Boy, that Montoni’s reopening is really something. No cooks. No wait staff. No trucks of cheese and flour coming in. No trying out the menu items before the opening. Just two people slapping some Christmas decoration clip art onto the background, and getting ready to unlock the door. You could replace Montoni’s with any vague business venture.
On to 2013 for Dead Skunk Head John Howard then. And now that DSH has secured his work husband at his side, the era of Crazy and the Skunk begins.
In fact, they’re so connected, Skunky and Crazy would rather head downstairs together for a break rather than take turns and keep the business they both rely on open for sales.
And, to really start off the year right, we’re treated to an ENTIRE WEEKLONG ARC about Crazy Harry preforming some kind of horrific dance, too explicit and disgusting to be conveyed visually.
But don’t worry, not matter how sexy stupid-sexy-Crazy’s dance was, Becky and John are still going strong. Meaning he’s staying home while Becky goes on a trip where spouses are apparently welcome.
AHEM! ATTENTION EVERYONE! I WISH IT TO BE KNOWN THAT I FIND THIS ONE SUNDAY STRIP RELATABLE AND ENDEARING AS IT MAKES ME THINK OF BOTH MY OWN RECENTLY RETIRED BAND DIRECTOR AND HIS DIRECT PREDECESSESOR WHO WAS THE COMMUNITY BAND LEADER FOR DECADES. EVEN THOUGH THERE ISN’T A JOKE IN THE STRIP. THAT IS ALL.
DSH doesn’t bother to dress up even a little for the Dinkle’s Anniversary party. But I do think it’s funny how in this group shot, not a single person is the right size, the right height, making an appropriate face, or positioned in a way that seems humanly possible given where they seem to be standing.
And then, as the year 2013 came to a close….another saga begins. One that would see one of the more unlikely partnerships of the Act III Era traveling across the country and even into DISTANT COMIC STRIPS.
John’s issue he gives her is the SECOND of the commissioned Starbuck Jones covers, after the issue Holly picked up from Rocky’s mom to send to Cory.
Also earlier in 2013, Wally had popped the question to Rachel. They decide to wait a few months to tell Becky and John.
Which is definitely something you want to do for the couple you’re supposedly co-parenting two disappeared children with.
And look! Becky and John hanging out together at the comic book store. A peek into an alternate dimension where these two have an actual relationship with each other. What a nice way to close out 2013.
2014 The Starbuck Hunt continues in earnest.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Heeey, wait a minute. Crazy Harry only ever had one Starbuck Jones book? The komik that was revealed to be the most fundamentally important cultural artefact of the 20th century? Was Batiuk saying that Harry deserved to lose his job and have his children grow up in poverty?
TB has actually been pretty consistent in depicting Crazy as not being too terribly crazy about Starbuck Jones.
He doesn’t show up at Pete’s inane Silver Grille publicity stunt, while the likes of Jff Murdock and Jim Kablichnick do. Crazy does tag along with DSH to the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con and waits in line for long hours for the Starbuck Jones panel, but it seems he does that as a favor to DSH (who brought him along after he was invited to Comic-Con as a guest of the Starbuck Jones production for doing some free labor nerd stuff for them). Crazy falls asleep during the panel and does not appear at the movie’s premier in Centerville.
Yeah, Starbuck Jones was mostly Funky’s thing, at least at first. Crazy, being Crazy and all, was into other, more obscure stuff, like those goddamned Jungle Jim toppers he was always babbling about. Starbuck Jones was originally an obscure, forgotten old title, which is why the copy of SJ #1 that Funky traveled back in time to remind himself to buy was so valuable in the first place. Then the SJ universe began to expand rapidly. Suddenly it had a three hundred issue run, and there were old 1950s SJ serials, and everyone in Westview had fond memories of growing up Starbuck. Except for Crazy Harry.
You know that Far Side cartoon, “Hell’s Library” where it’s nothing but story problems? I imagine their science fiction section is nothing but Starbuck Jones.
