I know there’s been a couple extra days gap between posts, sorry about that guys! It was a busy week of moving spring cows and their calves out to pasture.
The hills are alive, with the sound of mooing.
This weekend, however, the skies opened up and we got a near biblical amount of rain. So while I wait for the creeks to sink back into their banks, and the mud to dry up, I finally had a chance to curl up with my brand new (used) Volume 2 of The Complete Funky Winkerbean.
Whenever I crack one of these open, I’m always looking for firsts and lasts. Thumbing through 1975-1977, I could watch the early cast members that Batiuk had become indifferent to fade away, usually replaced with louder, simpler, and more easily digestible tropes.
March 8, 1975, last appearance I could find of Roland Mathews, who was pretty much replaced with Crazy Harry.
July 4, 1976, Livinia Swenson goes out with a bang. She’s functionally replaced by Holly Budd and Mary Sue Sweetwater for the rest of the 70’s and early 80’s. Meaning Funky and crew no longer have a female friend who isn’t either an unattainable distant creature of popularity and lust, or a one note manic joke. July 29, 1976, last appearance of Roland’s father, Mr. Mathews. May 14, 1977, last appearance of ‘Wicked’ Wanda Waskowski.June 14, 1977, last appearance of Jan the Woman’s Club lady. She and Marcia had been supplanted by Rita Wrighton, Ann Randall and a couple of their friends, Sally and Joan, as Batiuk’s vector for upper middle class woman humor. I don’t care what Simpsons predicted…Funky Winkerbean predicted Fifty Shades of Grey!Uh, now this kink stuff is going a little toooo far.
In the ‘firsts’ column for Volume 2, we have a couple of diversity hires.
September 5, 1975, first visual appearance of Junebug Jones. December 1, 1975. Junebug is named, speaks, and is established in a relationship with fellow tokenee, Derek. May 3-5, 1977, First appearances of Nate Green for a three strip interview.
In September 20, 1977, he’s introduced by name as the new teacher.
Mr. Green would eventually inherit the principal position at Westview during the Act II to Act III time skip. A position he would hold until the end of the strip, appearing for the last time on November 22, 2022.
And oh hey! Look who it is? The Time Mop himself.
Harley Davidson, first appearance October 16, 1977.
And now. BEHBEH MOOOOOS
What’s that is a sea of black and brown?Is it a single Charolais calf just for Sorial Promise? Yes it is!By the way, the one with the heart on her head is Sweetheart. And the reddish black one is THE DEVIL.
It’s not Dinkle vs Crankshaft, it’s more like Dinkle 💗 Crankshaft. Ed’s making excuses for being a bad bus driver, and Dinkle’s smiling at the memory of missing a band performance. They’re both way out of character.
The real Ed Crankshaft would have driven to the wrong school on purpose, if it put him in a better position to win the traffic jam game. And Harry Dinkle would have immediately gotten Crankshaft fired, if not shot. Crankshaft would win this power struggle, because being fired or shot would have no effect. He refuses to die or go away.
But you know why they’re behaving this way, don’t you? Because it’s a book signing. Book signings in the Funkyverse are a display of status. The person doing the signing is displying his dominance (and it’s always “his” dominance). Why do you think Les Moore has had the most?
And everyone knows their place in their hierarchy. Funkyverse characters are required to attend all book signings, graciously wait their turn, and allow themselves to be insulted in a way the writer thinks is too subtle for them to understand.
Because only writers do book signings. And writers are far, far superior to you.
ComicBookHarriet,
1. I was going to praise you for forcing yourself to read and research TB’s Funky Winkerbean. Yet, these are the good years! He is funny. He is on his “A” game. He breaks the 4th wall like a professional. His smirks are hilarious. CBH, thank you for buying a new/used book.
2. Please! Please tell me the context of the 2 female tennis players asking about wearing diapers??? Where did that come from? (Wow! Be Ware of Eve Hill is going to nail me for ending a sentence with a preposition!)
3. One last question regarding the 2 tennis players. I believe the short girl on the right is named Joan. The second panel on the strip about “Flaming Bondage”, is that you? You have a FW doppelgänger! (I believe the word comes from the Fiji translation of the German word for “family relative”. BUT C’mon! THAT IS YOU!
All TB needed to do was draw up in the corner a tiny cow chewing its cud in a tiny pasture.
4. On March 8, 1975, Roland says his last goodbye. That was a home run strip by the way. Life ended for him. YET! Life began for me. March 8, 1975 is my wedding day! We just celebrated our 49th anniversary. I married the girl we all call Lucky.
5. A special thank you for the call-out for the Charolais calf! What a cutey. I almost didn’t notice him among all the black and brown Angus. 🤩 Thank you, again.
6. It did remind me of a film by Woody Allen, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)”. The last segment starred Burt Reynolds. There was a scene in the tube that looked like the negative image of your all black calfs and one white Charolais baby. I believe Anonymous Sparrow could provide further info regarding the film. 🎥
7. It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that ComicBookHarriet is absolutely wonderful!
🌺💐🌹🫂❤️💖🩷
March 8th falls between two birthdays: my stepmother’s (the 7th) and my friend Richie’s (the 9th)
The Ides we must beware!
The segment of “Everything…” you mention deals with what happens during ejaculation (“you took an oath to fertilize an egg or die,” as one sperm reprimands another when said sperm proves reluctant to engage in penetration) and Burt Reynolds is the sperm switchboard chief coordinating operations. I don’t remember a character such as you describe, but I saw the movie some forty years ago under strange circumstances.
For I was in Paris, (every weekend I saw something in English, and this was the best for that particular one) and the film had English subtitles…save in the “Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm?” sequence, which is a parody of Italian cinema…and which is in Italian! The subtitles in France are, of course, in French, and I remember that first when I think of the picture, in part because
(Tom Batiuk will love this!)
when *Action Comics* became a weekly, it had a *Phantom Stranger* serial in which Bruce Gordon (Hero and Villain in One Man, as he’s also Eclipso!) took the Stranger to see “Everything…” and explained what Woody Allen was doing there. The Stranger appeared to understand, but didn’t seem to be especially amused.
Runners-up in the memory: the use of “Let’s Misbehave” on the soundtrack; Lynn Redgrave as a kooky queen; and a rabbi enjoying a bondage fantasy while his wife eats pork.
“The mind chooses what it will remember, as with Madame Xanadu and I regarding the origins of the Black Orchid, but my version is correct, for I am the Phantom Stranger and, like many, I prefer Mr. Allen’s early, funny movies…”
Anonymous Sparrow! Cheers!
1. The scene in the film that I described, is when all the white sperm are ready for lift off, and the camera focuses on one individual black sperm asking, “What am I doing here?” I did not go into detail for fear of offending CBH—-being such a delicate maiden. (Although the things that she has seen in the annals of animal husbandry would probably make both of us blush!)
2. I also enjoy the work of Woody Allen. My favorite is “Midnight in Paris”. To me it is magical. It also has Be Ware of Eve Hill’s favorite actor, Owen Wilson. Allen was very experimental in the early going. It was amazing that he was able to fund the movies that he made. I enjoyed: “Love and Death”, “Sleeper”, “the Front”, “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy”, “Zelig”, and “the Purple Rose of Cairo”.
I am old enough to remember Allen doing stand up, and I believe he subbed for Johnny Carson several times.
3. Back in the ‘60’s, ABC honored old time Rock and Roll. I waited all hour for them to play the song, “Alley Oop”.
You are a good person!
It also has Be Ware of Eve Hill’s favorite actor, Owen Wilson.
Sorial Promise
Just for the SoSF record. Sorial Promise is teasing. We disagree on Owen Wilson’s acting ability. To me, he’s a one-note actor. He pretty much plays every role the same way.
*MAD’s* parody of “Bullitt” begins with an introduction declaring that in every role Steve McQueen plays he’s Steve McQueen, and that it’s no exception as he does his “Bullbit” (the title of the movie satire, of course).
