Deerly Departed

Once again, a parody edit in the comments blows the actual Sunday’s ‘funnies’ right out of the water.

So thanks, iansdrunkenbeard, for giving us something to laugh about other than Pete’s horrific Muppet nose and grossly morphing eye bags.

Funny how the reindeer have been added to the list of sacred Funkyverse icons that must persist across strips. They’re a fairly recent addition to Batty’s collection of precious tangibles, only showing up in 2009.

Ha! He stole my pun! I wonder if he’ll use it again!?
Ha! Another pun! But this time the joke is that it isn’t funny. And we know that because of Funky’s unnecessary smirk that makes him look like Mickey Rooney.
You don’t need to see his registration. These aren’t the deer you’re looking for…
How dare I not be able to block half the sidewalk with giant plastic reindeer for an entire month!? This is AMERICA!
Yeah, weirdly blond and extra tired Rachel, I also like seeing Les struggling precariously on the edge of a roof better too.
There’s a joke here. I’m sure. But I’m just…sooo…sooo….soooo tired of Mopey Pete’s moronic writing process. My brain refuses to think of a joke. Maybe if I stare at random objects in my room…
Mopey Pete vs Fluoxoman The Anti-Depressant!

After their introduction, the roof reindeer appeared a few more times.

2011:

Santa Claus is doing WHAT?!?

2013:

Maybe Funky has ALWAYS been Diet Cranky, and we just didn’t see it…
If I had a nickel for every deer pun on a single blog post, I’d have three nickels.
Hey! You can’t alter a Historic Landmark like that!

ADDENDUM:

A Historic Landmark that was BRAND NEW in 1995.

2020

Feed them? We’re obviously sacrificing them to the plastic fairies to magically regenerate our feigndeer.
Y’all remember when we wondered if Tony was dead? Y’all still wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was? Y’all see how the top two panels were STOLEN for today’s Cranky strip?

So I guess the roofdeer do have enough history, and thus enough prior art to swipe, for them to get their little nod here. But If I’d had to put money on any Montoni’s staple coming back and getting fawned over, it would have been the bandbox. That thing’s been around since Batiuk first decided to remodel Montoni’s from real world location Frank’s Pizza in Oberlin to Luigi’s in Akron, all the way back in 1994.

You remember when it was old farts asking who Springsteen is, and not the snotty little zoomers?

The BandBox even had it’s own little Christmas arc back in 1997, when it was repaired by Wade Wallace, the recovering alcoholic, former pizza stealing dumpster diver, then current Montoni’s handyman, and Funky’s future AA sponsor, who also used to be a news anchorman and coworker of John Darling (who was murdered). The bandbox had been destroyed earlier that year when Montoni’s had been set on fire by Plantman, the man who murdered John Darling, (Jessica Fairgood’s father, who was murdered.) Plantman had been attempting to stop Les Moore, then living in the Montoni’s upstairs apartment, from writing his book about the death of John Darling, (W.W.M.).

Sometimes, I wonder why anyone could spend so much time talking about a stupid defunct comic strip really only remembered by the wider public for a nonsensical Simpson’s gag. Then I’m able to spout off an entire paragraph like the above, and everything just falls in to place in my mind.

So all of you, enjoy, just how weird and convoluted Act II could get.

95 thoughts on “Deerly Departed”

  1. Wow. An entire week devoted to an unnecessary, uninteresting, unfunny sequence of Wade in the toy store — a sequence that also kills any suspense, as we KNOW why Wade is buying the toys.

    There’s actually the germ of a decent, sentimental holiday story here. But Batiuk’s execution really screws it up…

    1. Today’s Crankshaft (12/13/2023)

      Hannah The Generic Blond Woman: Why are you telling me to place my hand upon the bible so you can tell me the secret on how to make your alcoholic rum balls? Also, WHY do you even HAVE a bible? I remember my grandfather-in-law telling me that you’d spontaneously burst into flames if you touched one.

      (Lillian suddenly combusts and turns into a pile of ash and rum balls, which immediately sets on fire again, which horrifies Hannah)

      Crankshaft (holding an flamethrower): I warned her. Wait, aren’t you Jessica Darling, Who’s Father, John Darling, Was Murdered?

      Hannah: No, her hair is curlier than mine.

      1. Oh, is Lillian passing on the secret rum ball recipe before she dies? Please tell me she’s going to die.

        1. She’s not gonna die until 2024 when the Byrnings happen (even then she’s probably going to survive it)

          2. I know that, according to the movie, “They Saved Hitler’s Brain,” but this is a step up in sheer evilness!

    2. He’s way too old to be the PBM

      He might have died between his last appearance and the PBM’s first appearance

  3. I think the ghost of “Tony Montoni” that appeared in that 2021 strip was actually the ghost of Michael Montoni (Tony’s father)

    1. An interesting theory, though Mike Montoni didn’t usually look like that when presented in flashback or photo.

      My working theory is that Batiuk wanted to show Tony, who tended to winter in Florida, was there ‘in spirit’ that year, instead of flying back to decorate like he had in the past.

      1. That might be true. As is true 95% of the time, the nonsensical, baffling, continuity-busting confusion could have been easily solved by having Funky say offhand, “You know, even when Tony’s in Florida, I feel like he’s with us in spirit.”