It’s generic, hopelessly outdated, completely un-self-aware, and takes itself so goddam seriously. It’s not even fun to snark at, because there’s nothing to respond to. Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot would look numbly at the screen for two hours, saying “Yup. It’s a 1950s space guy, allright.”
And like everything else in the Funkyverse, there’s no story whatsoever. Except How I Made The Comic Book Cover Part 962,307.
My wife used to be a receptionist at one of the big radio stations in Cleveland. Almost every day she would bring home a plate a food. You see, new restaurants in town would send over freebies and someone from the restaurant would go on air with the dj’s and talk about the food they brought. Then they would have a call in where you could win a gift card to said restaurant. That is how you launch a restaurant.
Now about those comic books, I never had anything for or against them, and if I’m honest I do enjoy some of the artwork, but man Batty drains the life out of this subject. He almost makes me hate comic books.
Yeah, but advertising costs money. Better to have the Westview Mafia promote your business for free, and frame it as a news story.
Apparently Max and Hannah called in a favor with the TV station. The TV station they quit working for years ago, returned to for two weeks, and then quit again when Mason Jarre re-bankrolled their money-laundering operation. (Seriously, what else could an all-Phantom Empire and Lisa’s Story movie theater possibly be?)
And that two-week return just *happened* to be while the station was extorted. An amateur extortion scheme that should have been resolved in five minutes, but Max and Hannah (who somehow had decision-making authority already) advised them to rebroadcast an ancient show made by another member of the Westview crime family.
Never mind the “Crankshaft as mob boss” fan edit; you could turn Westview into The Sopranos without changing very much. You better give to the “Lisa’s Legacy Fund” if you know what’s good for you…
To be fair, I don’t think it was ever actually shown or mentioned that they quit Channel One after Mason hired them to run The Valentine into the ground again, so it’s possible they’re doing both jobs. (I mean, it’s possible in Batiukland, probably less so in the real world.)
True, but the fact that it wasn’t depicted doesn’t mean much. TB also hasn’t bothered making Pete and Mindull quit Atomix Komix yet, when those jobs are central to this world, and to the lives of several other characters.
You’ve heard of “head canon”? I call this “headsposition.” It’s the exposition you have to make up, so the story will make any sense. In a realistic world (which we are frequently told this is), the audience would infer that these four people all quit their jobs, because running a business is just too time-consuming.
My “headsposition” was that Pete was buying the rights to the name “Montoni’s”. It’s the only way that story could be reconciled with the auction we saw, and with Montoni’s being closed for a year. But Batiuk shoots this thinking down every chance he gets. Pete decided to name it Montoni’s as if it were a whim, and in complete ignorance of the name’s value. (Which Tom Batiuk should know, since buying the names of defunct properties is common in the comic book world.) And all the stuff they would have auctioned off was just sitting around waiting to be used again. And the sign Les wanted to buy was still on the side of a closed building, with no explanation.
Guess we have our answer now; they really are still working (part-time) at Channel One, according to Mopey.
Wow, those Channel 1 “part-timers” sure do have a lot of pull at the station. Enough pull that they can hijack a news team and van to cover the reopening of a failed mom-and-pop pizza joint.
As Banana Jr. 6000 said, it’s the Westview Mafia in action.
Max: We want a channel 1 news team to cover the reopening of Montoni’s pronto!
Station Manager: Sorry, Max. It’s not a story most of our viewers would be interested in seeing.
Hannah: You’ve got a nice television station here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Happy 103rd birthday 🎉 🎂 🥳 to Mamma of BWOEH! You raised a good’un. (I am not contractually obligated to praise you.) [It just comes easy.]
SA….LUTE!!!
I see we’re dumpster diving for punchlines behind Montoni’s today in Crankshaft…
Ah yes, it’s going to be a real cheesy Christmas then in Westview, how wonderfully poetic. Wonder how the “new staff” arrangement is going to unfold for this rapidly-reopened restaurant, would be amazing if this is legit a two-person effort.
