Hey folks! I know it’s been forever since I posted here, but I couldn’t let SoSF’s 14th Anniversary go unremarked. Since picking up the torch from the original Stuck Funky, we’ve carried on as a fun and diverse community. It’s indeed heartening to see how this blog has managed to outlast its raison d’être. Though it’s certain that Tom Batiuk gets to enjoy the last laugh. He folded up his FW franchise, but moved the Funky cast to the Crankshaft universe. This he accomplished by spending weeks’ worth of FW strips undoing and “mopping up” all the incongruities between the two worlds, which had long been supposed to take place at least a decade apart.
Son of Stuck Funky might have continued as a daily Crankshaft commentary…there’s certainly enough material there to pick apart. Unfortunately (or not), with Batiuk’s move from King Features Syndicate, we no longer had a means to access the daily strips ahead of time, which enabled post authors to compose and schedule posts ahead of time. Also: some of us here hate Crankshaft (looking at you, Epicus) and refuse to read it.
Me, I read CS online every day. And most days, it’s even more infuriating that Funky was. It’s practically Act IV of Funky Winkerbean. We still get strips about Ed and his exploding grill, Ed and his addiction to the “Bean’s End” gardening catalogue, Ed and his disdain for the schoolchildren whom he must transport to and from school. These story arcs are interspersed with cameos from the Funky cast. Pretty much every main character from FW (with the exception of the hated Les Moore) pops up now in CS. The core Funky themes (e.g. comic books are sacred, old people hate change) are repeated and reinforced. More distressing is that in addition to recycling themes and gags, the artwork itself in many cases is clearly copied and pasted from old Funky strips. Who’s got it easier than TB’s “inker”, Dan Davis? Tom Batiuk, that’s who.
So I don’t blame the Crankshaft haters: the strip is barely worth the minute or two I spend contemplating it. But I am glad that Son of Stuck Funky still exists as a place for like minded people to discuss Batiuk’s output, past and present, along with various and sundry topics. I salute the folks who have kept the lights on, primarily our ComicBookHarriet and Banana Jr. 6000. Myself and Epicus Doomus have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the conversation. Please feel free to stop in whenever and say hi! We’re not going anywhere. Thanks everyone.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Crankshaft: WHY CANT THE WORLD BE LIKE IT WAS IN THE 1930’s?!
Mitch: Because the U.S. was in the middle of the Great Depression.
Of course the hardware store is based on the one near Batty’s house in Medina.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/medina-hardware-william-beuther.html
Happy late anniversary, BTW
Still Gabby says. Thanks TFH, BJ600, CBH, and everyone for a fun and interesting site
Happy anniversary everybody!
In the year 2024, some corners of the Internet are still yet unspoiled.
Thank you.
Very true. Here the conversation stays largely on track. No political diatribes, no petty attacks.
Happy anniversary all!
I was away for a couple of days, watching my beloved Red Sox lose their home opener on a beautifully sunny Tuesday afternoon, and I had to come home to this “local institution stops being used by its customers, who then wonder why it’s going away” storyline that is supposed to make readers think wistfully about vanishing small businesses, movie theaters, print newspapers, and so on in our own lives yet again? Sorry, not happening.
Coincidentally, Ed’s policy of only buying one screw at a time is the same reason Centerville’s oldest bordello is also going out of business.
Also, whoever the friend of Batiuk or Davis was that was the model for the store clerk in today’s strip, I hope you liked it.
There was Blondie this week that featured “Dr Levine.” Seeing a realistically drawn human head on one of those weird insect bodies the strip has was Croenenbergian.
Sheesh even the Wonder Years did a better story about small businesses vanishing. They nailed it: convenience. The Dad avoids the hardware store because the chain store by the mall has better parking and better selection and he can do the rest of his shopping there.
But for Batty, it’s always about the little guy getting screwed.
So tired, so played out.
It’s against Tom Batiuk’s MO to explore the real reasons behind anything. If the Funkyverse characters thought about these things like Wonder Years Dad did, they might realize the loss of something they love was partially their own fault. And Tom Batiuk can’t have THAT. His characters are always innocent victims of circumstance in a cruel world. Even when they let their own wife die and their own child be neglected rather than make a decision on anything.
And today’s thing is all about how Ed doesn’t provide enough business to keep the store open.
Happy anniversary! Big thanks to CBH, BJ6K, Epicus, and TFH for keeping us running, and for the commenters who keep making these discussion worthwhile.