        How he could have explained Phil Holt’s ghost, I don’t know, but I’m sure TimeMop could have waved his magic terlit brush and sprinkled yellow drops of Time Reversal Elixir around to fix it.

        3. the nonsensical, baffling, continuity-busting confusion could have been easily solved by having Funky say offhand, “You know, even when Tony’s in Florida, I feel like he’s with us in spirit.”

          Or if Batiuk could just be consistent about how transparency is used. Dead/imaginary characters are drawn solid, but transparency is used on non-dead characters. Sometimes.

  4. I’m surprised it isn’t more of a referenced point that a repainted Superman figure is part of that band box. Surely that could’ve been an idea for Mopey Pete to crib about Clark Kent’s latest misadventure with the Toyman or Mister Mxyzptlk.

    Also I’d be very surprised if that doesn’t show up again somehow with the reopening arc. I’m excited to see how ludicrous that process may get.

      1. Rachel should just turn to the camera and say “Just like at Luigi’s Pizza! That’s Luigi’s Pizza, 105 North Main Street, Akron Ohio! Home of great pizza, and the only functioning band box since the rest were contributed to the World War II effort for parts! Tell ’em Tom sent you!”

        That’s how blatant the band box appearances are. And the trips to Comic-Con. And the comic book characters. And the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, for some reason. Batiuk just loves giving plugs to things he likes. And the thing is: I don’t think they’re paying for it. Or even want it.

        1. The Luigi’s bandbox stuffed with old action figures looks insanely tacky. And working bandboxes, while a novelty, aren’t the rarest thing in the world. There are little restoration companies now that specialize in fixing the old bandboxes and replacing the band members with authentic foam-rubber replicas that look like they should. Some guy, at least around 2015, even had the Chicago Coin trademark so the repros could be ‘official’

          http://www.bradfrankrestorations.com/

        2. Writing often carries some element of autobiographical homage/inspiration/”funky things from my life”, I find it something that bleeds through my freewriting a lot, but it’s certainly interesting just how often it happens in Funkytown, mostly since Batiuk is so open about it.

          Want a pizzaria social hub? Borrow the ones you frequent and all their quirks and traditions. Be thrilled at exploring Jerry and Joe’s childhood house? Have Pete also do that. Had a good time climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Have Les do that. Get curious about an abandoned house and get moody? Have Funky do that, and throw in him hallucinating a robot because he thought a pile of junk looked like one as you did.

          If nothing else those kind of stories stand out in how oddly specific they can be sometimes. Not necessarily product placement but basically coming out of nowhere even with context.

        3. Yeah it’s just so dumb. I’ve seen the band box a few times, it’s fun the first time. But to put it in a comic, why?

          And to use a pizza shop for a social hub doesn’t really work either. I know of no pizza shops with a coffee counter. But Batty just has to shoehorn in the things he likes, the story be damned.

          1. Montoni’s had a storytelling purpose in Act II. The characters needed a place to bump into each other after they all left high school. Batiuk has said this.

            But that just raises questions why it’s coming back now, after Funky Winkerbean ended. When there was no need to close it in the first place, it was handled completely inconsistently, and had zero impact on any character.

          2. Agreed. It was fine as a high school hangout. Yeah what a mess bringing it into Crankshaft. There is no reason for it, and if he were going to bring it back, why close it? He is making it up day by day, he really needs to retire.

          3. I think he already has plans to retire. I think 2024 will be the last year of Crankshaft. (Possibly because he’s already been told it won’t be renewed after that anyway.)

        4. That’s the thing right there. He never once explained that they were dismantled during the war and no one appeared to have especially missed them enough to start making them again after the war. If he would have Tony explain it just once, people would care more. Instead, it’s assumed this is common knowledge.

          1. Nor can he make it relevant to anything. Charles Schulz loved winter sports and often inserted them into stories, but it didn’t overwhelm the proceedings. Peppermint Patty’s figure skating career was mostly about her working through her issues about her lack of femininity. You didn’t have to know or care anything about figure skating to enjoy them. It was a window into the character, something Tom Batiuk has no clue about.

            Pete’s reinventing his entire life, and throwing away high-paying work he loves, to take a chance on a dead pizza restaurant? No reaction. Mindy gets his long-awaited proposal, and is drafted into changing her career too, which she clearly has some doubts about? No reaction. Several characters lose their job when Montoni’s closes? No reaction. The story doesn’t even know it’s supposed to care about these things.

          2. Yes, and Montoni’s was so loved that families would schlep their kids to stand outside the empty husk of the place on Halloween just to hope somehow the beloved Pizza Monster would show up.

            Yet there was no reaction from the community when Montoni’s closed. I can tell you that there are several well-loved businesses in NYC that have run GoFundMe campaigns — sorry, “MoneyForNothing” campaigns — to stay afloat when they were swamped in debt.

            And that’s NYC, where there are about 25,000 restaurants. How much more important is a neighborhood favorite in Left Buttcheek, OH? Why were there not mobs of people on closing day, weeping, protesting, demanding the city forgive tax debts? Why were there no news crews covering the closing of the beloved restaurant with the landmarked sign?