I don’t know enough about Owen Wilson’s career to have any strong opinions about his work, but what you wrote reminded me of my father’s comments about character actors. A true character actor, he said, should be someone capable of playing anything; however, the term had come to mean an actor who specialized in playing a certain role.
I had a good example of the hazards of this in the 1940 “Pride and Prejudice,” in which Edna May Oliver played Lady Catherine de Burgh. In Jane Austen’s novel, Lady Catherine is a very nasty soul; as Oliver played flinty, good-hearted spinsters as a rule, it turns out that her dramatic scene with Elizabeth Bennet (Greer Garson) is actually a test to see whether she’s the right woman for her nephew Darcy: she’s delighted that she passed, which Austen’s dowager would certainly not have been.
(How dare you pollute the shades of Pemberley!)
If Thelma Ritter had played her, the performance would have been truer to the source material.
Anonymous Sparrow,
1. Edna May Oliver was a joy to watch. I remember her fondly from John Ford’s “Drums along the Mohawk” with Henry Fonda. Her scene defending her property against marauders is heroic. Then I enjoyed her in “Tale of Two Cities”. She was so good that Warner Brothers caricatured her in one of their Merry Melodies cartoons.
2. I looked up “Shades of Pemberley”. Well worth my time.
3. PUNS: (or just bad jokes)
—-What did the zebra say the first time he saw a piano? Dad?!!?
—-How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles.
—-My friend entered a pun contest.
He entered 10 because he figured one of them would win, but no pun in ten did. (Sorry!)
4. 1960’s Marvel:
Many things to praise, such as Lee, Kirby, and Ditko given the freedom to create art. Yet, I will go a little deeper regarding the fan experience. Marvel became a comics company that treated adolescents and other readers as mature adults. It begins with the writing and artwork, but it bled into the comments page. The letter writer knew to whom he was writing. (That was for BWOEH) and we asked intelligent questions and got intelligent responses.
💎I hear from those who know that if you write a polite letter to Tom Batiuk, he responds quickly and politely.💎
*Anonymous Sparrow is held in high praise in this house in Missouri!*
“Drums Along the Mohawk” also has a terrific supporting role for Arthur Shields, Barry Fitzgerald’s brother. (Both brothers are in “The Quiet Man” thirteen years later.) I’d like to see “Drums” again, as I’m much more familiar with other Ford films from that time (“Stagecoach,” “Young Mr. Lincoln” and “The Grapes of Wrath”). It’s Ford’s first color film.
Oliver worked with Orson Welles on a radio adaptation of Agatha Christie’s *Murder of Roger Ackroyd.* She’s Caroline Sheppard. At the show’s end, Welles and Oliver play off one another as detectives, for Oliver played Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers (a schoolteacher sleuth) in several 1930s movies. (Welles is Hercule Poirot and Dr. James Sheppard here.)
The Shadow knows that both are excellent and there is no point choosing between them. To do so would cause the weed of crime to bear even bitterer fruit.
“That kind of fun’s the lowest,” we hear W.S. Gilbert write of puns in *The Grand Duke* (the last collaboration with Arthur Sullivan), but they can be works of art in the right hands, or as punch lines to shaggy-dog stories, as Stephen King notes in *Danse Macabre* with “Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear” and “that’s a long, long way to tip a Rari.”
When Jack Kirby died in 1994, it struck me as fascinating that so many of his creations for Marvel were appearing in titles, while over at DC, his creations were much less visible.
As a former letterhack and student of letter columns, I note that Marvel invited you to be friendly (“Dear Stan and Jack,” over at *Fantastic Four* and “Dear Stan, Gary and Dick” at *Sgt. Fury* after Lee stopped writing it) while DC letters began with “Dear Editor,” unless someone felt opinionated and started with “Giordano, have you gone nuts?” (as Carl Gafford did in a letter to *Strange Adventures*).
Fanny Price from *Mansfield Park* is probably the least loved of Jane Austen’s heroines, though Whit Stillman champions her in “Metropolitan.”
A later Stillman film, “The Last Days of Disco,” pays tribute to *Uncle Scrooge* comic-books.
Years ago, I thought Edna May Oliver would fit the role of Lillian McKenzie. Years have passed, and my opinion of Lilian McKenzie has soured considerably. I wouldn’t want to impose the role of the deplorable Lillian on a classy lady like Edna May.
Instead, how about casting the late Harry Dean Stanton in drag, wearing a white hen wig, glasses with thick black frames with coke-bottle-bottom lenses? Preferably overdubbed by Tress MacNeille’s cat lady. (chef’s kiss)
One of my favorite character actors is John Qualen, as seen in Casablanca and The Grapes of Wrath, among other roles. You might not recognize the name, but if you saw his photo, you’d likely say, “Oh, yeah. That guy!” Cloris Leachman too.
Next time I see “Paris, Texas,” I’ll see Harry Dean Stanton in a whole new light, thanks to you!
John Qualen was one of John Ford’s stock company until near the end (“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “Donovan’s Reef” and “Cheyenne Autumn”), and yet he never had a role as juicy as Thomas Mitchell in “Stagecoach” or Donald Crisp in “How Green Was My Valley.” (Both Best Supporting Actor winners.) As Muley Graves in “The Grapes of Wrath,” he has his greatest moment — he’s positively haunting as that touched sharecropper — but for the rest, he’s solid and dependable, someone who brings what’s needed to the part yet isn’t the sort to make you think “no one could have played that better.”
I mean, I forgot that he was Berger in “Casablanca,” yet remembered that he was Axel in “The Long Voyage Home.”
And he’s not the first association I make with “The Searchers.” (That’s the fact that Buddy Holly took “That’ll Be the Day” from Ethan Edwards’s frequent — five times, I think — retort when someone wants him to abandon his quest.)
I imagine that Lillian sees herself as someone nearer to Thelma Ritter than to Edna May Oliver.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Thanks to you, I just heard of John Qualen yesterday. 😉🙃🤓🤥😎He was part of the glue that holds “Casablanca” together. Strong role in “Long Voyage Home”. John Wayne acts. I remember seeing Qualen in a good role in “the Searchers”. Wayne acts again. “That’ll be the day!” That brings me to the next part. Qualen has a small part in “North to Alaska”. But so does another Scandinavian, Karl Swenson. To my mind that is the only film they were in together. Swenson has the dubious fate of being in the way of an Apache attack in “Ulzana’s Raid”. Tragic. But he was also in lighter fare. He played the mysterious Mr. McBeevee in one of the better episodes of “Andy Griffith”. Michael Landon enjoyed him, and his final role was in “Little House on the Prairie “.
BWOEH, do you know the last film of John Qualen? This is more of an Anonymous Sparrow question, but you are so darn cute and coquettish, I must ask. Do not confuse it with a similarly named Ursula Andress film. I understand that she is tall also. Qualen’s last film is: “Frazier, the Sensuous Lion”. I have not seen it. I am just assuming it is quite different from Ursula’s film.
Well, guess what? Now it is Friday. Have a great weekend. If possible, spoil Mr. BWOEH even more this weekend.
❤️💖🩷🫂🌺💐🌹
Question for everyone: I miss hearing from the Duck of Death/the Drake of Life. If you know the Drake, please pass it on.
A most excellent consideration of the careers of John Qualen and Karl Swenson, sir!
If you’re looking for another member of John Ford’s stock company to examine, I recommend Willis Bouchey, who doesn’t go back as far as Qualen, but who gets the last line in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and is especially good in “The Horse Soldiers” (Ford’s only full-length Civil War movie) and “Sergeant Rutledge.” Away from Ford, he’s in a neat post-apocalypse picture called “Panic in Year Zero!” for Ray Milland and in the one “Twilight Zone” episode Ida Lupino directed (“The Masks”).
Another of Ford’s regulars was Jane Darwell, and I swear that in listening to an episode of “Broadway’s My Beat” about the murder of a Jane Darnell, someone calls the victim “Jane Darwell.” I guess that’s what happens when you don’t feed the birds!
Mary Poppins is practically perfect, but Summer Moore is nowhere near.
