By The Numbers

52 thoughts on “By The Numbers”

1. Stay warm, CBH. It’s almost as bad here in Mo.
   I am really shocked that Ed had so many appearances. I am really sorry that Pete had so many. BWOEH is already suffering a migraine over Lillian sightings. (I do not blame her.)
   I guess most of Ed’s appearances were bus related. Yet I cannot remember others. I almost tolerate Lillian over P-m-m. However, I can’t stand seeing J-f-f-f. I have more respect for Jerry Smith from Rick and Morty than that spineless, whiney J-f-f-f.
   I am going to steal thunder from the Drake of Life, and say: NO SIGHTINGS OF LES!!! That alone makes it a good year.
   Stay warm, my friends! 🥶 🧊🥶

   1. I’m delighted someone other than me made a Rick and Morty reference. Jerry Smith is a textbook example of how to create an unlikable character. Batiuk does this all the time, but he insists we should like these characters. R&M knows Jerry is unlikable, and builds entire episodes around that.

      1. Yes, Jerry is unlikeable. You find yourself rooting against him. R&M doesn’t usually pull his fat out of the fire. Rick makes us laugh by the way he dumps on poor Jerry. But Jerry is indispensable. We want him in the story. We need him in that story. We root for Jerry. TB makes unlikeable characters, but he is the only one rooting for them. (One inch away from reality.) Nobody ever says “More Mopey Pete, sir.”
         Ed had 206 appearances. Jeff, Pam, Lillian, and Pete had a combined 264. And we didn’t ask for one. That’s why GC has someone post as ‘Where’sCrankShaft’. Ed is in his own strip over two thirds of the time, but these totally crap characters suck up all the oxygen.
         I wish Lena could be more of a foil for Ed. Those could be some funny strips, but TB only wants her to be dumped on. He is wasting her, and plunger-feeding us his hated favorites.
         (Apparently, posting on SOSF raises my temperature. I better go get an ice tea.)

         1. I wish Lena could be more of a foil for Ed.

            I wish anyone would be a foil for anyone! The Funkyverse contains no conflict, no disagreement, no dislike, no anger, no reactions, no nothing. It’s completely inert. Which sounds like it would be a happy place, but it’s a cocoon of misery. All the characters do is smirk and eyeroll at each other, while they internalize all their feelings and talk about how great all Tom Batiuk’s favorite things are.

   2. The thing about Ed’s count – as others have said, how many times was he just there doing nothing? The whole two(?) weeks of buying the pizzeria, Ed has something to say on day one, and then he just seemed to be a cardboard character in the background every day until the end.

   3. Pam has many appearances because somebody has to serve as Ed Crankshaft’s straight-man.
      Pam: What are you doing, Dad?

      We’ll see how much you tolerate Lillian when she takes over the strip for a week, or two, or three. Are you ready for Lillian at the Ohioana book festival story arc? 😴💤

      1. I would sooner watch Bride of Frankenstein photos.

2. Of course, the most important count of all: Les Moore made 0 appearances. Ah, it’s a wonderful thing.

3. As always, thanks for all your hard work, CBH!

   But a question remains. Sure, 206 strips featured Ed Crankshaft … but of those 206, how many of them “featured” Ed merely as a silent extra, inexplicably on hand to be a mute witness to discussions of real estate deals?

   (Maybe it was only 8 or 9, but it felt like 80 or 90.)

4. I’m not far from you both, and i haven’t been outside in 3 days. I’ve lived in the upper midwest for 17 years, and I’ve never seen weather this brutal. I’ve seen -15, but never -17 and windy. It’s usually still when it gets that cold. Below zero temps I can deal with, but this is genuinely dangerous. Don’t be outside any longer than you have to.

   1. 6 degrees tonight in my part of the Midwest. And that’s up from what it has been over the weekend. CBH-thanks for the character tallies. Nice work as always! Here’s hoping the name Lisa (or its possessive) does not find its way into any 2024 totals.

      Stay warm, everyone!!

      1. I lived in California and South Carolina until I moved to Ohio for 9 years for grad school and a job. Snow, cold was miserable and I’ve been happy in the sunbelt for the last 35 years. Wishing you all the best, and do think of us in hurricane season

   2. Best wishes to everyone dealing with the bad weather around the country. Here at the SoSF home office (downgraded to an unused construction trailer parked in a towing lot) in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, it’s been kind of crappy, but not inordinately so. NJ makes up for it in other ways, though. Like this morning, when I nearly hit a vulture eating some roadkill (I think it was a raccoon or maybe an opossum). And you don’t want to hit one of those, believe you me. I hit a pigeon once, and it was horrible. So many feathers. In short, NJ is a land of contrasts.