Crankshaft‘s descent into Act IV of Funky Winkerbean has been somewhat interesting to watch, though I don’t think as morbidly fascinating as Act III FW was (the allegedly upcoming “burnings” notwithstanding). It lacks the ambitions that TB still seemed to have to the end of Act III, which makes it simultaneously a better strip and a worse strip… or rather a less infuriating strip but also a less interesting strip. The endless art swipes are probably more interesting than the blandly weak to blandly serviceable (like today’s) gags that TB keeps putting forth.
Thanks TFH, for letting us keep the ball rolling even after the hill we were careening down technically ended. You were within your rights to draw a line under things, but instead opted to let the lunatics run away with the asylum.
And thanks to the little dedicated core of all you commenters crouched in battered remains of the bandwagon. Banana Jr and I both have plans for future subjects, but I’m also open to suggestions from the peanut gallery.
Can anyone out there explain Batiuk’s fetish for reverse chronological strips? Was he entranced by that backwards episode of “Seinfeld” with the Indian wedding or Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal”? There was absolutely no reason for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s hardware hi-jinx to be in that manner; the “jokes” would have played out the same in normal time. Does he think it’s “deep” or “classy” or “Pulitzer-worthy”? .s’worromot ot drawrof gnikool toN
Batiuk’s new penchant for out-of-sequence jokes lives at the five-way intersection of:
1. Pretentious writing. He saw non-linear storytelling done somewhere, and thinks his work will be more writer-y if he copies it.
2. Useless rules. Non-sequential storytelling is another useless technique Batiuk has latched on to, like his “rules for cartooning” and “arcs must be exactly week long but no more than three unless they’re broken up.” It’s a pattern he can follow, without having to understand why it works.
3. Fetishizing unimportant objects. Today’s cash register is like the spinner rack from his imperious Rexall, Bull’s football helmet, and everything Lisa ever touched.
4. Fierce, pointless, resistance to change. In the last month, we’ve seen Ed mail-order huge piles of stuff, but only buy one screw from his all-of-a-sudden precious hardware store.
5. The characters’ lack of effort to bring about the things they want. Yesterday’s joke was that Ed was doing almost nothing to keep the hardware store in business. We’ve just seen him buying six figures’ worth of things from mail-order.
By the way, 2 through 4 are all traits of autistic people. And I don’t think I’ve talked about #4 in this context before. “Things must be the way they always were” and “things must be done exactly the way I think is correct but I won’t tell you what that is” are major themes in the Funkyverse.
Happy Anniversary, Son of Stuck Funky! 😍🤟
I would like to express my gratitude to TF Hackett and Epicus Doomus for carrying on the work that Stuck Funky started and for maintaining the website that we all enjoy so much. I would also like to thank all the bloggers and guest bloggers who have written a blog on SoSF, with a special mention to Comic Book Harriet and Banana Jr. 6000, who continue to produce enjoyable blogs on a product that has long surpassed its “best by” date. Lastly, I would like to thank all the commenters who make the discussion an interesting and engaging read.
The SoSF community is an exceptional online social platform where everyone is polite and friendly. Conflict on SoSF is a rare occurrence, which makes it a unique experience. I have participated in various forums, such as IMDB and NFL.com. However, both of these forums were shut down because they no longer provided a positive and valuable experience to many of their participants. The moderators were overwhelmed, and the forums had evolved into a place of squabbling and insults. I used to enjoy participating in discussions on the Comics Kingdom, but the hosts also decided to change their commenting platform due to the toxicity of the discussions. Unfortunately, this change caused many users to leave and move to other comic websites.
I regret not switching to Son of Stuck Funky earlier. I enjoyed participating in the Funky Winkerbean discussion on Comics Kingdom and made many online friends there. However, it often felt like some commenters were only making snarky comments for the upvotes. They didn’t really know the history of Funky Winkerbean. Son of Stuck Funky, on the other hand, always felt like a more serious and knowledgeable community of people who were passionate about the comic. I was a little slow joining the “big kids’ table.” Thank you for welcoming me.
What a coincidence. The banner at the top of the page is “Stuck Funky.”
https://youtu.be/knp9-GY6fHE (I can’t seem to embed the video. Oh, well).
TL;DR:
You folks rock! Thanks for having me.
Hooray for SoSF! I’m kind of amazed by how it’s still chugging along, but not surprised, as both TFH and myself knew all along that Harriet and Banana were up to the task. The secret is that you have to care on some level. I always felt that FW had personally wronged me, so I cared on that level, which in turn motivated me to wrack my brain trying to come up with a nutty, clever post title for a post about a comic strip that consisted of a disagreeable bushy-haried woman opening some mail, to cite just one example.
