun and I enjoyed the new central trio of characters, but the worldbuilding being deadset on restoring the OT’s Rebels/Empire dynamic was pretty underwhelming (and I still cringe about the New Republic being effectively wiped out for this purpose). I personally rather enjoyed Last Jedi and the story it was going for, pretty engrossing, but it’s a definite oddball in being the only film to immediately chronologically follow the last with no time gap, and in retrospect its setup does display a lack of thought for a trilogy-long plan. Rise of Skywalker is definitely weak and is clearly a kneejerk attempt to right the ship with Abrams being brought back after the original director & his script left, with a lot of the ideas feeling like fan-pleasing attempts that land awkwardly. And I’m bitter we never got an Anakin force ghost moment. Still, I’m satisfied with what it was, and Rey, Finn & Poe do a good effort in keeping the era enjoyable (hope Rey’s return project works out) and I’d at least wish Disney would let expanded universe projects get to fleshing out the era the way the PT’s era was, could help to build up a better context around it.
Boy, that “Wally Comes Skulking Home Again…Hurrah?” stuff really did stink to high heaven, you know? Re-reading it now just drives home how contrived and desperate it all was. He can revise history on that daffy blog of his all he likes, but nonsense like this was nothing more than hysterical, flailing, attention-seeking, from a comic strip author who felt spurned and ignored after his one true epic came and went with a faint whimper and not a showbiz-conquering bang.
Wally’s character arc was already insanely ridiculous before he learned that his wife abandoned him for a comic book nerd, but after that, he was just more of a bringdown than anything else. “Oh, great, another Wally arc. I wonder what he’s struggling with THIS time?”. Getting his dog was the last noteworthy Wally moment, and he should have just ended it right there, on a high note. But, as you all know, Batiuk simply doesn’t do things that way.
Of course, you’re RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRight, Epicus ol’ Buddy. Everything that followed was utter pandering dreck. “Look! A sympathetically portrayed potato in a hijab! Eh? Eh? Nudge-nudge, Pulitzer committee, say no more?”
Ponder this: after struggling through community college, getting his degree, moving into the Montoni’s apartment, and becoming manager, Funky and Tony closed the place with almost no warning, meaning that Wally lost his job AND most likely had to move, too. His Act III arc ends with him being unemployed and homeless. He spent a significant amount of time on Wally over the years, and wrung every drop of pathos he could from the character, often to the point of total absurdity. Then he tossed him aside without so much as a second thought. It’s cruel to an almost unimaginable degree.
“It’s cruel to an almost unimaginable degree.” Looks like Batiuk has a pull quote for the next book!
Well said, Epicus. After the Adeela arc, Batiuk forgot completely about Wally. He was done using him for his veteran status, and had forgotten if there was ever anything else about him. The last two years of FW, Wally showed up in 11 strips. ELEVEN!
He jabbers on and on about lengthy setups in other, better strips, then he completely whiffs on Wally, a potential happy ending decades in the making, so he could do one idiotic Sunday auction strip about the junk on Montoni’s walls, junk he obviously cared about far more than he cared about the Wally character. Funky announces he sold Montoni’s and is retiring. Everyone gasps. Then he introduces the new owners, Wally and Adeela. Boom, it’s a wrap, and Wally finally wins one. It writes itself. But, as always, Batiuk completely ignored the obvious, and spent a month on a time-traveling janitor instead.
By now, I’m 100% sure that Rachel left Wally for one of her law professors, Buddy got hit by a car, and Adeela finally got deported. Wally now lives in a squalid room at the Westview Arms, out behind the Sprawl-Mart, where he spends his days DoorDashing and his nights fondling his last friend, his gun. Hey, it’s no more or less grim than any other Wally arc ever was.
I kinda wouldn’t be surprised if there was a storyline where Wally finds out that DSH John forced Becky into being DSH’s wife and threatened to kill Wally Jr. and Rana if she didn’t accept Pedoskunk John’s advances, and then Wally beats DSH to death
CS 8/12, and written on very little sleep:
Check out that art! What’s with Doctor Forehead? Huge head, tiny body! She makes South Park cutouts look anatomically accurate! Thunderbirds are GO! Did Davis draw this, or just use some old comics and Silly Putty?