Never heard of Repo Man? I’ve stumped the Sparrow! (victory dance to the Repo Man theme by Iggy Pop)
Along with Harry Dean Stanton, Repo Man stars Emilio Estevez, who was at the height of his popularity in the mid 1980s. The movie features another character actor, Tracey Walter as Miller.
Miller:The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
——————————–
The casting of Lillian McKenzie, cont’d: The entirety of Hollywood refuses to be cast as Lillian. The usage of CGI is attempted, but antivirus software confuses the image of Lillian with malware and deletes it. Lillian insists the only person who can do her character any justice is herself.
Well, Mickey Spillane did play Mike Hammer in “The Girl Hunters.”
And Joseph McCarthy played himself in the 2005 “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
In the original production of *Arsenic and Old Lace,* Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster, who’d had a plastic surgery operation which made him look like…Boris Karloff! *Time’s* review said he was every bit as terrifying as was in “Frankenstein.” (In the 1944 movie, Raymond Massey took the role.)
Last weekend I saw a revival of the 1960 musical *Do Re Mi,* which includes the song “Make Someone Happy.” If I could make BWOEH dance, it may actually pay to be ignorant.
If nothing else, I’m glad to be stumped, which is like being glad to be unhappy (ah, Rodgers & Hart, who wrote songs everybody knows from shows nobody remembers…such as *On Your Toes,* the source of “Glad to Be Unhappy”).
In one of my brother’s *National Lampoons,* there was an ad for an album collecting Woody Allen’s stand-up routines. I gather that he told a lot of wife jokes (his first wife, Harlene Susan Rosen, was not amused), which I haven’t heard, and the “Moose” routine, which can still make me smile (“Moose mingles. Did very well. Scored”).
“The Front” has a screenplay from Walter Bernstein. In Ruth Franklin’s biography of Shirley Jackson (*A Rather Haunted Life*), there’s a funny story about his meeting with Stanley Edgar Hyman. Hyman objected to his penchant for puns and while Bernstein could see his point, he said that puns for him were like breathing: he couldn’t live without them. Hyman learned to grin and bear it. (Or cover his ears: I’m not sure what you do to protect yourself from puns, apart from not reading Tom Batiuk comic strips.)
Allen also found his way into comic-books: he met the Maniaks in *Showcase* #71 and was a party guest in the *3 Girls — Their Lives, Their Loves* serial in *Heart Throbs.* Over at Marvel, he’s on a poster at the Coffee Spoon in *Spider-Man* (the 1967 Annual) and the *Not Brand Echh* Bruce Banner (Banter?) gets mistaken for him at the end of a parody of a clash with the Sunk-Mariner.
(Must look into when Bruce Banner stopped wearing glasses one day. I know that Peter Parker stopped wearing them in *Amazing Spider-Man* #8.)
It suddenly occurs to me that while the latest offerings from Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg turn up the Museum of the Moving Image, I don’t think Allen has enjoyed the benefit of such a screening. Any thoughts, Frankie and Lenny?
2.)Be Ware of Eve Hill is going to nail me for ending a sentence with a preposition!
Well, that’s it. We’re through. I can no longer associate with a philistine who ends their sentences with a preposition. /s
Nah, seriously, if you go out out of your way to avoid ending your sentence with a preposition, it ends up sounding stuffy and/or awkward. Please allow me to rewrite your sentence.
Yours: Where did that come from?
After rewrite:From where did that come?
Stuffy AND awkward! Okay for medieval English, I suppose.
4.) Wow. Somebody married at a young age.
7.) Seconded! ComicBookHarriet is absolutely wonderful!
I had a HS English class in which we were taught medieval words. No one really paid much attention, because what use were these words?
I guess Mr Cass noticed this, because we got a surprise quiz on them. Two words were “betimes” and “yclept.” I blanked, and wrote stuff like “I like reading [newspaper] the Hartford Courant more than I like reading the New York Betimes.” And “I went to the barber, and yclept my hair.”
BilltheSplut,
I thought I knew ‘betimes’. I did not. Yclept was totally new to me. Now is the time to know. I am successful. You and JJ fight the good fight at GoComics. 🫡
Nah, seriously, if you go out out of your way to avoid ending your sentence with a preposition, it ends up sounding stuffy and/or awkward.
I knew I liked you.
I venomously hate that supposed rule “don’t end a sentence with a preposition”. It exhorts you to delete a word that probably needs to be there. Ironically, this is also the problem with the rule itself: it’s missing a word.
You should never end a sentence with an UNNECESSARY preposition.
“Where are you going to”? is the same as “where are you going?” It’s unnecessary. Delete it.
“Where are you from?” is not the same as “where are you?” It adds meaning. Keep it.
The end.
Writers should be trained to instinctively remove unnecessary words. Not blindly follow a special rule for one narrow case. Especially not when that case would have them sacrifice clarity, on the altar of an arbitrary rule that’s wrong half the time.
My mom never went to college but did attend a business school in Boston. She was very well-versed in grammar and was a stickler for correct usage. After we moved from Massachusetts to Ohio, Mom was particularly annoyed by one aspect of Ohio speech – the question, “Where’s it at?”. Whenever she heard this question on TV, my mom would invariably give a disapproving head shake and correct the speaker by saying, “Where is it?”. Followed by the dismissive curse, “Gawd.”
I am not a commenter who can simply write a reply and send it. I usually proofread my comments once or twice. Often, I find myself using the passive voice and overusing the word ‘that’. I have noticed the same tendency in Batiuk’s writing. I am curious if it is a result of the Ohio school system.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
I learned the hard way that* I need to proofread. Back in 2022, CBH and I collaborated on a week of FW fan fiction. On that* last day’s strip, I commented with the word “Shoot!” only I did not spell shoot. I substituted one ‘I’ for the two ‘oo’s.
That* taught me a lesson. I have learned that* lesson. That* has made me a better person. (And that* has brought me in contact with you. For that*, I am eternally grateful.)
My senior year HS English teacher (no, not Les Moore) insisted the word “that” was almost never necessary. When I edit my own work I almost always remove it, and usually cross it out on student papers I am grading
You should not be allowed to do “cranky-old-bus-driver-whatshisname” gags in Crankshaft‘s namesake strip. There oughta be a law!
Gotta give TB credit for writing Harley consistently. He lost the time helmet to Donna, he lost his cover to Summer, and he’s introduced in the strip losing a grease rag that probably creates black holes or something.
“And I swear I found the key to the universe/in the engine of an old parked car…”
— Bruce Springsteen. “Growin’ Up”
Springsteen found inspiration for a song in the Starkweather/Fugate murders (“Nebraska”), but he’d be hard pressed to come up with something honoring Harley Elegant Solution Davidson.
Then again, there is a song celebrating Alley Oop…
That 1st strip is not only funny, but likely the only time I’ve not been driven to SPACE MADNESS by the “stare at the reader to indicate here’s the joke” trope. It’s the last panel, of course that’s where the joke is.
Blondie and Archie do it too much. 2 strips you’ve never heard of, Mr Boffo/Willy & Ethel, do it to the point of insanity. A strip might have 4 characters and a dog, and 3 people AND the dog will stare at you. It was forgivable 15 years ago when the strips were funny, but those days are long gone. I read them just to see how unfunny they are today. Hmm–that’s why I read Blondie and Archie as well. And that one with the bus driver.
She’s riiiiiight on the edge of what we consider unacceptable levels of maternal aggression. Meaning you gotta kinda watch it around her until her calf is a four or five months old. Most of our cows we really only allow to be so protective for maybe the first few days after giving birth, and then we expect them to chill out.
She might be gone after this calf, since she squared up to my dad a couple times this round up. Didn’t chase him, but some snorting and head tossing.
I can’t really say if she looks any more or less meaner than the others lol. I’m more of the city type so I see a cow and I’m more focused on it being a cow than its temperament 🤣🤣.
What do you guys do when a cow gets too ornery to keep being a mother? If it’s site appropriate to say.