2013, one whole decade now. My sci-fi intrigues back then were through the roof with getting into Doctor Who right at the 50th anniversary. Recall having some tabs on Funky, seeing the start of Holly’s Starbuck quest unfold. DSH’s antics were less memorable, but I have vague recollections of that whole “Crazy’s happy dance” arc. Either I read it here or Chris Sims’ Funkywatch helped me keep informed.
Wow though, a Lone Ranger citation of wisdom? Granted, the Disney reboot movie did come out that year, so maybe Batiuk did feel like the series would be relevant, but that’s sure a boomer kind of move to cite them.
And with the coming of Jones, I was at last motivated to upgrade my posting with an account with an avatar befitting my funky fixations. While “the computer later known as Holtron” remains my favorite, there’s enough to at least chuckle over this robot butler or whatever he was called in SJ. Domo arigato indeed.
this one strip about Holly being given an Starbucks Jones comic book by Pedoskunk John
https://i.ibb.co/PDHRqtB/IMG-0758.webp
Wait, let me re-read what holly said
“John just gave me this issue of Starbuck Jones because the pages were aged and creamy.”
oh no
d-did DSH just masturbate in the COMIC BOOK THAT HE GAVE TO HOLLY!?
(csroberto pukes for three minutes)
Great stuff as usual, Harriet! For me, 2012-2013 was around when the novelty wore off re: SoSF. A rock-solid team was in place, SoSF was rolling, and The Grand Finale was only mere speculation. We had work to do, and by God, we did it. And Batiuk was hitting his Act III full stride too, and doing ACHINGLY long arcs that ultimately went nowhere and meant nothing. The Starbuck Jones Collection Mega-Arc went on forever, and ended when Corporal Cory sold the collection so he could buy an engagement ring for a brand new character who no one could possibly like. Thud.
I do vividly remember the Happy Dance arc, another fantastic example of BatYam’s amazing ability to always tell and never, ever show. I don’t remember the Wally Gets Engaged one all that well, for obvious reasons, but that Dinkle anniversary arc, now THERE was a really, really foul, vile little arc. Yeah, ha ha, Dinkle essentially ignored his own wife for fifty years, har dee har har. Ugh. Dinkle was just so loathsome.
I keep telling you guys, this is what’s really going on.
“I think we’re pretty much set for our grand re-opening! We have no employees, no ingredients, no one on staff who knows how to run a pizzeria, and have done no promotion except for this nepotistic news interview we were somehow surprised by. And that pizza behind me is a cardboard prop. But look at our Christmas decorations! All we have left to do is activate the band box and the jukebox, put all the crap back on the walls, and open the comic book store!”
Seeing that pizza this week just made me laugh for the wrong reasons. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a gag the next few days that further address it, but if we’re really just going to brush over the details of remaking the signature pizza and just rush into Christmastime opening pazazz, it’s just going to get silly in how obviously rushed the arc has become just to become fitting for the season. Gonna need a lot in these next few days to actually seem like a full-fledged opening experience and not just a nostalgia wave.
Though who knows, we’ll probably get some modest restaurant-running drama next year. Maybe it’s all part of the Burnings lore build-up.
Can I just interject here to say how incredibly poor the John Darling strips that Batiuk posts are?
I can’t get over how inept Batiuk is at writing these things. He doesn’t even write the TV Trivia portion … just the main body. And they are always really low-quality ideas for a three panel strip that are s-t-r-e-t-t-t-t-c-h-e-d out to five or six panels. Just painful.
Also, Volume 13 is in the house …. and placed tantalizingly close to the fireplace. Let The Burnings Commence!
John Darling wasn’t even that much of a dick. Yes, he’s egocentric and shallow, but all on-air talent is like that. Most TV station employees wouldn’t bat an eye at him. But we’re supposed to believe he was so offensive his co-workers were glad he was murdered in cold blood.