      Now, if Funky Winkerbean was weather, it’d be a dreary, dusk-like haze, where the sun struggles to peer through, and it always looks like rain but it never comes. If Crankshaft was weather, it’d be a persistent misty drizzle, where the dead leaves stick to your shoes and end up being tracked all over the house. I’m not sure which of those is worse, though. It’s pretty much a toss-up, I suppose.

      1. Hi Epicus! I live in Wyckoff!

         1. We just use Ho-Ho-Kus as our mailing address because I’ve always thought it was funny, but our beloved blog does indeed have roots in the Garden State. I’m here right now, in Central NJ, which does indeed exist. Being the bastion of acceptance and tolerance we are, we began allowing comments and even guest posts from those living in other, lesser states some time ago. In the Batiukiverse, there are only three states anyhow…bewilderment, boredom, and disgust.

            1. Thanks for responding Epicus. SOSF, you CBH, etc., etc., have been a joyful respite for me for many years. I used to comment as “Westview Radiology” Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this puzzling, yet most times amusing comic strip!

            2. “Westview Radiology”

               One of my favorite poster names BTW.

            3. Of course I remember Westview Radiology, good to see you back!

   3. Winter storms in the Midwest, especially the plains, can be harrowing.

      When I lived in the Midwest, I can recall wearing a parka and my ski bibs on the drive to work because it was so cold. Then wearing ski goggles from the parking lot into the building because of the wind and the cold. I must have resembled a polar explorer.

      1. Still Gabby writes—
         My first winter in Ohio turned out to be very cold and snowy. A classmate was from northern Wisconsin, and used to laugh at me because I wore a shirt, sweater, jacket, overcoat, gloves, hat and muffler (not to mention pants and boots!). Now that she is retired she lives in New Mexico.

         1. My first winter in Ohio turned out to be very cold and snowy.

            It wasn’t 1977, was it? Everybody who lived in Ohio at that time remembers the blizzard of ’77. I grew up in Ohio. First grade to first child, as my SIL likes to say.

            Just curious, where do you live now, Gabby? Was it California? I remember we discussed the Oakland Raiders. Mr. bwoeh and I lived in Irvine for a few years. Not surprisingly, it never snowed there.

            As a child, I lived on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts border, about 25 miles northwest of Boston. We used to routinely receive some pretty epic snowfalls of about 2 feet.

            Your classmate retired to New Mexico? Smart lady. I’ll still be working for a while, but I think we’ll end up staying here, too.

            1. Yes, it was the winter of 77. Unbelievable. Everything closed in the state shut down Except Ohio U. Our president’s house was across the road from his office, and he figured the if he couldn’t get to work, the students, faculty, and staff could too ):
               I now live in North Central Florida—100+ miles north of Orlando, about midway through Miami and Atlanta.
               It is supposed to get into the 20s at night next week, which usually does happen a few nights every year

            2. President figured if he COULD get to his office

            3. Still Gabby writes—

               This triggered so many memories, and a bunch of FB reminiscences with my OU classmates

5. Stay warm, everybody. I am currently enjoying the sunshine (and occasional light rain) and 80º temperatures of San Juan, but alas it does not appear we booked a long enough stay—we get off the plane at O’Hare at midnight Friday, and the current forecast is somewhere below zero, with highs maybe creeping into the teens early next week. I have seen pictures of the foot or more of snow on the ground (luckily we hired a guy to move it, as we are going to be getting home from the airport around two in the morning, which will be more like four body-clock time). I tell myself I’m tough enough to handle this—ten years ago, the high temperature on my 60th birthday was twelve below—but I am not looking forward to it!

   One of the commenters over at GC said today’s strip was fairly good because there was a joke of sorts in it. I am not so impressed, and told him so—I’ve had enough experience with orthopedic problems and physical therapy (two repaired rotator cuffs, one fake hip, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatic nerve damage that left one leg partially numb, yada yada yada), and have commiserated with enough other old guys in similar situations to have learned there’s a lot of humor to be mined from successfully rehabbing from a fall or injury.

   Does Batiuk give us any such humor? Nope. Instead, we get the standard “old man’s frustrated and reduced to making a cranky comment” trope. Yawn. Phone it in, Tom…

   Right now my biggest hope for this week’s arc is that Batty will accidentally say something about a “happy ending” to this massage. Unintentionally, of course.