I can’t make myself care about (or read) Crankshaft, but by God, I’m glad someone, somewhere, sort of does. In a way, the decision to kill FW and keep Cranskshaft going seems even more bizarre now, but in hindsight, it was really the only possible outcome all along. It’s Batiuk, and nothing he does really surprises me anymore.
Anyhow, thanks to all for following our humble rules and giving me almost nothing to do. Keep it up, but remember, I have my eye on you. Singular, as the other one is looking at other stuff.
Okay, so, Friday’s ‘Shaft lets the riveting hardware store drama unfold in linear time. And what drama it is, as Ed seems to think that said store contains “the last cash register on planet Earth,” because he apparently never runs across one at the Dale Evans, Montoni’s, Margo Lanes, the Sprawl-Mart, or any of those other places he frequents.
Also, Ed seems to think that Mitch is his “grandson” and refers to him as such. A shortened term of endearment, a sign that senescence is kicking in, or more proof that Batiuk doesn’t care and will just be phoning it in for the rest of the year? You make the call.
Thanks to everyone who mentioned me, and to everyone who enjoys being here. I also express my great thanks to TFH and ED for keeping this place going for so many years, and to CBH for being my co-worker of sorts.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Mitch: “starts speaking something that sounds like Gen Alpha Brainrot”
(Me, a Zoomer, runs to from the hardware store, and snatches a phone away from Mitch”
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Pam: Wait a second, why is Mitch talking about this thing called “Skibidi toilet”? WHAT THE HELL IS A “GYATT”?!
Crank:
I love Skibidi Toilet. I also love Skibidi toilet hate. I am a complex and interesting individual.
I’m kind of afraid to watch Skibidi Toilet, for fear it’ll be completely incomprehensible to me. I’m early-50s and I’ve never been this far out of the zeitgeist.
Even though I’m enough of a square that in college, my response to an ad for strange new kid’s TV show was “who the hell is going to watch this? It was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. True story.
It’s a Herculean task this site takes on: make discussions about the 21st century work of Tom Batiuk worth reading. That you continue to do it is nothing short of amazing.
I appreciate SoSF’s thoughtful snark, and the entertaining, well-informed digressions!
CS, 4/13:
“We’ve got our comic book store, our handicapped-inaccessible bookstore, a gross pizza place run by an idiot and his pizza-boxed loonie ‘partner,’ but—Oh, whither thou, Sacred Hardware Store! If I’d but spent a vast fortune on eclipse junk from YOU just days ago, you might still be open! Gee, it’d just be swell if we ever got a grocery store!” (Exeunt store; Crank gets run over by a “UPX” truck delivering another pallet of Bean’s Butt mulch) Ed’s last, dying words, gasped through a broken jaw—“It’s—it’s—only a comic strip!”
And we end the week with a nitwit making a point of not understanding that The Big Box Store FROM OUTSIDE isn’t filled with OUTSIDE PEOPLE who Don’t Care about the town. Batiuk doesn’t want to admit that it’s the only game in town for the people in his community and it bloody well shows.
In case you were wondering who the hardware store guy was:
https://medina-gazette.com/news/356091/medina-hardware-to-close-its-doors-in-future/
Thanks for this! The drawing was too specific NOT to be based on a real-life person.
As for the actual story — while it must be hard to let a 150-year-old business go, his functioning farm and rental properties should take care of generating some income, and keeping him busy. I’m guessing that Medina Hardware was taking up three-quarters of his time, and providing less than half his income … and who’d want to buy that?
Yeah, Medina Square is a typical little town in Ohio. It is cute, but impractical. The place is packed with people on weekends and there is little parking. Nostalgia doesn’t pay the bills.
Watterson lived in a similar small town called Chagrin Falls. Last I heard he bought an old house in Cleveland Heights.
Chagrin Falls was also where Doug Kenney came from. Co-founder and writer for National Lampoon, and co-writer of Animal House and Caddyshack. In the former, he played Stork. ”What ya expec us t’do, ya moron?”
Thanks for sharing, Rusty. It appears the business has permanently closed. It’s a shame.
Today’s Crankshaft:
Mitch: Can’t hear you, Gramps. I’m too busy watching Skibidi Toilet, LankyBox, and Grimace Shake. I have become Rizzer, destroyer of gen alpha.
Crank: Gen Alpha is absolutely screwed.