Use sporadically! Or, sporad usically! What does that even mean? How do you use sporadically? Then Ted Cassiday from the Twilight Zone “To Serve Man” episode wanders in. “You guys order some forehead?”
This the most Davis saying “Yeah, I think I’m done here” I’ve ever seen.
Hey, this comic actually contains a germ of humor! The idea is kind of funny: What if medicine use instructions actually reflected how people really use medicine?
He kind of whiffed it but I think it got pretty close. If the art had been supportive instead of perfunctory, it might have elicited a chuckle.
In other news: I can’t remember when, but last year we were predicting when Lisa would “appear” in Crankshaft, by a mention or otherwise. I think I predicted August. But now I think she won’t appear at all. Because the All-Purpose “Lisa” Mechanism has proven itself incapable of procuring a Pulitzer and it’s gotten so rusty it can’t even extract attaboys from the press. I suspect the multifunction “Les” Mechanism will go in the garage with other outmoded, now useless appliances that can no longer evoke plaudits, like the “Funky,” “Wally,” and “Adeela” Mechanisms.
And now that Tom Batiuk is finally free from the monkey on his back, his addiction to award-chasing and pats on the back, he can focus on what’s important:
1. Continuing to draw a paycheck with the Crankshaft character and assorted Dinkle interpolations, and most importantly —
2. Comix, Comix, Comix! Sweet, sweet DC comics from the dates 1960-1970! Beautiful, lovely Flash comics! He can dive into them like Scrooge McDuck diving into his swimming pool of gold coins! Oh, comix, he’ll never leave you again, ever!
Does the Valentine reopening with Lisa’s Story count as a mention? (Between the dialogue and the posters, I think the name “Lisa” appeared about 87 times that week.)
Great question. I was thinking about more personal mentions, but maybe this does count. I suspect the purpose of Lisa’s Story there was partially to shill The Les-a’s Story Omnibus Hardback Deluxe Edition Blahdiddy Blah Now Available From Black Squirrel Press Get Yours Today Before The Burnings Start, so I guess it does count in its way.
The official judgement says, yes, it counts as a mention! However, for purposes of tallying ‘on panel’ appearances, it does not count as an appearance by Lisa.
(I have appointed myself as official judge on this issue. Because, c’mon, who else wants the responsibility?)
I readily accept both your appointment and your judgement, Your Honor.
I hear that a special guest is hosting over at Comics Curmudgeon tomorrow (Sunday).
Could it be our own CBH??
Nope! I’m guessing they got someone MORE famous than Josh, not less. 😀
I heard it’s going to be Tom Batiuk.
Nah, it’s gonna be Ces, the Sally Forth guy. If not, I’ll eat my giant werewolf statue!
Remember when he took over the moribund Judge Parker? And made it a parody of adventure strips about very dumb privileged rich people? That lasted like 2 months. Old Judge Parker readers–okay, no one except old people were reading it, they objected, so he went to back to “Rex Morgan, Medical Dullard” scripting. Is it just me, or does the lamer Parker get, the more batshit Sally Forth gets?
Which brings us back to Crank, as all things do. Is Tom not bringing in Les because he’s actually smart enough to realize that CS is his only bread&butter? Or because the Syndicate is making him, because it’s their only bread&butter from this milkless cash cow?
I suppose it depends on whether or not TB has any self awareness HAHAHA! Sorry, I tried to write that last bit with a straight face.
I’m guessing it’s Uncle Lumpy’s turtle bit.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
We have a winner!
And Sunday is done by…
Batuik and Davis. Wow.
Thanks for nothing, Tom.
One panel of nothing. Total laziness.
Yes, it’s totally lazy and also nonsensical to any gardener, BUT…. at least he didn’t give us a sideways panel, or worse, 6 panels of drivel and “What are you doing, Dad?” on the way there. At least he cut to the chase.
I have enjoyed some of the colorful one panel fall scenes. And what’s with Mitch, or is that Ed’s inner child?
Well, let’s see: Mitch was born in some seats at the Valentine in February of 2020, which would make him 3 1/2 years old…unless you count Harley the janitor’s time shift, which could make him 13 years old. The boy seen here looks to be about 6 or 7 and uses a phrase that most children under 11 probably aren’t familiar with. So yeah, it’s Mitch. Come next month he’ll either be a passenger on Ed’s school bus or ask to borrow the keys for a big date.