   1. As Be Ware of Eve Hill would say in her strongest expletive, “Gee willikers, Hannibal’s! Thank you for that word picture!”

      1. What about? The “happy ending” reference? The thought of Crankshaft having sex? That band-aid was torn off a few years ago when Ed and Mary steamed up the windows at the local movie drive-in. In front of the children in the adjacent car.

         Last week, a GoComics commenter couldn’t remember Mary’s name. I knew it right away because of that drive-in strip.
         #ScarredForLife

         Also, any later shock value in @Hannibal’s Lectern comment was softened by the mention of the O’Hare International Airport. A hellish place. I’ve never had a routine flight through that hell-hole. I’ve had:
         1.) Lost baggage.
         2.) Damaged baggage.
         3.) Delayed flights caused by malfunctioning equipment that required a replacement part flown in from Dallas while we waited.
         4.) Unexplained departure gates changes, that were switched back at the last minute. Of course, the two departure gates were on opposite ends of the terminal.
         5.) Missed connection due to fog.

         Deep hatred! O’Hare is easily my least favorite airport. And I’ve flown through Newark!

         And they stole the United hub from Cleveland Hopkins.

6. Emily and Amelia’s father may not much resemble Rolanda Mathews… but he does rather resemble his wife.

   

   1. Is there ANY Sunday strip that isn’t just a 3-panel joke padded out to 5 or 6 panels? Panel 1: “We’re thinking about getting rid of the landline.” Panel 2: “You can’t get rid of the landline!” Panel 3: “They always ask for your home phone!” So much blather, added to a joke that wasn’t any good anyway.

      1. This has been such a consistent failing of Batiuk’s, and it goes back decades. Look at the 35-year-old John Darling Sunday strips he inexplicably continues to post. Every single one of them listlessly meanders through five or six panels to tell a weak (or for all practical purposes non-existent) two-or-three-panel joke.

         Reading them, it’s no surprise that A) the feature was just haemorrhaging newspaper subscribers by the end, and B) the syndicate saw no value to the property and was fine with the plug being pulled permanently.

         1. Is there ANY Sunday strip that isn’t just a 3-panel joke padded out to 5 or 6 panels?

            It occurs to me there are some: the fucking comic book covers. And the big one-panel drawings, which can be nice sometimes, like the one of that wonderfully detailed optometry office. Too bad it was only existed to give Funky a place to be an asshole to a medical professional.

            This has been such a consistent failing of Batiuk’s, and it goes back decades.

            Right again, and the JD strips are a great example. The media environment has changed so much that the jokes don’t work even if they were properly constructed. Which they very much are not, being full of needless blather to pad out to Sunday length.

7. Freezing cold where I am, though I’d happily take some of that snow. My corner of Ohio’s actually barely gotten it, which is unfortunate for me as a fan of its aesthetics (even if it is a bother).

   Crankshaft this year certainly is about the same, even with the Funky invasion. Meandering around this version of Ohio with way more comic nostalgia than usual, with the casual craziness of Ed’s grills directing meteors and trying to play off his “malicious bus driver” antics in a more mixed-bag scenario than usual not having too many dramatics to stick out against as a sore thumb this year, but it does feel like not much is happened. Do wonder how much Davis’s trace-heavy artstyle is a factor; when I look through GoComic’s archive it definitely feels like a sort of soul of the strip is lost in the transition away from Ayers, not as much creative and interesting panel work.

8. It’s really bad here in Illinois (it’s -1 F) because school (i’m in my senior year of high school) was called off last friday and tomorrow is a snow day as well

9. So far, it hasn’t been as cold here yet in Atlantic Canada….but in the Prairies, YIKES!!!
   Also, this week’s arc is predicated on the fact that
   a) Ed Crankshaft knows that civil behavior is expected of him
   and
   b) he thinks he’s outsmarting people by being a malicious asshole despite it….uh….depriving him of a career in the Bigs and also a wife and son……..so……

10. So, Ed didn’t appear in how own strip 159 times? That seems pretty high. That’s like five months.

    1. “his own”

    2. So he started doing a strip about an obnoxious, loutish school bus driver, then created a handful of characters for the bus driver guy to interact with. Then later, when he was running low on ideas, he began giving those supporting characters lead roles, making them the focus. And then those characters needed characters to interact with, so he created more. And pretty soon, he was juggling dozens of characters, and the obnoxious bus driver wasn’t even in the strip half the time.