        5. My theory is: He is now an official Luigi’s “VIP.” From what I’ve read of Luigi’s, it’s an old-school cash-only restaurant that routinely has huge and unruly lines that almost literally breathe down the necks of people who are already seated. In other words, the kind of cutesy business I hate.

          However, there are always a few local “VIPs” that get special treatment in these places — they get whisked past the line, to “their” seat, get fawned over, etc. And for certain people, this is a huge boost to their ego. They’re the special one that gets recognized and rewarded, you see. The schmucks wait, the VIPs get greeted warmly and seated in the best spots.

          I just suspect that Bats gets special treatment at Luigi’s and loves every second of being set apart from the hoi polloi.

          If anyone knows whether I’m right or wrong, I’d love to hear the story from a local.

          1. You pretty much nailed it. But I am not sure if he gets special treatment. When FW was ending last year he barely got a mention in the local media. I think act III alienated many local readers.

            I haven’t been to Luigi’s since the 1990’s though. In my college days, it was a somewhat popular after bars closed kind of place, today, people go for the authenticity of the place.

            I’m like you, I hate places like this. Plus my grandparents were Italian and so I have high standards for pizza. I typically make my own pizza dough every Friday and prefer that over anything else!

          2. It’s the kind of arrogant small-town restaurant that everyone tells you to go to, but actually isn’t that good. It isn’t horrible, just mediocre and overpriced. The kind of place Pluggers go to on their wedding anniversary… and pay with a stack of coupons.

          4. Any decent manager would 86 any patron who tried to pay or tip in pennies, let alone pennies in an old sweat sock. Westview truly is a workers’ dystopia that would have Ebenezer Scrooge picketing for unionization.

  5. Re: the 12/6/2009 “Mopey Pete Writes a Superman Story” strip:
    So, it’s the 6th of December–or sometime close to it since Montoni’s is putting up the Yuletide display–and Mopey is struggling to write a Christmas-themed Superman comic book story?
    Assuming he finished his script that night, this would give the artist , editor, and production staff less than three weeks to pencil, ink, color, proof, and print it in order to have it out in time for Wednesday the 23rd (the day new comics usually hit stores).
    That’s not how the comic book industry works. Any Christmas story would have been finished back in the summer and scheduled to hit shelves in November (books are generally printed two or three months in advance).
    I wouldn’t have thought we’d have to add “How DC Produces Superhero Comics” to the list of things Batiuk doesn’t get, but there you go.

    Also, why is Lillian making her holiday rum balls for the second time in three weeks?

    1. I think there’s a 10% chance the story calls Jenna Rickblonde something other than ‘Hannah’ during this arc.

    2. Cushlamochree, you’re right! First Comics made me aware of the nature of comic-book production when they opted for a change in publication which turned out not to work…and when I visited the DC offices sometime later, I saw the pencil cover art of an issue of *Justice League Europe* which wouldn’t appear in stores for another seven months.

      It’s not Seismo and Tec-Tonic, Mr. Batiuk. (Yes, I know your name isn’t Todd.)

      As for Superman and Santa Claus…well, Charles Dickens might be envious, but E. Nelson Bridwell wouldn’t be. He had the Man of Steel encounter Kris Kringle in *DC Comics Presents* #67!

      1. Anonymous Sparrow,
        I have the perfect Christmas present for you.
        I watch “Perry Mason” on Amazon. Last week I watched Season 2 episode 11, “the Case of the Perjured Parrot”. From the beginning, I knew this was the perfect Anonymous Sparrow episode.
        It had a man with a pet parrot 🦜. The show hired Mel Blanc from Jack Benny to do the voice. Perfection! It even gets better. It has Frank Ferguson as the sheriff. Joseph Kerns as an amateur expert on criminology. If it stopped there, it would have been a great episode. But it does not stop there. It has our beloved Jesslyn Fax as the court clerk. Wow! I am in overload, but are you ready for more? The greatest character actor of all time plays a coroner standing in as the presiding judge: Edgar Buchanan. On IMDB, there is a nice picture of Edgar and Ms. Fax.
        After such a buffet, I have the cherry 🍒 on top of the dessert. Perry Mason cross examines the parrot. I am not making that up!
        I think that I have outdone myself on Anonymous Sparrow presents.
        Merry Christmas, my friend.

        1. SP:

          The “Perjured Parrot” should make for a piece de resistance and a creme de la creme simultaneously, and I will do my best to check it out.

          Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

          (It’s also from one of Gardner’s own novels, which not all of the episodes are. Prolific as he was, he couldn’t provide the series with everything in a time when television series usually had a minimum of thirty episodes in a season.)

          A funny thing about Jesslyn Fax: I saw her recently as “Miss Hearing Aid” in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” but didn’t register her as “Woman on Train” in “North by Northwest.” I’ll take that as a reproach, because when I last saw “North by Northwest,” I recognized an uncredited Roger C. Carmel in the
          Grand Central Terminal scene and was quite (okay, ridiculously) proud of myself.

          My eyes may be good, but they’re not perfect!

          I also missed Fax as “Horace’s Wife” in “Kiss Me Deadly,” but there’s a lot of competition there, from Nat King Cole on the soundtrack to Cloris Leachman as Christina, to say nothing of Percy Helton as a morgue attendant.