And that was the only thing the strip ever had to say, that wasn’t dependent on Gerry Shamray’s ability to caricature celebrities and licensed characters. Never mind how dated it all is now. Batiuk should be ashamed of it, not reprinting it every week. But no, he’s ashamed of Sadie Summers.
Interesting points on John Darling, whom I still find tolerable, even if Batiuk was trying for The Larry Sanders Show via ersatz Gerry Trudeau. Take out the puns from JD and you have almost no jokes, so yes it is a mess but I remember the era.
I recently heard an interesting observation on The Far Side (the source escapes me): Gary Larson almost always depicts the moment before or the moment after the central event in the gag, not the event itself. Forgive me if this is Cartooning 101; my ignorance in these matters knows no bounds.
But … could it be that Batiuk with his “tell don’t show” approach to Crazy’s Happy Dance is trying for a similar redirection, letting the reader’s imagination fill in the blanks? Orwell had his Room 101 after all, and say what you like, Orwell is still Orwell.
Or … did Batiuk just crib the dance gag from Elaine in “Seinfeld”? The trouble for me is that he sells the repulsion too well, and it’s just squicky, with minors present.
Finally … CBH, thanks for the brilliant posts, and I respect the sentiment re band directors. They really do get under your skin, don’t they? I was a clarinetist and played marching band, concert band, pit orchestra from my early teens.
Maybe that’s why I don’t hate Harry Dinkle … until he talks. What an nasty putdown of Holly at the anniversary party!
could it be that Batiuk with his “tell don’t show” approach to Crazy’s Happy Dance is trying for a similar redirection, letting the reader’s imagination fill in the blanks?
That may be what he’s trying. But it doesn’t work, because we never see these characters do anything but stand around and smirk at each other. The “Noodle Incident” worked in Calvin and Hobbes, and other strips like Far Side and Bloom County because the day-to-day proceedings were outrageous enough to fuel your imagination.
Or for another point of comparison:
C&H had one single strip about a bedside reading of “Hamster Huey and The Gooey Kablooey”. The contents weren’t shown, but everything else before and after was depicted. We don’t know what it is, but we know that Dad has grown very tired of reading it, we know that Calvin doubles down on his demand to have it read, and we know that Dad engaged in some malicious compliance with the request, leaving C&H wide eyed over that contemporaneous interpretation. All reactions exaggerated for comedic effect, expectations subverted, one day, done. Good, punchy.
Now, consider this entire week for Crazy’s Dance.
Comedy is about the subversion of expectations. Because of Tom Batiuk’s tonelessness and inability to keep any truths consistent in the strip, we have no expectations, so there’s no way for subversion to happen; hence, no humor.
I agree. Comedy depends on an element of surprise/subversion of expectations.
When we are told repeatedly that Crazy Harry’s dance is shocking and horrible, in several strips in a row, there’s no surprise or interest in finding out that it is, indeed, shocking and horrible.
The only possible way to pay that off would have been with art — make the dance either visually totally mundane, or, better, far more horrible than we had been led to expect.
Alternatively, to heighten the stories and the reactions even more, to insane heights of absurdity.
Instead, we got: The dance is horrible and you’ll hate it. And sure enough, the dance is horrible and you hate it. Oh, my sides.
I’m still looking for Hamster Huey’s head myself. I don’t think I’ll ever find it, though, for whenever I feel that I’m getting close, bug-eyed aliens from the planet Neptune start talking about how there’s nothing like a fresh batch of anonymous sparrow waffles.
Even tastier than Earth boy waffles, I gather.
Since everyone remembers *A Christmas Carol* at this time of the year, I raise a salute to Mr. Dick of *David Copperfield* who was obsessed with the head not of Hamster Huey, but of King Charles I.