If she gets too ornery, too old, or isn’t raising good calves, she gets taken by trailer to the local sale barn and sold as a ‘pound cow’. Those cows get processed into cheaper meat than nice young market animals, but they still get eaten.
My pet cow went to the sale barn just this Saturday, and I was so sad about it, took my time saying goodbye. But she was slowing down a lot, showing some signs of arthritis and respiratory issues, and her last calf had been kind of stunted because she wasn’t producing milk like she should. Better to sell her when she was still worth something, then let her get sick.
A cull cow in decent shape is worth plenty. Right now about a buck a pound. That grumpy old girl is worth more than a thousand. But her calf, when completely finished out at about 2 years old, is worth about twice that per pound.
Beef from older animals is still beef. We’ve had to salvage a old cow that got hurt one winter on the ice. The hamburger was delicious. It had a sort of stronger more minerally flavor, and the maid-rites were mouth watering.
We have had cows die naturally on us, or have to be put down on the farm, but it’s not from a conscious decision to do so. Rather we let them go one year too long and their bodies give out. Cows are such big animals that they can go from ‘moving kind of slow’ to ‘hardly getting around’ in a matter of weeks once their joints start to go. There was an old cow I posted last year, with her last calf, who had to get brought home from the pasture and never made it to the sale barn.
Unlike some other producers we don’t cull at a certain age. Unless a cow is bad, we’re usually keeping them as long as possible. The good ones are getting sold with likely only a year or two of natural lifespan anyway.
A favorite cow, like my pet, might get a bit of a reprieve. Be allowed to slip back in the breeding cycle, lose a calf to misfortune one year, get a little babied with extra feed or the easiest pastures. Get kept an extra few years even if she’s ‘moving slow’ But we’ll still want her to be producing calves. And usually she will.
We have an old cow in the lot right now, getting treated for arthritis. We were going to sell her but took her to the vet first, and the vet said she would calve in a month. And she did, a lovely black bull calf that’s already worth more than she is. But it’s a pain getting her treated and sad to see her gimping around. So that calf is getting weaned early and then she’s getting sold.
They can get so miserable so quickly there at the end of their lives.
Thank you, Comic Book Harriet. Another most enjoyable trip down Funky Winkerbean’s memory lane. A trip that makes most of us ask the question, “Just what the hell happened, Tom?” It’s great seeing the first appearance of Principal Nate and other early FW characters.
Poor ‘Wicked’ Wanda Waskowski. I always got a kick out of how she was drawn. She resembled the offspring between a cabbage patch kid and H.R. Pufnstuf. No wonder she was always so angry.
Ooo. Look. Cows! Thanks for sharing the photos of the little ones. One of the photos reminds me of a mosh pit. I almost want to dive in. Common sense dictates not to. (Hey, SP, I ended my sentence with a preposition 😱)
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Not to be a nitpicker, but a true Medieval Englisher*would count two. In no particular order, I show amended sentences:
1. I almost want to in dive.
2. Common sense not to dictates.
*a minor public service benefitting all purveyors of SOSF.*
🔮I find it very difficult to make up sentences that spontaneously end in a preposition. (Being married for 49 years, my sentences usually end with a “Yes, Ma’am!”)
Anyone mind if I start in on the Tues. 4/30 Dinkleshaft:
So, it appears that Holly Budd Winkerbean (who was last seen living in retirement somewhere in Florida) somehow learned that her former high school band director (who she has encountered several times since leaving school over in FW) was doing a book signing of his most recent memoir at a small used bookshop in central Ohio and decided she would fly/drive/take the train the over 1,000 miles to see him. Also, Dinkleberg apparently goes to these events with readymade release forms, just in case he runs into someone whom he should have gotten to sign such a form before his book went to press.
Yeah, sure, makes perfect sense.
By the by, am I crazy, or didn’t Holly write her own autobiographical book, recounting her glory days baton twirling and self-immolating, sometime in the tail end of Act III? Will she be the guest signer at the Village Booksmith next as this arc reaches the four-week milestone?
You’re not crazy, JJ, Holly’s book was a one-off OMEA gag in 2022.
None of it makes sense. Why does she say she’s ‘Holly Winkerbean now’? She’s been Holly Winkerbean for at least 20 plus years of strip time, since she and Funky married when Cory was little, and now she’s a grandma. And Dinkle knows that full well because they’ve been acquaintances in the same town for most of it.
The last few arcs, I’m starting to suspect more and more that Crankshaft isn’t long for the comic pages, this is feeling like the weird backwards looking victory lap that 2022 was for Funky Winkerbean. Except worse.
I think Crankshaft is done at the end of 2024, because this shit is self-indulgent to the point of spite. He usually doesn’t push THIS hard. “Oh, you’re going to cancel me? Well, I’m going to do nothing but book signing arcs, and show everyone how I’m supposed to be treated.”
Which is all this is. It’s Tom Batiuk’s fantasy that people ooh and aah over him because he’s a writer and you’re not. Which wouldn’t be true even if was a good writer, of more than 20 words a day, of something with actual fans, in a format that isn’t waiting for death.
But it’s the treatment Les got. It’s what Summer got. It’s what Lillian McKenzie got. It’s what Dinkle’s getting. After Dinkle already got a record contract and tour with his nursing home band, and a sales award from the government of Belgium. When all these people are demonstrably shitty at their self-appointed jobs. Which was the joke half the time!
Same with the stupid comic books bullpen. It’s his childhood fantasy of how the creation of his favorite media is supposed to work, and his superstar role within that fantasy. Like I’ve said: Tom Batiuk has severe maturity problems.
The book arcs are like being interviewed by a cop who’s trying to catch you in a lie. “Okay, let’s go over this one more time. A character writes a book and what happens? ‘He gets a publishing contract.’ And then what happens? ‘He does a book signing where he looks down his nose at a long list of adoring fans.’ And then what happens? ‘It gets nominated for awards.’ And then what happens? ‘He gets to make a movie, and he gets absolute veto power over it.'” It’s going to be walked through exactly the same, every time.
This is what The Burnings are going to be, with extra smug martyrdom piled on top of it. The only question is, which benighted hack is going to be at the center of it. My money’s still on Les, though Summer is looking like more of a possibility. The town burning the book that would ultimately “make humanity our nation” would be a very on-brand ending for the Funkyverse and for Tom Batiuk’s career.
Yes, I agree with your predictions BJ. Batty is going to go full on crazy with the stupidity. It would be totally hilarious if the syndicate just cancelled him and refused to run the final strips. Here is your check, now go away.
Do they even have any incentive to stop him from burning it all down?
The Westview Mafia hit on John Darling was the only interesting thing that ever happened in that strip. And I’m sure Batiuk has a contract clause that gives him complete ownership and editorial control of the Funkyverse. So the syndicate has no motivation to preserve the franchise for new creators, a la Mark Trail or Gil Thorp.
If they’re smart, they’re hoping for hilariously bitter fireworks. Batiuk might actually entertain the public for the first time in 30+ years. I’m certainly hoping so. Bring on the Burnings!
I thought he was trying to wrap it up for a while there but there’s also the possibility he’s smoothing out the rough edges to make it run on autopilot, permanently. Yes, i know, even more than that.
I remain suspicious that he wants to keep? sell? pass on? the strip space and leave it running like Garfield or god help us Marvin. Just genial gag-a-day, something you could hire someone to write or draw or both. It’s a bit like a professor getting tenure then hiring his own adjuncts to do the teaching and run the lab… which if they aren’t doing it already, they soon will be.
Batiuk is historically protective of the Funkyverse, and very opposed to letting anyone else do it. He also has no heir apparent, like Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Crock did. He has an adult son, but there’s no evidence he has any interest in cartooning. So I don’t think it’s that.
Tom: Hey Dan Davis, can you keep providing clip art to fill the space on the comics page after i retire?
Dan: No, i could never do that.
Tom: Let me put this another way–can you keep cashing checks made out to whoever fills that space every day, and Venmo half of it to my_artless_progeny@tombatiuk.com?