       Sounds familiar. I can buy the idea that there are people out there who actually like the Ed Crankshaft character, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone on Earth would call themselves a fan of any other character in that strip. In his Jan. 9 “Match To Flame” blog post, he touches on his unique ability to write himself into really boring, stupid plot & character holes. Then he went off on another insane Lisa tangent that really has to be read to be believed. I mean, wow.

11. “Where’s Crankshaft?”

    “Oh, i see he was actually there most of the time… by far the most frequent in fact… boy, feels pretty silly now to complain about it.”

    1. As Beckoning points out, he was absent for almost a third of the strip. And IMO the arcs where he was absent were the absolute worst. It’s legit to beg for Crankshaft to come back when the alternative is Jeff foaming at the mouth and staggering through Comic Con in a nostalgic stupor.

       1. He was absent for just under 44% of the strip (159/365 = 43.56%) — a little less than half, and much more than a third.

          1. It feels like it’s about as much as i show up for work but it works out more about 4/week. As CBH says the times when he is gone go slowly, ranging from dull (what’s-her-name’s book shop) to excruciating (anything comic book related).

             Still I would hesitate to think this is unusual compared to other strips; Luann is a distant third perhaps in her own strip, and to count appearance quantity for everyone from Crock to Gil Thorp might make everyone look like a modern Barney Google.

             1. Yes, you could compare this level of participation to that of Mary Worth in Mary Worth!

             2. Especially lately with MW’s Keith Bellend, and his “I don’t like veggie burgers or my daughter and/or ex-wife’s boyfriend” plot. Mary’s been out of the strip for 2 months! She didn’t even meddle him during any of it! It’s been so boring it should be used on Guantanmo prisoners.

             3. Still I would hesitate to think this is unusual compared to other strips

                Luann and Barney Google fell out of favor in their own strips because other, more interesting characters emerged. It’s fair to say that about Funky as well, but that’s twisted by Batiuk’s misguided perception of the deeply shitty Les and Lisa. Gil Thorp is an odd case, since I don’t even know what that strip’s trying to be anymore.

                No one ever complained if Charlie Brown was absent for a week or two. We love Chuck, and he’s the center of the strip, but the other characters were strong enough to carry their own stories. There were Lucy-Linus stories, Lucy-Schroeder stories, Peppermint Patty-Marcie stories, Snoopy-Woodstock stories, Linus-Sally stories, and others. Ditto for Bloom County, which also had many strong characters who could play off each other.

12. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Pam: Lillian, you look like a skeleton that’s wrapped in a thin sheet of skin. How do you get a massage without your skin breaking apart?

    Lil: I have no idea!

    Me: (whispering to Pam) I’m betting Lil’s massage therapist uses sandpaper

13. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Doctor: It appears that half the muscle tissue in you has been torn to shreds.

    Pam: Dad, don’t even fucking say it.

    1. You’re exactly right. The is the kind of strip that calls for the classic smirk/eyeroll/”lame dad joke” response Batiuk loves so much. But it… doesn’t. It’s presented like it’s one of his A-list jokes, despite being no better than the jokes he sets up for other characters to groan at.

       And Pam, the character should be the one reacting to this, is cut out of the second panel! The massage therapist, who appears to be the offspring of Yvette Goolagong and Guy Smiley, is making an indeterminate face. It seems to say “I am mildly annoyed by this joke, but I’m going to passive-aggressive the hell out of pretending to enjoy it. Also, I think I ate some expired cheese.”

       1. I didn’t do a scientific analysis as CBH did, but since this arc (“Crankshaft Can Not Be Killed!”) began, the likes and comments sure have dropped off. Weird, as that usually happens during the Funkier strips. (I count P&J as Funky, as almost every time they appear, it’s Hey Kids, Comics!)

          Also, wow, Davis. Panel 2 is just panel 1 with slight changes to the mouths. I’d guess he’s truly checked out. What does Tom pay his artists? Bet it’s not in Flash #123s!

14. Ooh, new blog post!

    https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-203/

    Okay, so that problem was solved, and I avoided a train wreck (train wrecks can be fun to watch, I suppose, as long as you’re not riding on the train).

    Oh, Tom, you’re so close to understanding why we read your strip.

    Day in and day out, Funky Winkerbean did the job that a comic strip was supposed to do, which was to entertain you and help you forget about your life. But every so often there were moments when it aspired to more than that, where it became something that helped you remember your life.