Twenty or so years ago, we took the Official Tour of the Tower of London, with a Yeoman Warder (aka “Beefeater”) as a guide. While he was showing us the gallery of noble-folks portraits, he noted that one guy was a bit pale. The reason was, this particular nobleman had attempted to overthrow the king, was defeated, beheaded, and his head put on a pike on London Bridge. That’s when they realized there was no official portrait for the gallery, and while he might have been a traitor he was still, y’know, family…
So one of the Yeoman Warders was dispatched to the Bridge to fetch the head (at this point our guide deadpanned, “We get ALL the good jobs”) and bring it back, where it was quickly sewn back onto the body and set up for the artist, who was told to “paint fast.”
Point being, even a Yeoman Warder can make a better joke than TB…
Anonymous Sparrow,
1) You have your own brand of waffles? Do they come in kosher? Although, by your wording, it sounds more like a personal commitment rather than a donation. Just like the hen and pig honoring the farmer by a meal of ham and eggs.
2) Will you be rereading any favorite book for the holidays? I plan on “Charlotte Sometimes” by Penelope Farmer. I believe the Cure found the book irresistible.
3) First of 2 military references. Your comment on Charles I, made me think of Oliver Cromwell. He did many great things, but when your most famous act is beheading the King, everything else pales in comparison. He does illustrate the dangers of Christian Nationalism. If your 2 swords are spiritual and military, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that one sword is longer, sharper, more heavily used, and more dangerous than the other.
4) Notice the awkward Starbucks Jones cover by Bob Layton. The male’s arms are too short. The female’s torso is impossibly positioned. It is milder than most female covers from 1990-2010. Her hips are turned to the right. Her upper torso is turned to the left. Her neck has broken and is dangling, and jiggling to the left.
5) Second military reference. We honor the brave war hero. Today is the anniversary of the death of George S. Patton. I quote to you one of his favorite songs:
“Lilly from Piccadilly. She is the black out queen. Lilly from Piccadilly. Ugliest girl I’ve seen.
With Search Lights moving overhead til Messerschmidt’s are gone. Don’t ask to take her gas mask off. She looks better with it on.
Lilly from Piccadilly. She is the black out queen.”
(There are more verses. I prefer George C. Scott’s.)
Slight epilogue. I taught the song to my 6 and 4 year old grandkids. My wife took them into the local hardware store. As soon as the door enclosed them inside, they burst out with full lungs, “Lilly from Piccadilly.” General Patton would be proud!
SP:
You pose questions, so I will deliver answers as *Abbey Road* plays (guitars may gently weep).
Unlike the unseen “Noodle Incident,” there is a *Calvin & Hobbes* strip in which Calvin dreams that his parents remove their false faces to reveal themselves as bug-eyed aliens from Neptune, who grab him, get the batter, dunk the kid and look forward to a fresh batch of Earth boy waffles. The reference to Hamster Huey brought the strip back to mind (que pasa, senorita? I am el fugitivo!) and I riffed a little on his head…and mine. (Parenthetical pause for Pooh-Bah’s tribute to a head which stood on its neck with a smile well-bred and bowed three times to him! Ah, *The Mikado*!)
Anonymous sparrow waffles, like the Coen Brothers’s “Inside Llewyn Davis,” are only kosher for Passover. (Though the Neptunians may say otherwise.)
As a rule, I read two books at a time, which I like to divide into my “Home” and “Train” titles. When one side finishes before the other, I do re-read something, which, currently, is George R.R. Martin’s *Feast for Crows.* Just now there’s sufficient material on both sides to keep me from Westeros. (“Home” is Isaac Asimov’s *Puzzles of the Black Widowers* and “Train” is Haruki Murakami’s *Killing Commendatore.* Dr. Asimov makes a mistake in saying that Dark Horse Candidate James K. Polk was a Senator when he was nominated in 1844. Polk was a former Congressman and a former Governor. To date, he’s the only Speaker of the House to become President…and the first elected President not to try for a second term. {Harrison couldn’t, obviously, and “Tyler, Too” succeeded to the office…no Vice-President would win a term of their own until Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.)