I recall somebody mentioning Brian Batiuk works in television production in Cincinnati. I’m sure it’s a much more lucrative career than a syndicated newspaper cartoonist.
I’m witnessing more and more cartoonists on GoComics complaining in the comments about how little money they’re making. Batiuk is so fortunate his strip is still in newspapers. Many are not so fortunate. You’re right to worry about the future of comic strips.
Hmm…his son works in television production, just like Pete worked for a film studio, and then Pete decided to ditch that to go into comic books. I wonder if that’s supposed to be a message.
I guess my point was that TB Jr doesn’t have to have an interest in cartooning or any talent in it, he just has to keep the IP intact and farm it out indefinitely. Some of those strips other legacy strips may be done by the heirs but is there any reason they have to be?
So filing the rough edges off and making it as easy as possible to be turned out by some subcontractor could be preferable to just leaving and letting some new strip come in, losing a constant (meager) income stream. I used to resent that but tbh i don’t really expect much from new strips anymore either.
Either way i suppose we’ll see this fall if it continues or not.
I guess I don’t see the need for such a plan. What day-to-day tasks are left to farm out? TB has long had other people doing the art, which is mostly re-used anyway. He’s made the whole franchise so low-effort he can keep doing it himself as long as he stays alive. He’s inadvertently created the perfect zombie strip.
Some of those strips other legacy strips may be done by the heirs but is there any reason they have to be?
bad wolf
You mean like ‘Browne Creative Enterprises’?
The Comics Kingdom’s ‘Meet the Creators’ section for Hägar the Horrible lists Dik Browne, Chris Browne and Chance Brown. Sadly, all three are no longer with us. Chance passing away just recently in early March.
Yet, Hägar the Horrible still features the “Browne” signature. If any of the Brownes are still drawing the strip, Hägar the Horrible would truly be a “zombie strip.”
Bad joke. Shame, bwoeh, shame.
I know Eric Reaves, who draws Hi and Lois, is a member of Browne Creative Enterprises. Perhaps he draws Hägar the Horrible. too.
Anything’s possible, but I’m betting against the “Crankshaft is ending this year” scenario.
1) It’s been reported that Crankshaft is gaining, not losing papers. The syndicate has no interest in shutting down a commercially successful property.
2) I don’t think Batiuk wants to shut it down. It’s an easy gig, and it keeps him (at least vaguely) in the public eye.
3) If getting totally self-indulgent was a reliable predictor of what Batiuk was going to shut down, The Komix Thoughts blog would have been torpedoed years ago.
No disagreement, though for #3 I meant the syndicate would get tired of the self-indulgence. Clearly Funky Winkerbean overstayed its welcome to the point where the syndicate killed it (though that was a different syndicate).
Well, he’s currently with the same syndicate that distributes 9 Chickweed Lane. So clearly, long-running, repetitive, narrowly-focused self-indulgence is not something they’re bothered by.
On 1): I would assume that in the last year, a LOT of inoffensive and bland strips were added. Because of the rapid and IMO deserved departure of Dildobert. I would say it left a Black hole on the comics page, but–oh, Adams just ran away again.
Today’s thing is a follow-on to yesterday’s effort in that yet again, we are expected to let him revise continuity to suit himself. It barely worked in Archie Comics. It doesn’t work here because Dinkle should be asking the Doublemint Twins why they look like two of Becky’s ducklings.
As I type this, I’ve been texting with Kent State Student Son of Fan Fan, who’s still considering whether or not to go to the Batiuk event on campus, which starts in less than an hour.
I said, “Don’t buy a book account on my account”, but if it were me, I might go to check it out, but try to make it look like I was there some something else, and not for the signing.
In the totally different subject department, I sometimes think I should start a blog or write a book or something entitled, “Things my son texts me”. Today he asked, “Do you think I can get him to sign my photo of Henry Kissinger I have in the bathroom?”
I responded,
I don’t know if that’s in the proper spirit of the thing. I never consider myself an expert in etiquette or manners, but I’d be concerned that request may cross the line. On the other hand, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know… But don’t ask him to come to your bathroom! 🙂
If he does attend, I’ll report back on what he says.
Oh, I will have a LOT to say about today’s strip. Harriet promised you a screed about this book signing crap, and today’s shitpost added a couple hundred words to it.
I know the continued school presence of Formerly Retired Formerly Deaf Band Director Harry Dinkle has been questioned as to its plausibility – and I just ran across this reddit post from a year ago:
I’ll copy the text in case the link doesn’t work (huh, looks like it won’t even show up):
I (22f) am a first year art teacher at a high school and I love my job. I even had a mentor, Jack (70m), at the beginning of the year. He was one of the former art teachers at the school, the person after him and before me quit the job. Jack said he would help me with what he could but to keep in mind that he was retired. I was very grateful for his help and quickly got the hang of things so I thought he wouldn’t be coming around anymore. Boy, was I wrong.
He has been at the school almost every day milling around the hall where my classroom is located. Sometimes he comes in and just sits in the corner which I don’t mind too much, however, one particular day he decided to try to take over the lesson. I pretty much kicked him out and he complained to the principal that I wasn’t being a team player.
I tried my best to ignore or work around his presence but it was quite difficult to do so when he kept sending me lesson plans to use. I have told my principal that I find this not only annoying but insulting to my teaching ability and his response is just that Jack is trying to help a “newbie” like me.
It’s all very annoying and I have tried my best to keep my cool but it all came to a head today. My seniors wanted to do a big project so with the help of the office manager, we reached out to a bunch of places to see if they would be willing to donate any materials. For some reason Jack was cc’d on the email but I had grown accustomed to his presence in every corner of my life so I thought nothing of it. That was my first mistake.
My second mistake was not responding to the email right away. The email was asking if I still needed any supplies and then listing what they would be able to donate for my class. When I got back to my home and opened my laptop to reply, I saw that Jack and the company’s rep had already had a conversation on the email thread. Jack replied saying that we didn’t need those supplies and cc’d someone else who could use the materials.
I saw red. I replied to everyone and apologized for the confusion but I did need those materials and that Jack did not work at the school. I then set up a three-way call between Jack, the principal, and myself. I dug into them. They said they were sorry I felt that way but Jack was only trying to help. I said that I didn’t “feel” that way, it’s what was actually happening, and that if they really wanted to help me then Jack could do us all a favor and stay retired.
The principal again reprimanded me, saying that I was being inappropriate and going against the school’s culture. Jack didn’t say anything else and hung up, leaving only me and the principal who told me that the three of us would have a meeting Monday morning when we got back from break.
I am still angry but I also feel bad. He was helpful in the very beginning and I’m sure it’s difficult to leave something you have dedicated so much of your life to. So, AITA for digging into Jack and telling him to stay retired?
It’s all so calculated, isn’t it? 22f “feels bad” and is apologizing all over herself for standing up to this prick, who is way out of bounds. Which is exactly what he wants.
Manipulators know how to exploit the basic decency of others. They see it as a weakness. “But he’s been so nice!” No, he fucking hasn’t. He was nice to get your defenses down, and for no other reason. Like any playground bully, he hits you until you hit back, then goes crying to the principal and acts like YOU victimized HIM. (Les Moore is a master of this.)
22f needs representation at this point. She’s tried to settle this through proper channels, and adminstration sided with the interloper over the employee. I smell a good ol’ boys network. The teacher’s union, school distict adminstration, a lawyer, or the police need to be made aware that this school is letting unauthorized people undermine teachers, and disrupt school activities.
How is this assclown even getting onto a school campus in 2024? Let me guess, it’s a “nice” town like Westview, that prides itself on not having security mechanisms like those awful big-city schools have. Well, this is exactly why they need them. A uninvited visitor doesn’t have to be a child molester to be a nuisance to others.
Son of Stuck Funky 
What he did to them afterwards was instructive. Lavinia just died, Roland had gender reassignment surgery and so on through the Bus Crash.