          Les Moore would want me to quote Christina Rossetti before going out for some pineapple:

          Remember me when I am gone away,
          Gone far away into the silent land;
          When you can no more hold me by the hand,
          Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
          Remember me when no more day by day
          You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
          Only remember me; you understand
          It will be late to counsel then or pray.
          Yet if you should forget me for a while
          And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
          For if the darkness and corruption leave
          A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
          Better by far you should forget and smile
          Than that you should remember and be sad.

          Joyeux Noel, mon ami!

          1. Anonymous Sparrow,
            Thank you for mentioning Roger C Carmel. A very enjoyable actor. In the ‘60’s, it would be easier to list the shows that he was not on, rather than his numerous credits. On Star Trek, I got him confused in my memory with Stanley Adams. Two different actors and two different characters. I enjoyed him very much on the “Mothers-in Law”. He was only on one season, darn it! (Sorry BWOEH, if my French offends delicate ears!) For season 2, the new producers wanted to hold down costs, so they demanded the actors refuse a raise indicated in their contracts. Apparently, Desi Arnez pleaded with him to hold his salary, but Roger demanded the producers honor the contract. He was replaced by Richard Deacon. I love him too as an actor. Carmel’s son on the show was played by Jerry Fogel. Good talent. He moved to Kansas City and co hosted a talk/news radio program with newsman Mike Shanin. Very high rated show. I called in once and spoke with Mr. Fogel. Very nice man. The night before, KC reran his appearance as the stutterer on the Bob Newhart Show. We talked about that, and DesiLu production company and it being sold.
            Have a good night, my friend.

          2. Richard Deacon was very good in “The Mothers-in-Law,” yet it was hard not to regret the departure of Roger C. Carmel. I’ve seen Deacon do fine work in three very different films (“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “The Spirit of St. Louis” and “The Birds”), but somehow for me he’ll always be Mel Cooley, beleaguered brother-in-law of Alan Brady and besieged butt of Buddy Sorrell on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” (Mind the ottoman, Rob!)

            Stanley Adams would have brought less baggage, no matter how iconic “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “The Great Vegetable Rebellion” are. (Cyrano Jones and Harry Mudd both returned on the animated “Star Trek” series, as did the Guardian of Forever.)

            Jeremiah was a bullfrog, but Debbie was a Bloop.

          3. Another Fun Fact: Stanley Adams also co-starred in the “Twilight Zone” episode “Once Upon a Time,” which featured the legendary Buster Keaton as–of all things–a time-traveling janitor!

            On a semi-related note, available now at your local Barnes & Noble and other fine bookshops is “The Movies Unlimited Essential Guide to Star Trek,” a 100-page “bookazine” filled with insightful and entertaining articles about the original series’ episodes, films, stars, and guests (including Adams and Carmel). How do I know it’s insightful and entertaining? I wrote many of the pieces (he said as he does his home run trot around the diamond).

    3. Repeating the “Lillian’s rum balls” story twice in three weeks is the kind of “late-stage Apartment 3-G” storytelling that seriously makes you wonder about the state of Tom Batiuk’s brain.

      If he’d acknowledged it, say by having Jennie Rikblonde say, “Crankshaft wanted me to make sure they don’t turn out funny-tasting like last time,” it’d be a different story. But sadly, I don’t think this guy is well.

      1. Okay don’t tell me i’m the only one who wasted spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if you’re really the OG Duck de la Morte or just a friendly homage.

        Hmmmmaybe it’s time for a “Good Wolf”. A Bueno Coyote?

        1. Yesterday, after I mentioned that my comment was stuck yet again and the automod hates me, Y. Knott suggested that perhaps it was because of my name and I should try posting as “The Duck of Life.” Well, that was perfectly inane, so I figured it might actually work. It didn’t, but “The Drake of Life” did work. So…. maybe “duck” was the offensive word?

          WordPress is a capricious master indeed. But renaming myself to this admittedly not-great moniker seems to have mollified it, so The Drake of Life I will remain for as long as WordPress wills it.

          h/t Y. Knott for somehow thinking like an automod. Y., my friend, perhaps you should have that checked out…

          1. I guess i will not try “Bad Duck” for myself then.

            Thanks for the explanation though. I was almost going to suggest the mods post something about the updated nomenclature but eh, most folks are better than me at keeping up.

          2. Love The Drake!

            As for “thinking like an automod”, I just tried to think of the stupidest possible reason for its behaviour. Spending time trying to predict the creative moves of Tom Batiuk was excellent training!

  6. Batiuk once devoted a blog entry to complaining about people changing the bullshit reason why Flash runs at Idiotic Speed. This tells me that we are dealing with a mind that fixates on kitschy nonsense most people don’t realize exists and won’t see how bizarre that is. Thus, slobbering over a toy that didn’t catch on.

    1. “This tells me that we are dealing with a mind that fixates on kitschy nonsense most people don’t realize exists and won’t see how bizarre that is.”

      Other than occasionally seeing how bizarre it is…this also describes more than half the commenters and posters on this blog.

      1. I cheerfully acknowledge that I fixate on kitschy nonsense most people don’t realize exists and I also cheerfully admit that it’s bizarre.