Antonia Fraser’s biography of Oliver Cromwell is one of her best works. Like Robespierre, he makes incorruptibility occasionally hard to admire, but there’s something compelling about a man who told a painter to depict him “warts and all.” Would that Fraser had written a book about his son Richard instead of her silly one of Marie Antoinette. (Yes, I know she didn’t say let them eat cake or brioche, but when your mother was the super-smart Empress of Austria, you shouldn’t be that stupid.)
You make some excellent points about the *Starbuck Jones* cover. Unlike the consumption of Sir Robin’s minstrel, I find no cause for great rejoicing in the Funky felt-tip covers and tend not to linger over them.
(Oh, no…now I’m imagining a cover depicting something called “This Bull…This Bushka,” only Bull is the Changeling Ben Grimm, Les is Reed Richards and Linda is Sue Richards. What have I done to deserve this? So I didn’t like *Doom Patrol* No. 53 as much as most people — I can quote parts of *Fantastic Four* #51.)
George S. Patton was a character, that’s for sure. Harry S Truman saw him as part of the odd split in the U.S. military: there would be flamboyant figures like him (and MacArthur and Nathan Bedford Forrest) and the solid, unflashy generals who just got the job done (Ulysses S. Grant. Omar Bradley and Robert E. Lee). Truman preferred the latter, but in wartime, both are equally valuable.
*Abbey Road* has finished and I should do the same. Thank you for your time and always speed to the relief of a general who greeted a Nazi request for surrender with one four-letter word which rhymes with “guts.”
What’s really irksome is that at one time, Batiuk DID know how to construct a gag. He wasn’t as good at it as Gary Larson, or Charles Schulz, or Bill Watterson, or a dozen others we could all name. But the early strips CBH has posted show that he understood the basic form, and could do a reasonably reliable job of creating small amounts of actual humour.
That ability has obviously completely atrophied and died.
On top of that, Batiuk WAS capable of doing a “wacky dancing” sight gag. He used to do them with Crazy’s air guitar antics all the time, and they were sometimes kind of funny. So he could have done it again, if only he wasn’t so unbelievably unambitious.
I think a lot of the reason that the Crazy’s Happy Dance arc doesn’t work is that the thing that Crazy is so ridiculously happy about is something that the average reader has zero empathy for. It’s a freakin’ comic book, and he’s carrying on like he hit the Powerball jackpot. Also, if you’re going to do a happy dance, you generally don’t build up to it over 5 strips. It’s gotta be spontaneous, like the Snoopy happy dance.
I’d disagree. I’ve seen people react every bit as crazily as Harry’s Happy Dance™ when they got their hands on a thing they really really wanted and had been pursuing for a long time. And it could be something like a record album, or a baseball card, or even a comic book.
What makes Harry’s Happy Dance less believable is that (assuming I read correctly) the book in question isn’t a rare original or collectible; it’s just a collection of strips… something he should be able to just order from Amazon.
(New thought in my brain: we know about Sprawl-Mart Pineapple Computers and such. Is there a Batiukism for Amazon?)
Is there a Batiukism for Amazon?
Someone here pointed out that there isn’t. Amazon’s where people buy new copies of his books. “FleaBay” is where they buy used copies, so Tommy don’t get him no profit$.
But why is he incapable of saying “Apple”? Or “McDonald’s”? Or “covid”? And yet that guy’s “Elon Musk”. Dude, you’re a lot more likely to get sued by Musk than a virus.
Larson himself noted his tendency to build anticipation in one of his Far Side history/retrospective books (I have a copy around the house somewhere). There is a page where he shows this strip next to its original version.
The original version of the strip is pretty much exactly the same, except Larson had drawn the cook’s arm extended and the ball in flight, having just been thrown toward the “dunking booth” target. Larson writes that he scrapped the original and changed it to have the cook holding the ball getting ready to throw because the anticipation (and wide-eyed horror, in the lobster’s case) better sold the gag. He’s right, and looking at the two strips side by side proved that.