Today’s I Wanna Strangle Harry L. Dinkle Unconscious and Then Hurl Him Into A Active Jet Turbine/Funky Crankerbean:
Ed Crankshaft Vs. Harry L. Dinkle (AKA The Fat Bus Driver vs The Racist Band Director)
This week is gonna really suck
It’s not Dinkle vs Crankshaft, it’s more like Dinkle 💗 Crankshaft. Ed’s making excuses for being a bad bus driver, and Dinkle’s smiling at the memory of missing a band performance. They’re both way out of character.
The real Ed Crankshaft would have driven to the wrong school on purpose, if it put him in a better position to win the traffic jam game. And Harry Dinkle would have immediately gotten Crankshaft fired, if not shot. Crankshaft would win this power struggle, because being fired or shot would have no effect. He refuses to die or go away.
But you know why they’re behaving this way, don’t you? Because it’s a book signing. Book signings in the Funkyverse are a display of status. The person doing the signing is displying his dominance (and it’s always “his” dominance). Why do you think Les Moore has had the most?
And everyone knows their place in their hierarchy. Funkyverse characters are required to attend all book signings, graciously wait their turn, and allow themselves to be insulted in a way the writer thinks is too subtle for them to understand.
Because only writers do book signings. And writers are far, far superior to you.
They’re both way out of character.
I think Dinkle and Crankshaft were heavily drunk when they were talking in today’s strip
It gets worse. Holly showed up. This could mean the final domino will fall and Dick Facey will appear.
ComicBookHarriet,
1. I was going to praise you for forcing yourself to read and research TB’s Funky Winkerbean. Yet, these are the good years! He is funny. He is on his “A” game. He breaks the 4th wall like a professional. His smirks are hilarious. CBH, thank you for buying a new/used book.
2. Please! Please tell me the context of the 2 female tennis players asking about wearing diapers??? Where did that come from? (Wow! Be Ware of Eve Hill is going to nail me for ending a sentence with a preposition!)
3. One last question regarding the 2 tennis players. I believe the short girl on the right is named Joan. The second panel on the strip about “Flaming Bondage”, is that you? You have a FW doppelgänger! (I believe the word comes from the Fiji translation of the German word for “family relative”. BUT C’mon! THAT IS YOU!
All TB needed to do was draw up in the corner a tiny cow chewing its cud in a tiny pasture.
4. On March 8, 1975, Roland says his last goodbye. That was a home run strip by the way. Life ended for him. YET! Life began for me. March 8, 1975 is my wedding day! We just celebrated our 49th anniversary. I married the girl we all call Lucky.
5. A special thank you for the call-out for the Charolais calf! What a cutey. I almost didn’t notice him among all the black and brown Angus. 🤩 Thank you, again.
6. It did remind me of a film by Woody Allen, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)”. The last segment starred Burt Reynolds. There was a scene in the tube that looked like the negative image of your all black calfs and one white Charolais baby. I believe Anonymous Sparrow could provide further info regarding the film. 🎥
7. It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that ComicBookHarriet is absolutely wonderful!
🌺💐🌹🫂❤️💖🩷
SP:
March 8th falls between two birthdays: my stepmother’s (the 7th) and my friend Richie’s (the 9th)
The Ides we must beware!
The segment of “Everything…” you mention deals with what happens during ejaculation (“you took an oath to fertilize an egg or die,” as one sperm reprimands another when said sperm proves reluctant to engage in penetration) and Burt Reynolds is the sperm switchboard chief coordinating operations. I don’t remember a character such as you describe, but I saw the movie some forty years ago under strange circumstances.
For I was in Paris, (every weekend I saw something in English, and this was the best for that particular one) and the film had English subtitles…save in the “Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm?” sequence, which is a parody of Italian cinema…and which is in Italian! The subtitles in France are, of course, in French, and I remember that first when I think of the picture, in part because
(Tom Batiuk will love this!)
when *Action Comics* became a weekly, it had a *Phantom Stranger* serial in which Bruce Gordon (Hero and Villain in One Man, as he’s also Eclipso!) took the Stranger to see “Everything…” and explained what Woody Allen was doing there. The Stranger appeared to understand, but didn’t seem to be especially amused.
Runners-up in the memory: the use of “Let’s Misbehave” on the soundtrack; Lynn Redgrave as a kooky queen; and a rabbi enjoying a bondage fantasy while his wife eats pork.
“The mind chooses what it will remember, as with Madame Xanadu and I regarding the origins of the Black Orchid, but my version is correct, for I am the Phantom Stranger and, like many, I prefer Mr. Allen’s early, funny movies…”
Anonymous Sparrow! Cheers!
1. The scene in the film that I described, is when all the white sperm are ready for lift off, and the camera focuses on one individual black sperm asking, “What am I doing here?” I did not go into detail for fear of offending CBH—-being such a delicate maiden. (Although the things that she has seen in the annals of animal husbandry would probably make both of us blush!)
2. I also enjoy the work of Woody Allen. My favorite is “Midnight in Paris”. To me it is magical. It also has Be Ware of Eve Hill’s favorite actor, Owen Wilson. Allen was very experimental in the early going. It was amazing that he was able to fund the movies that he made. I enjoyed: “Love and Death”, “Sleeper”, “the Front”, “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy”, “Zelig”, and “the Purple Rose of Cairo”.
I am old enough to remember Allen doing stand up, and I believe he subbed for Johnny Carson several times.
3. Back in the ‘60’s, ABC honored old time Rock and Roll. I waited all hour for them to play the song, “Alley Oop”.
You are a good person!
Just for the SoSF record. Sorial Promise is teasing. We disagree on Owen Wilson’s acting ability. To me, he’s a one-note actor. He pretty much plays every role the same way.
BWOEH:
*MAD’s* parody of “Bullitt” begins with an introduction declaring that in every role Steve McQueen plays he’s Steve McQueen, and that it’s no exception as he does his “Bullbit” (the title of the movie satire, of course).
I don’t know enough about Owen Wilson’s career to have any strong opinions about his work, but what you wrote reminded me of my father’s comments about character actors. A true character actor, he said, should be someone capable of playing anything; however, the term had come to mean an actor who specialized in playing a certain role.
I had a good example of the hazards of this in the 1940 “Pride and Prejudice,” in which Edna May Oliver played Lady Catherine de Burgh. In Jane Austen’s novel, Lady Catherine is a very nasty soul; as Oliver played flinty, good-hearted spinsters as a rule, it turns out that her dramatic scene with Elizabeth Bennet (Greer Garson) is actually a test to see whether she’s the right woman for her nephew Darcy: she’s delighted that she passed, which Austen’s dowager would certainly not have been.
(How dare you pollute the shades of Pemberley!)
If Thelma Ritter had played her, the performance would have been truer to the source material.
Anonymous Sparrow,
1. Edna May Oliver was a joy to watch. I remember her fondly from John Ford’s “Drums along the Mohawk” with Henry Fonda. Her scene defending her property against marauders is heroic. Then I enjoyed her in “Tale of Two Cities”. She was so good that Warner Brothers caricatured her in one of their Merry Melodies cartoons.
2. I looked up “Shades of Pemberley”. Well worth my time.
3. PUNS: (or just bad jokes)
—-What did the zebra say the first time he saw a piano? Dad?!!?
—-How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles.
—-My friend entered a pun contest.
He entered 10 because he figured one of them would win, but no pun in ten did. (Sorry!)
4. 1960’s Marvel:
Many things to praise, such as Lee, Kirby, and Ditko given the freedom to create art. Yet, I will go a little deeper regarding the fan experience. Marvel became a comics company that treated adolescents and other readers as mature adults. It begins with the writing and artwork, but it bled into the comments page. The letter writer knew to whom he was writing. (That was for BWOEH) and we asked intelligent questions and got intelligent responses.