        There are key differences, though. First, it’s silly to fixate on inconsistencies in something that is 1) meant to be fun 2) clearly does not take place in our universe and 3) is essentially pulp aimed at children.

        Batiuk’s work, on the other hand, 1) is often intended to be taken quite seriously, 2) is stated by the author to be 1/4″ from reality and 3) is aimed at adults, with many characters far past retirement age, in nursing homes, etc.

        Nobody snarks at Garfield. It’s terrible, but it “does what it says on the tin,” as the Brits say. It’s meant to be a shallow gag-a-day strip about a grouchy cat who likes lasagna and hates Mondays, and by god, that’s just what it is.

        “The Flash” is meant to be an implausible character getting into impossible, exciting adventures to entertain kids and teens for a while, and yep, that’s what it is.

        “Funky Winkerbean” was meant to be “a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.” It fails on nearly every single count.

      2. I definitely focus on kitschy nonsense – within communities that love the same kitschy nonsense. Or, I make an effort to describe it in ways of relevance to an audience that doesn’t. (Like how I described my video game fandom as a parallel to Tom Batiuk’s comic book fandom.)

        Batiuk’s fixation on kitsch isn’t the problem – it’s that thinks everyone in the world values the same things he does. And exactly the same way he does.

        1. Exactly. He doesn’t explain why he thinks the bandbox toy is a cool thing that deserved more exposure than it got. People would maybe see why he does like it if he’d explain why it entrances him so. Instead, we are not told why the odd little gadget is a great thing but simply told it is without being met half way.

        2. Yes, he consistently and invariably misses opportunities to bring us into his world by having his characters tell us what all these totems mean to them. I bring up Lynda Barry all the time, so forgive me for mentioning her again, but she’s so good at this; she can make your feel the meaning her characters give to insignificant objects.

          Batiuk seems to take it for granted that the whole wide world knows and loves The Band Box. And having seen videos of it — even though I love this kind of early 20th Century kitsch/Americana/ephemera — I’m quite underwhelmed. I want to know why all the characters in the strip worship the thing like a golden calf, and it’s the author’s job to tell us exactly that. But he flat-out refuses.

          1. Yes, he consistently and invariably misses opportunities to bring us into his world

            He doesn’t want to bring us into his world. He wants to chastise everyone else for not living the world he thinks we all should. It’s like North Korean propaganda: tedious, boring, repetitive, completely out of touch wth reality, and vainglorious to the point of absurdity. Except nobody dares laugh at it.

          2. Seriously, watch this and tell me it doesn’t have the same vibe as the Lisa tapes. It’s just a decrepit Kim Il-Sung sitting around some banal planning meeting, but it’s oh-so-meaningful BECAUSE THEN HE DIED. And these are his LAST INSTRUCTIONS which everyone must carry out. Interspersed with huge crowds, all wailing because they’ll be shot if they don’t. I can just see Les walking around Westview to enforce this behavior.

  7. Here’s my favorite Christmas strip:

    I didn’t Photoshop that – it was the front page of the old funkywinkerbean.com for months as “Christams.”

  8. Hey! You know what would break up all the pat Crankshaft jokes that Batiuk cycles through? If he brings in all the pat Funky Winkerbean jokes he’s no longer using spice things up!

    Because of this, we’ll only get 14 sequences of Crankshaft being an asshole this new year instead of 28! The other 14 sequences will be “Mopey does something stupid at Montoni’s”, “Les is insufferable about Lisa” and “Dinkle does something dickish involving music”!

    It’ll be like a 2 for the price of 1 deal!

  9. “We can’t fire Wade on Christmas Eve”? Umm, if he was caught misusing the company credit card, you sure as hell can!

    1. True, but it is also IMO an acceptable joke, as most people wouldn’t want to.

      The glaring flaw of the arc was spending like TWO WEEKS on a potato faced hobo smirking to himself while fondling barbies.

      1. it is also IMO an acceptable joke

        I disagree with that. Jobs do not work this way. If you have access to a company credit card, you don’t just buy stuff you think your employer needs without even telling them why. Misusing company funds is not something employers can overlook. Especially considering Wade’s past. The story is way too contrived.

        It would have been better as a complete story. Wade uses the card to buy replacement figures for the stupid band box. Funky catches him, thinking Wade’s charging his personal Christmas shopping to the company card.

        Then they could have an actual misunderstanding with actual stakes. Wade loses his job (and possibly retreats into alcoholism). Funky has to face that he wrongly dismissed an employee (and possibly drove him back into alcoholism, reminding him of his own alcoholism and how fragile sobreity can be). Wouldn’t make the whole thing any less contrived, but at least a good story would arise from it.

        Once again, the Funkyverse is a quarter-inch away from a strong story. Once again, it takes the easy way out and ignores it.

    2. Decades ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I had an employee who was causing some disruptions. I was instructed to fire her immediately, even though it was just before Christmas, and she was a single mom. I argued to wait until after the holiday, but was told if I didn’t, I would also be fired. I always hoped she had a decent Xmas

  11. Two non-connected comments because I am too ignorant to deal with this system to reply to posts that don’t seem to allow for replies

    * Lillian and her search for her balls: I’m a decent cook, as is my wife. We really don’t need to go hunting in the attic for the many recipes we have long learned to make

    * A long-time favorite local Mexican restaurant is closing this week. Couple of times a year we went there with my former assistant and her family, so we did a last hurrah with them Sunday night. Everything ran the way it has for the last 20 years. Since we never saw the actual end of Funktoni’s, I hope it was as fun and spirited.