I don’t know if it is cartooning 101, it’s a not a trick unique to The Far Side… but it is also something Larson understood how to pull off better than most cartoonists. Gary Larson is an all time great in large part because he has a great talent for writing gags but also because he has a great feel and work ethic for refining them and make them work really well. They rarely come across labored because it is clear that Larson labored over them.
Also Larson walked away when he felt the strip was getting repetitive and did not want to enter what he called the “Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons.” (wikipedia)
Huh! You almost say that as if it were advice to another comical strip writer!
CBH-I like the concert in the park strip too. If only he had ended the strip at the reunion or at Montoni’s with that same warmth.
Act I Dinkle was funny because he had just enough ego and insanity to be relatable to any band kid whose has spent fall nights being hollered at through a bullhorn on a chilly football field. Our band directors were generally well-liked, but they both had just a bit of Dinkle in them. In later years, Dinkle’s ego was overplayed and he just became obnoxious.
The above comment was supposed to be in reply to hd667. How it ended up all the way down the page I have no idea. I’d blame these dadburned newfangled phone gadgets, but then I might end up in Crankshaft.
It also worked because the setting was a typical midwestern high school and the students were the main characters. But then Batty started chasing awards and the focus changed to misery, cancer, Les, and comic books. Dinkle then became another victim, he couldn’t simply retire in peace like many people do, no, he had to go deaf.
But Batty pushed things too far. Dinkle was an original character that many people liked, nobody cared about Becky the handicapped Dinkle 2.0. So Dinkle was brought back, more annoying than ever. I expect to see Dinkle in Crankshaft really soon.
The main reason for my response here is to give kudos for the current banner. Les & Les on the bench and Funky drowning his sorrows in the green pitcher is fantastic. I laughed out loud. Feels like it’s been weeks.
Otherwise I can only state pity for having this year to take on in review as there wasn’t a whole lot that I’d call interesting. Just dull on top of dull. Outside of a few puzzlements from some strips (if someone doing Stormtrooper cosplay can’t carry a wallet around, why are you looking to buy things?), John’s time in this year were pretty well limited to his MO – comic book wankery and sometimes being a stuffy sanctimonious dipshit.
Also, your comment about it did make me recall a school day where it happened. The subject was the cryptosporidium outbreak that occurred in Milwaukee. The class took turns reading from the textbook about the outbreak, only that some of the first people stumbled on the word and one of them substituted it with the word “crypto-whatever”, which got a laugh out of the class and everyone else reading their lines from the passage afterwards used that word instead of the actual term. This might all seem amusing, except for the fact that this occurred in my second year of college. That was more than twenty years ago. I wonder what they’re all doing now.
I laughed when I saw the banner too! Beautiful!
Me too. It’s kind of touching that Les was reunited at last with his one true love.
(Les tries to whine, but he ends up getting beat up by a angry mob)
I just read a well-researched and comedically annotated deep dive into FB lore, which I appreciate, but my main takeaway was … MONTONI’S HAS BEEN OPEN FOR HOW MANY DECADES AND THEY DIDN’T OFFER A VEGGIE PIZZA UNTIL 2013?!
The many levels on which Batiuk’s storytelling sucks is ever-unfolding. CBH’s deep dives consistently reveal new, previously unheralded layers to FW’s sucknitude, but it is also observations like this — building on CBH’s sterling work but bringing in fresh, undeniable insight — that illustrate the many and surprising ways in which Batiuk’s writing has continued to explore new frontiers in suckiosity.
Speaking of new frontiers in suckosity: is Hannah distributing Montoni’s coupons without Pete knowing anything about it? That’s risky and misguided at best, and blatant fraud at worst. What happens when a customer tries to use one and it’s not honored? Why isn’t she just handing out flyers? And yet, it’s more work than Pete and Mindy have done so far.