💎I hear from those who know that if you write a polite letter to Tom Batiuk, he responds quickly and politely.💎
*Anonymous Sparrow is held in high praise in this house in Missouri!*
SP:
“Drums Along the Mohawk” also has a terrific supporting role for Arthur Shields, Barry Fitzgerald’s brother. (Both brothers are in “The Quiet Man” thirteen years later.) I’d like to see “Drums” again, as I’m much more familiar with other Ford films from that time (“Stagecoach,” “Young Mr. Lincoln” and “The Grapes of Wrath”). It’s Ford’s first color film.
Oliver worked with Orson Welles on a radio adaptation of Agatha Christie’s *Murder of Roger Ackroyd.* She’s Caroline Sheppard. At the show’s end, Welles and Oliver play off one another as detectives, for Oliver played Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers (a schoolteacher sleuth) in several 1930s movies. (Welles is Hercule Poirot and Dr. James Sheppard here.)
The Shadow knows that both are excellent and there is no point choosing between them. To do so would cause the weed of crime to bear even bitterer fruit.
“That kind of fun’s the lowest,” we hear W.S. Gilbert write of puns in *The Grand Duke* (the last collaboration with Arthur Sullivan), but they can be works of art in the right hands, or as punch lines to shaggy-dog stories, as Stephen King notes in *Danse Macabre* with “Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear” and “that’s a long, long way to tip a Rari.”
When Jack Kirby died in 1994, it struck me as fascinating that so many of his creations for Marvel were appearing in titles, while over at DC, his creations were much less visible.
As a former letterhack and student of letter columns, I note that Marvel invited you to be friendly (“Dear Stan and Jack,” over at *Fantastic Four* and “Dear Stan, Gary and Dick” at *Sgt. Fury* after Lee stopped writing it) while DC letters began with “Dear Editor,” unless someone felt opinionated and started with “Giordano, have you gone nuts?” (as Carl Gafford did in a letter to *Strange Adventures*).
Fanny Price from *Mansfield Park* is probably the least loved of Jane Austen’s heroines, though Whit Stillman champions her in “Metropolitan.”
A later Stillman film, “The Last Days of Disco,” pays tribute to *Uncle Scrooge* comic-books.
Anonymous Sparrow:
Perhaps, but Steve McQueen was cool.
Years ago, I thought Edna May Oliver would fit the role of Lillian McKenzie. Years have passed, and my opinion of Lilian McKenzie has soured considerably. I wouldn’t want to impose the role of the deplorable Lillian on a classy lady like Edna May.
Instead, how about casting the late Harry Dean Stanton in drag, wearing a white hen wig, glasses with thick black frames with coke-bottle-bottom lenses? Preferably overdubbed by Tress MacNeille’s cat lady. (chef’s kiss)
One of my favorite character actors is John Qualen, as seen in Casablanca and The Grapes of Wrath, among other roles. You might not recognize the name, but if you saw his photo, you’d likely say, “Oh, yeah. That guy!” Cloris Leachman too.
Next time I see “Paris, Texas,” I’ll see Harry Dean Stanton in a whole new light, thanks to you!
John Qualen was one of John Ford’s stock company until near the end (“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “Donovan’s Reef” and “Cheyenne Autumn”), and yet he never had a role as juicy as Thomas Mitchell in “Stagecoach” or Donald Crisp in “How Green Was My Valley.” (Both Best Supporting Actor winners.) As Muley Graves in “The Grapes of Wrath,” he has his greatest moment — he’s positively haunting as that touched sharecropper — but for the rest, he’s solid and dependable, someone who brings what’s needed to the part yet isn’t the sort to make you think “no one could have played that better.”
I mean, I forgot that he was Berger in “Casablanca,” yet remembered that he was Axel in “The Long Voyage Home.”
And he’s not the first association I make with “The Searchers.” (That’s the fact that Buddy Holly took “That’ll Be the Day” from Ethan Edwards’s frequent — five times, I think — retort when someone wants him to abandon his quest.)
I imagine that Lillian sees herself as someone nearer to Thelma Ritter than to Edna May Oliver.
Anonymous Sparrow:
Oh… So, you have heard of John Qualen. 😂
Paris, Texas? How about Lillian as Bud in Repo Man? As an added bonus, we get to see her shot and killed by the police. YaY!
More possible actors to cast as Lillian McKenzie:
1.) 1930s era Boris Karloff.
2.) Disgraced comedian/actor Andy Dick. He has his own glasses, and is still alive. At least he was the last I knew.
BWOEH:
John Qualen I know, but “Repo Man” I don’t.
When Alvin York agreed to a biopic about his life, he had three conditions:
Gary Cooper had to play him;
No bosomy starlet should play his wife; and
The picture should be an honest account.
I like to think that Margaret Thatcher accepted the “Iron Lady” film when she learned that Meryl Streep would be playing her
Hmm…Lillian would probably think that Streep would be the perfect actress to portray her in a movie…
Assuming Marianne Winters is unavailable.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Thanks to you, I just heard of John Qualen yesterday. 😉🙃🤓🤥😎He was part of the glue that holds “Casablanca” together. Strong role in “Long Voyage Home”. John Wayne acts. I remember seeing Qualen in a good role in “the Searchers”. Wayne acts again. “That’ll be the day!” That brings me to the next part. Qualen has a small part in “North to Alaska”. But so does another Scandinavian, Karl Swenson. To my mind that is the only film they were in together. Swenson has the dubious fate of being in the way of an Apache attack in “Ulzana’s Raid”. Tragic. But he was also in lighter fare. He played the mysterious Mr. McBeevee in one of the better episodes of “Andy Griffith”. Michael Landon enjoyed him, and his final role was in “Little House on the Prairie “.
BWOEH, do you know the last film of John Qualen? This is more of an Anonymous Sparrow question, but you are so darn cute and coquettish, I must ask. Do not confuse it with a similarly named Ursula Andress film. I understand that she is tall also. Qualen’s last film is: “Frazier, the Sensuous Lion”. I have not seen it. I am just assuming it is quite different from Ursula’s film.
Well, guess what? Now it is Friday. Have a great weekend. If possible, spoil Mr. BWOEH even more this weekend.
❤️💖🩷🫂🌺💐🌹
Question for everyone: I miss hearing from the Duck of Death/the Drake of Life. If you know the Drake, please pass it on.
SP:
A most excellent consideration of the careers of John Qualen and Karl Swenson, sir!
If you’re looking for another member of John Ford’s stock company to examine, I recommend Willis Bouchey, who doesn’t go back as far as Qualen, but who gets the last line in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and is especially good in “The Horse Soldiers” (Ford’s only full-length Civil War movie) and “Sergeant Rutledge.” Away from Ford, he’s in a neat post-apocalypse picture called “Panic in Year Zero!” for Ray Milland and in the one “Twilight Zone” episode Ida Lupino directed (“The Masks”).
Another of Ford’s regulars was Jane Darwell, and I swear that in listening to an episode of “Broadway’s My Beat” about the murder of a Jane Darnell, someone calls the victim “Jane Darwell.” I guess that’s what happens when you don’t feed the birds!
Mary Poppins is practically perfect, but Summer Moore is nowhere near.
Anonymous Sparrow:
Never heard of Repo Man? I’ve stumped the Sparrow! (victory dance to the Repo Man theme by Iggy Pop)
Along with Harry Dean Stanton, Repo Man stars Emilio Estevez, who was at the height of his popularity in the mid 1980s. The movie features another character actor, Tracey Walter as Miller.
Miller: The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
——————————–
The casting of Lillian McKenzie, cont’d: The entirety of Hollywood refuses to be cast as Lillian. The usage of CGI is attempted, but antivirus software confuses the image of Lillian with malware and deletes it. Lillian insists the only person who can do her character any justice is herself.
Well, Mickey Spillane did play Mike Hammer in “The Girl Hunters.”
And Joseph McCarthy played himself in the 2005 “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
In the original production of *Arsenic and Old Lace,* Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster, who’d had a plastic surgery operation which made him look like…Boris Karloff! *Time’s* review said he was every bit as terrifying as was in “Frankenstein.” (In the 1944 movie, Raymond Massey took the role.)