    1. Yeah, Funky Winkerbean couldn’t even be bothered to celebrate Montoni’s. It just got it into the ground as fast as possible, so it could get onto Summer writing the greatest book in human history. Barf.

    2. That was the odd thing. Closing Montoni’s could have been the perfect opportunity to end the strip. You show various people coming in for a last pizza and then show them reminiscing about things that happened to them there. But no Batty wanted to show how clever he is and so he does this time mop crap.

      1. Heck, he could have even done the “Lost Finale” at Montoni’s instead of St. Spire’s (and without everyone driving through a blizzard like idiots) and it would have been more meaningful. (Well, except that they wouldn’t be risking life and limb to pay tribute to Dinkle.)

        (And given that the large crowd scene was the final Sunday, the last week could have served as a more fitting epilogue, with the main cast saying what they’ll do now. Like having Funky explain that he and Holly are retiring to Florida, announcing that Cory and Rocky are expecting, Wally and Rachel going to do… whatever it is they’re doing now, Cayla finding Les hanging in the closet after an autoerotic asphyxiation accident while watching the Lisa Tapes, that sort of thing.)

        1. I think the best time to wrap it up would have been at the 50th high school reunion. Perfect time for a “clip show”-style look back at everyone’s life (and an opportunity to rerun strips from the 70s). Excellent chance to revisit old characters. Final wrap-up could have been the whole gang going to Montoni’s for a nostalgic gathering in which they express gratitude for their generally good lives, a bit of sorrow for people and times now gone, and optimism about the future. And… scene.

          Instead, he completely squandered the HS reunion arc — which coincided with his own 50th anniversary — with shallow, clichè small-talk drivel and a bizarre reveal that macho ladies’ man Roland was now Rolanda, which didn’t seem to arouse any curiosity or interest in anyone, and wasn’t followed for more than a few days.

          I’d be interested to know if there is anyone out there — ANYONE, including the most ardent defenders of the strip — who was satisfied with the way FW ended. I didn’t see anyone on Twitter or elsewhere cheering the wrapup. Anyone spot any praise for it?

          1. I think any defenders FW might have had gave up on it long ago. There was once a legit GeoCities fan site, which should some idea how long it’s been.

  12. I just found out that For Better or For Worse has its entire archives on the official website, all the way back to 1979. There’s even a search function. And you can buy signed, personalized prints of strips.

    Now, isn’t that interesting? Lynn Johnston wants to sell books and make money off her strip just like any professional comic creator does. She’s published dozens of books. If you go to her list of published books and click on one, it takes you to the strips that were published in that book and you can click through them one by one — often in multiple languages!

    Now why would she give her work away like that? Same reason the Grateful Dead encouraged taping and distributing of their shows: If you want people to buy your stuff, you need to cultivate fans.

    But Batty is incredibly parsimonious with his work, doling out one or two strips from his least popular work (John Darling) a few times a month. There’s no way to see the FW archive without buying these stupid “prestige” hardbacks that cost a fortune and are awkward to read. Trade paperbacks are good enough for DC and Marvel Golden Age omnibuses, and great cartoonists like Schulz, Watterson, Breathed, and Larson. But not for the great TOM BATIUK: He must have the full hardbound, glossy, highfalutin multi-volume treatment.

    He’d rather place his work out of reach than acknowledge what it is: A comic strip designed for a mass audience. And this is why he will be forgotten.

    3. FBoFW’s legacy is kind of amusing like that; it certainly had a small-scale enterprise with animated specials and plushies of the dog, and earnest quality that really made the strip admirable as characters aged and evolved in both funny and dramatic tales. Certainly did go off the rails in the final years as Lynn tried to recapture martial bliss in her universe by drastically railroading her characters and framing bad behavior as admirable, but it at least was fun to snark over and there and made everything readable still, even if not in the way intended.

      Meanwhile Funky did manage one successful spinoff, and eternally made the favor of high school bands with Dinkle (I only just now learned a band equipment company uses his name and look as an icon to this day), but despite getting George Kennedy’s interest to try and push a Crankshaft movie the Funkyverse never managed a media empire, and at best they got a high school play script and the support of cancer charities and one Italian restaurant. Despite all of that its still known as “the cancer comic” at best, with some people remembering that it used to be about high school.

      Not sure if an online archive would help that, but it would be convenient, though I wonder how much work it would take to get all the files together. That could be why it hasn’t happened as opposed to wanting to sell the books, Batuik hasn’t been able to leverage the work needed to get it done.

      1. He recently had his site totally remodeled, but the result is rather incoherent. I believe the whole purpose was to create a virtual “spinner rack” (another object he and his characters fixate on with eye-bulging obsessiveness, for reasons that are never explained) to contain the oeuvre of “Batom Comics.”

        In other words, it seems to me that most of his life has been spent trying to tick off a “bucket list” he made when he was about 10 and never updated as he grew older.