    The story had transcended the form for a brief period, but, as much as you’d like to, you can’t set up shop there.

    The thing I love about Batiuk is how humble he is, y’know?

    So my choices were to attempt to spill the same wine again, which—as I’ve just pointed out—you can’t do, or to forge a new path forward and hopefully engage my readers in some new and interesting ways.

    “So of course I chose the former, unsustainable choice.”

    I’d created a taste that my readers hadn’t realized they wanted.

    Have I mentioned how humble Batiuk is?

    I had made a big point about how comic strips could carry the weight of adult work (in spite of being precariously balanced on a disintegrating pile of flimsy newsprint that was created to be disposed), and I didn’t want to let my readers or myself down.

    Well… if the readers were expecting trite, inane, self-indulgent pablum, you certainly didn’t let us down, that’s for sure. And I’m sure you didn’t let yourself down, because… well, I already said “self-indulgent”, right?

    It’s always so much fun to see how Batiuk’s mind works. It’s like, no matter what criticisms we can level at him, he still knows how to make himself look worse.

    1. “I’d created a taste that my readers hadn’t realized they wanted.”

       Because, it turns out, they didn’t want it. I’d be curious to see the number of newspapers that carried the strip and how they changed over time. I seriously doubt Act III numbers went up.

       1. The Act III time skip wasn’t his worst idea, but he had no ability to actually execute it. It was way, way too ambitious for a writer as limited as Batiuk. He got through Act II with lots of shock melodrama based around his old FW archetypes. It was all plug & play. “The nerd/hot girl/jock gets fired/sick/divorced” or whatever.

          But his Act III vision not only required him to age his existing characters ten years, he also had to create a whole new generation of characters, from scratch. And we’re talking about a “writer” who thinks nothing of spending six days on opening an envelope. It was way out of his league.

15. I think Tom Batiuk wanted to achieve something similar to the Earl of Dorincourt’s comments to his grandson’s mother in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s *Little Lord Fauntleroy*:

    “Is it Lord Fauntleroy?” she asked. “Is it, indeed!”

    The Earl put out his hand and grasped hers.

    “Yes,” he answered, “it is.”

    Then he put his other hand on Cedric’s shoulder.

    “Fauntleroy,” he said in his unceremonious, authoritative way, “ask your mother when she will come to us at the Castle.”

    Fauntleroy flung his arms around his mother’s neck.
    “To live with us!” he cried. “To live with us always!”

    The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl.

    His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit him to make friends with his heir’s mother.

    “Are you quite sure you want me?” said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty smile.

    “Quite sure,” he said bluntly. “We have always wanted you, but we were not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come.”

    Sad to say, he comes off more like another Burnett character, Miss Maria Minchin, whose sister Amelia tells her off most memorably in *A Little Princess*:

    “I’m not as clever as you, sister,” she said, “and I am always afraid
    to say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were not so timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I must say I’ve often thought it would have been better if you had been less severe on Sara Crewe, and had seen that she was decently dressed and more comfortable. I KNOW she was worked too hard for a child of her age, and I know she was only half fed–”

    “How dare you say such a thing!” exclaimed Miss Minchin.

    “I don’t know how I dare,” Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of
    reckless courage; “but now I’ve begun I may as well finish, whatever happens to me. The child was a clever child and a good child–and she would have paid you for any kindness you had shown her. But you didn’t show her any. The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always disliked her for that reason. She used to see through us both–”

    “Amelia!” gasped her infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her ears and knock her cap off, as she had often done to Becky.
    But Miss Amelia’s disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to care what occurred next.

    “She did! She did!” she cried. “She saw through us both. She saw that you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from her–though she behaved herself like a little princess even when she was a beggar. She did–she did–like a little princess!” And her hysterics got the better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and cry both at once, and rock herself backward and forward.

    “And now you’ve lost her,” she cried wildly; “and some other school will get her and her money; and if she were like any other child she’d tell how she’s been treated, and all our pupils would be taken away and we should be ruined. And it serves us right; but it serves you right more than it does me, for you are a hard woman, Maria Minchin, you’re a hard, selfish, worldly woman!”

    And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical chokes and gurgles that her sister was obliged to go to her and apply salts and sal volatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her indignation at her audacity.

    And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin actually began to stand a little in awe of a sister who, while she looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, and might, consequently, break out and speak truths people did not want to hear.

    Good thing I haven’t read *The Secret Garden,* or this comment would never end…

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