And what does Mason Jarre think of Hannah and Max still working part-time at the tv station after he bankrolled them to run his movie theater? The kind of rich layabouts who hire people to run their pet projects won’t stand for that. “No side work” can be a requirement of such arrangements.
Oh, are you saying we should add restaurant coupons to the long list of things Batty knows nothing about? 😂
But if Hannah and Max didn’t work at the TV station, they wouldn’t have access to the copy machine needed to print the coupons. /s
That’s assuming they were printed. There’s a strong chance the coupons just spontaneously popped into existence.
Hannah: It sure would be nice if there were some Montoni’s coupons we could pass out to our theater patrons. (pouts)
*POOF*
Look what I found!
Of course, this whole Montoni’s venture is for the benefit of one of Batiuk’s favorite Batty Stus, Mopey Pete. That boy is blessed. He was born with a golden horseshoe firmly planted up his backside. Has any Batiukverse character ever been more blessed? He even fails upward. It’s sickening.
Mopey Pete has magic eye dust. The eye crust that builds in the corners of his eyes is stored in his saddlebag-like eye bags. It’s Mopey Dust. Magic Mopey dust. He just spreads a little, and he gets whatever he wants.
We all just know the reopening of Montoni’s will be a massive success. People will be lined up out the door. Hooray! Montoni’s is back! The city of Westview is whole again!
😩🤢🤮
Lord, have mercy on our
soulsstomachs.————
ACT II was mostly misery. ACT III on has been nothing but rainbows, unicorns, and cotton candy.
Hasn’t Batiuk ever heard of balance? It’s a miracle he can walk a straight line.
Today we’re continuing to be left to assume that Pete and Mindy have mastered the Montoni’s recipe offscreen as opposed to just ordering from elsewhere or thawing a pizza meant for California that’s been sitting back there for a year, and also the publicity campaign for reopening involves coupons being handed out for opening weekend. Valentine’s operation is also confirmed to be not stressful enough to allow the Max and Hannah couple to still be part-time at the local news, wonder how that work balance works out.
Pizza monster is still MIA too.
Annnnd…he appears today (12/22) as “pizza monster” [sic]. Can’t even keep that name straight. And the green pitcher is gray. Sigh.
The irritating thing about this twee Flash Gordon ripoff is not just that we have to deal with Batiuk’s “Why do people bully me by lying and behaving as if they can’t read my mind?” complex about raygun gothic movie serials. If he would explain what’s neat about them to him instead of morosely whining when he has to, people might relate.
The irritating thing is that it’s a gateway to his bitching about the entertainment industry and its wanting to adulterate Crankshaft by giving him a conscience.
Well written and enjoyable blog again, Comic Book Harriet. Your ability to spin straw into gold is staggering.
Happy Winter Solstice, everyone!
Today (12/21) GC had a commenter saying he was done with the Comic Formerly Named Crankshaft.
I’ve noticed that the more CS gets Funkified, the less the pro-Crank commenters appear. I don’t think we snarkers are that rude (I haven’t seen any of us accuse them of “never having been married”), so are they bailing on this the same way Funky fans grew sick of the strip’s misery wallows and awards begging?
Good strategy there, General Tom Patton! Just because Funky failed after you did the same thing from the 80s to 2022 and it got cancelled, that just means it’s DUE to succeed!
“Maybe I should do a 3 week arc on Fat Flash getting cancer from his alcoholic left arm-losing?” he thinks, as he jogs with his unexplained robot friend. Jogging towards–The Burnings.
That commenter, who says he quit Crankshaft, used to snark Funky Winkerbean with us on The Comics Kingdom. I see them periodically posting comments here on SoSF. I think they’re like me. They hated Funky Winkerbean, but enjoyed certain Crankshaft comic strips. Now Crankshaft is FUBAR.
I think I’m going to start tracking the number of followers of Crankshaft. To see if the number of followers starts to drop. This Montoni’s arc, as my husband would say, is “dreadful stuff.”
As of 9:24 PM EST on 12/22/2023