        ✅ “See and Spin a Spinner Rack Bursting With Batom Comics Created By Me!”

        Welp, it took 65 years, but check that one off the list!

        Anyway, for all the complaints and oy-vey-ing and woe-is-me-I’m-so-busy-oh-gosh-SIGH-ing he does about writing the forewords for his infrequently issued hardback tomes, I’m pretty sure he could have created a pretty useful site, like Lynn Johnston did.

        (I like her site because it’s pretty simple and clear to navigate. No ferkakte Javascript carousel “spinner rack” and random blog entries popping up. You can see where you are and how to get where you want to go. Simplicity is underrated.)

        1. Yeah, it really shows where his priorities are. The whole website is a confusing mess and contains little useful information about his work. But that spinner rack and his “Komix Thoughts” sure work flawlessly.

        2. I haven’t gone there in ages but i remember liking it fine. You could still see the blinking eyes in the later strips that always creeped me out. Lynn didn’t feel the need to drag things out so much, which i have come to admire a bit more now that i’ve seen it’s opposite.

          The last third of my go to high-school legacy strips, Luann, also has the nice GoComics full set of past strips always available, along with a Luann Againn daily and an Espanol version. I really expected Crankshaft to have to cough up a better archive when it moved!

      2. An aside: I’m not sure how much affection any current HS band leaders or student performers actually feel for Dinkle. Ten bucks says that outside of OMEA attendees, not one in ten band leaders would even recognize the name, except possibly as the name of a band-boot manufacturer. Your average HS band leader is probably not much older than 40 or so, and probably wouldn’t remember Act I Dinkle even if they were avid newspaper comic readers (and very few people born in the mid-80s were).

        I’ve never been involved in the band world, so I could be wrong. I welcome contradictory evidence.

        1. I doubt any of the younger band directors know anything about FW and Dinkle. Of my totally unscientific survey of the three band directors I know, one has actually read the strip but gave up before act III.

        2. It didn’t seem to be much of a factor in that Rose Bowl parade entry. You could read the bios of the people who signed up, and I don’t think any mentioned Dinkle. Of course, he was just a tag-along minor corporate sponsor they had no need to mention. But it’s revealing that Dinkle still had no impact, even on this very narrow slice of humanity.

          1. That’s why I speculated earlier that the OMEA grift was winding to a close… whatever it entailed. I can’t imagine he even got anything for free — what do they have to give? Free admission, I guess, but he’d certainly have to pay for a table like any other entity selling things. Maybe it’s just an ego thing. But this past year’s OMEA didn’t even mention him, and the only trace of his attendance was a couple nods on the Facebook page, and, of course, his own blog. Which didn’t seem to indicate that he was doing much business.

            And I do think it’s telling that we’ve been Dinkle-less for many months. This after the whole long, convoluted story line about his becoming organist/music director at St Spires. No turkey sales? No choir robe fundraisers? It’s unthinkable. Something’s going on.

          2. What’s the one thing Batiuk wants more than comic books? Getting his ego stroked. That’s the grift – the OMEA is a place he can go and be important. Or so he thinks.

            I remember seeing him listed as an OMEA speaker one year, and all his syllabus said was “the creator of Dinkle!” The OMEA being a career-related convention, most of the other presentations were about skills or knowledge of interest to band teachers. I can’t imagine many of them wanted to listen to Tom Batiuk talk about creating Dinkle. Especially if they have to earn CEUs while they’re there.

            And, one year’s OMEA arc conspicuously declind to name-drop the organization. I think they just got tired of him, and told him they weren’t going to let him speak anymore. But they will let him rent a vendor booth. So he does that, to schlep his dumb, overpriced books. Which was enough of a reason to start name-dropping OMEA in the strip again.

            What a nuisance this man must be. Organizations like Akron Comic-Con and American Cancer Society must cringe every time he calls.

          3. It’s those flippin’ lanyards. He keeps putting photos of his burgeoning lanyard collection on his blog. He’s obviously very proud of it.

            I know I’m not the only one here who could have a big collection of lanyards, too, if I’d cared enough to save every one I ever got at a symposium, industry event, show, etc. I mean, there must be at least a million Americans with not-very-thrilling jobs that require attendance at lanyard-and-badge events.

            I guess what I’m saying is: If lanyards are your thing, then yeah, I guess paying for a table and schlepping to every show that’ll accept you is a great way to accumulate them.

            But… if lanyards are your thing, WHY? Just WHY?

          4. And these are Northeast Ohio Band Directors, if they cannot relate, nobody can. Marching Bands and Football are a big deal here. At my high school’s band room, a silhouette of Dinkle was painted on the band director’s door. But that was back in the 80’s, and FW wasn’t as serious back then.

          5. But… if lanyards are your thing, WHY? Just WHY?

            True story: I have a few lanyards I kept, for press credentials I’ve gotten in my life. I’m now looking at one for the 2011 NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship. Why?

            Because my college degree was in journalism. I stayed in that field for barely 15 months before I switched to IT, which I have done ever since. But, later in life, I contributed to a college sports team blog. I would occasionally do some actual journalism, and cover events the team played in. I kept the lanyards because it reminds me of my roots. And to signify that in some small way, I did what I went to college to do.

            But that’s pretty personal, and I don’t keep every lanyard I’m issued.

    4. They used to have a bit of a gap in the daily archives so we didn’t guess ahead. It didn’t actually work that well because the web designer forgot we could search by key-word.

      There is also something else sinister and stupid that isn’t the romantic plot tumor we snarker-troll fungus people call the Settlepocalypse: the family farm complex. Mike embedded himself in his childhood home like a tick and displaced his parents and baby sister and this was Good because only the MALE heir can love the Pattermanse as much as Elly did.

  13. Back in the day, I had a friend who was dating a recently-divorced man. He had very strong opinions on where they should eat dinner, go on vacations, book hotels, etc. Slowly the creepy truth dawned on her: These were the exact places that he used to go with his wife. He was obsessively going through the motions of his happy married years, heedless of the fact that there was a completely different woman involved.

    Batiuk is doing the same thing. He blew up his strip, his world, and his continuity, but feels some compulsion to revisit certain fixed points: The Pizza (Box) Monster. The reindeer. What’s next on his “Vertigo” grand tour of obsessively remaking Crankshaft into FW?

    1. He blew up his strip, his world, and his continuity, but feels some compulsion to revisit certain fixed points

      This is another behavior I attribute to you-know-what-ism. The condition makes people resistant to any kind of change in routine. There’s zero reason to bring Montoni’s and all its sub-tropes back, except that they’ve always been a part of Batiuk’s storytelling world.

      BTW, did you notice last week’s strip where Pete (and presumably Mindy soon) is now living in the apartment over Montoni’s? On top of everything else we’ve listed. He’s gone to great lengths to recreate the situation he never had any reason to tear down. (Especially since ending Funky Winkerbean was totally his own decision.) This is all being driven by something other than storytelling prudence.

    2. I agree with you on the “Funkification” of ‘Shaft, o Drake of Many Names, but I think you’re doing a disservice to Hitchcock to use “Vertigo” as your measuring stick? Might I suggest as an alternate film James Nguyen’s “Replica”? Batiuk is, to me, the Nguyen of comic strips.

      1. It’s funny: while I saw Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” not too long ago, my first thought here was of DC’s dark fantasy line. (Which has referenced the Hitchcock film in a short *Sandman* story, since the reference to a Stewart/Novak picture wouldn’t fit their other effort, “Bell, Book and Candle.”)

        An important location in “Vertigo” is Ernie’s, a restaurant in San Francisco which closed in 1995. Maybe we should all think of John’s Grill, which is still open, and where Sam Spade ate in *The Maltese Falcon.* Spade delivered titular “dingus” to Gutman and Co. after that meal (chops, tomatoes and potatoes).

        And it wasn’t what they wanted.

        I think I need to have a look at “Replica.”

        Happy Taylor Swift’s Birthday, everybody!

        1. Going by your SoSF cognomen, Sparrow, you’ll want to start with Nguyen’s masterwork, “Birdemic,” and then work your way over to his “romantic thrillers” “Jack and Julie” and “Replica.” If the FW crew were ever animated they would walk like the actors in Nguyen’s films.

          Speaking of birds, have you ever seen the two ’30s “Maltese Falcon” adaptations that preceded Bogart’s 1941 film? Interesting, if creaky and even more perplexing.

          1. Thank you for the guide for Nguyen!

            I saw the 1931 “Falcon” — now “Dangerous Female,” with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade — on a big screen. It’s inferior to the 1941 version, but the pre-Code aspects are nice: Iva Archer’s reaction to Miss Wonderly (not Brigid O’Shaughnessy) of “who’s the dame in my kimono?” is priceless, for instance, and Miss Wonderly after Spade’s shakedown taking out a much thicker role of bills from her stockings than she surrendered is marvelous.

            The 1936 version — “Satan Met a Lady,” with Warren
            William as “Ted Shane” — I found on my computer and didn’t like all that much. Since I’m a William fan (enough of one that I resented Jane Kaczmarek dismissing him in an introduction to the 1934 “Imitation of Life” as “some guy”), I may have to watch it again, but I imagine it’ll always be third for me.

            By the way, Bogart, Cortez and William all played another celebrated detective on film! Bogart was Philip Marlowe, while Cortez and William were Perry Mason. (William is the big winner, for he was also a cinematic Philo Vance…one, I trust, who did not “need a kick in the pance,” as Ogden Nash claimed S.S. Van Dine’s dilettante detective deserved.)

            The greatest Dashiell Hammett mystery is why both the 1935 “Glass Key” and the 1942 remake make “Ned Beaumont” into “Ed Beaumont.”

    3. The smarter decision would have been to fold Crankshaft into Winkerbean. Instead of a grand tour of reference-free landmarks that don’t actually mean anything to Summer because she was never seen in any of them, Time Mop could simply state that Crankshaft was a Vietnam veteran trying to pass as member of Veterans Of POPULAR Foreign Wars and that the ‘Crankshaft’ in the nursing home was HIS dad.

  14. So I decided to look at the Christmas week panels of Crankshaft. Pete and Mindy have a new partner in Montonis. The Pizza Monster has returned and bought a co ownership stake. Seriously. He even wore a tie. Gets more bizarre every week

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