Last weekend I saw a revival of the 1960 musical *Do Re Mi,* which includes the song “Make Someone Happy.” If I could make BWOEH dance, it may actually pay to be ignorant.
If nothing else, I’m glad to be stumped, which is like being glad to be unhappy (ah, Rodgers & Hart, who wrote songs everybody knows from shows nobody remembers…such as *On Your Toes,* the source of “Glad to Be Unhappy”).
Time to read about Robert Moses…
Sorial Promise:
Karl Swenson? Oh, yeah. That guy. I remember him. He was a swede? I like that in a person.
North to Alaska, also starring the handsome and charming Stewart Granger. 😍😘
I confess, I have never seen Frazier, the Sensuous Lion.
Ursula Andress is tall? Ha! Made me look. She’s 5’5″, about average height. Even at 88, she probably looks better in a bikini than me.
You have a great weekend, too, kind sir.
————————–
THE Duck of Death/THE Drake of Life, please come back. I miss your conversations with Banana Jr. 6000. Take care, wherever you are.
SP:
Ah, memories.
In one of my brother’s *National Lampoons,* there was an ad for an album collecting Woody Allen’s stand-up routines. I gather that he told a lot of wife jokes (his first wife, Harlene Susan Rosen, was not amused), which I haven’t heard, and the “Moose” routine, which can still make me smile (“Moose mingles. Did very well. Scored”).
“The Front” has a screenplay from Walter Bernstein. In Ruth Franklin’s biography of Shirley Jackson (*A Rather Haunted Life*), there’s a funny story about his meeting with Stanley Edgar Hyman. Hyman objected to his penchant for puns and while Bernstein could see his point, he said that puns for him were like breathing: he couldn’t live without them. Hyman learned to grin and bear it. (Or cover his ears: I’m not sure what you do to protect yourself from puns, apart from not reading Tom Batiuk comic strips.)
Allen also found his way into comic-books: he met the Maniaks in *Showcase* #71 and was a party guest in the *3 Girls — Their Lives, Their Loves* serial in *Heart Throbs.* Over at Marvel, he’s on a poster at the Coffee Spoon in *Spider-Man* (the 1967 Annual) and the *Not Brand Echh* Bruce Banner (Banter?) gets mistaken for him at the end of a parody of a clash with the Sunk-Mariner.
(Must look into when Bruce Banner stopped wearing glasses one day. I know that Peter Parker stopped wearing them in *Amazing Spider-Man* #8.)
It suddenly occurs to me that while the latest offerings from Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg turn up the Museum of the Moving Image, I don’t think Allen has enjoyed the benefit of such a screening. Any thoughts, Frankie and Lenny?
Don’t forget, Woody Allen had his own comic strip.
BC:
I had forgotten, and I thank you for reminding me.
2.) Be Ware of Eve Hill is going to nail me for ending a sentence with a preposition!
Well, that’s it. We’re through. I can no longer associate with a philistine who ends their sentences with a preposition. /s
Nah, seriously, if you go out out of your way to avoid ending your sentence with a preposition, it ends up sounding stuffy and/or awkward. Please allow me to rewrite your sentence.
Yours: Where did that come from?
After rewrite: From where did that come?
Stuffy AND awkward! Okay for medieval English, I suppose.
4.) Wow. Somebody married at a young age.
7.) Seconded! ComicBookHarriet is absolutely wonderful!
You made my day!😆🤩😎
(I was never any good at Medieval English!)
I had a HS English class in which we were taught medieval words. No one really paid much attention, because what use were these words?
I guess Mr Cass noticed this, because we got a surprise quiz on them. Two words were “betimes” and “yclept.” I blanked, and wrote stuff like “I like reading [newspaper] the Hartford Courant more than I like reading the New York Betimes.” And “I went to the barber, and yclept my hair.”
BilltheSplut,
I thought I knew ‘betimes’. I did not. Yclept was totally new to me. Now is the time to know. I am successful. You and JJ fight the good fight at GoComics. 🫡
Nah, seriously, if you go out out of your way to avoid ending your sentence with a preposition, it ends up sounding stuffy and/or awkward.
I knew I liked you.
I venomously hate that supposed rule “don’t end a sentence with a preposition”. It exhorts you to delete a word that probably needs to be there. Ironically, this is also the problem with the rule itself: it’s missing a word.
You should never end a sentence with an UNNECESSARY preposition.
“Where are you going to”? is the same as “where are you going?” It’s unnecessary. Delete it.
“Where are you from?” is not the same as “where are you?” It adds meaning. Keep it.
The end.
Writers should be trained to instinctively remove unnecessary words. Not blindly follow a special rule for one narrow case. Especially not when that case would have them sacrifice clarity, on the altar of an arbitrary rule that’s wrong half the time.
Where would you put “DAD WHAT ARE YOU DOING”
Thanks.
My mom never went to college but did attend a business school in Boston. She was very well-versed in grammar and was a stickler for correct usage. After we moved from Massachusetts to Ohio, Mom was particularly annoyed by one aspect of Ohio speech – the question, “Where’s it at?”. Whenever she heard this question on TV, my mom would invariably give a disapproving head shake and correct the speaker by saying, “Where is it?”. Followed by the dismissive curse, “Gawd.”
I am not a commenter who can simply write a reply and send it. I usually proofread my comments once or twice. Often, I find myself using the passive voice and overusing the word ‘that’. I have noticed the same tendency in Batiuk’s writing. I am curious if it is a result of the Ohio school system.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
I learned the hard way that* I need to proofread. Back in 2022, CBH and I collaborated on a week of FW fan fiction. On that* last day’s strip, I commented with the word “Shoot!” only I did not spell shoot. I substituted one ‘I’ for the two ‘oo’s.
That* taught me a lesson. I have learned that* lesson. That* has made me a better person. (And that* has brought me in contact with you. For that*, I am eternally grateful.)
Still Gabby says
My senior year HS English teacher (no, not Les Moore) insisted the word “that” was almost never necessary. When I edit my own work I almost always remove it, and usually cross it out on student papers I am grading
The instruction that “you can’t end a sentence with a preposition” ends with “preposition”
Ooooh, I like this. “You should never end a grammar rule with the word ‘preposition’.” I’m going to start using that.
I’ve always been partial to “A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with.”
Just now noticing you put an actual Crankshaft book in instead of the dumb Dinkle book. Above and beyond photoshop shitposting here.
No TB! NO!
You should not be allowed to do “cranky-old-bus-driver-whatshisname” gags in Crankshaft‘s namesake strip. There oughta be a law!
Gotta give TB credit for writing Harley consistently. He lost the time helmet to Donna, he lost his cover to Summer, and he’s introduced in the strip losing a grease rag that probably creates black holes or something.
“And I swear I found the key to the universe/in the engine of an old parked car…”
— Bruce Springsteen. “Growin’ Up”
Springsteen found inspiration for a song in the Starkweather/Fugate murders (“Nebraska”), but he’d be hard pressed to come up with something honoring Harley Elegant Solution Davidson.
Then again, there is a song celebrating Alley Oop…
In the day, I sweat it out in the halls
Of a typical American school
At night, I alter timestreams and stories
Created by a fool
Trapped in pages of a storyline
Unplanned, inconsistent, with a real poor concept of time
Oh baby this strip rips the life from your soul
It’s a death trap, endless St. Lisa crap
I’ve gotta work out how it can stop
Til then, tramps like me, baby I was Born To Mop!
That 1st strip is not only funny, but likely the only time I’ve not been driven to SPACE MADNESS by the “stare at the reader to indicate here’s the joke” trope. It’s the last panel, of course that’s where the joke is.
Blondie and Archie do it too much. 2 strips you’ve never heard of, Mr Boffo/Willy & Ethel, do it to the point of insanity. A strip might have 4 characters and a dog, and 3 people AND the dog will stare at you. It was forgivable 15 years ago when the strips were funny, but those days are long gone. I read them just to see how unfunny they are today. Hmm–that’s why I read Blondie and Archie as well. And that one with the bus driver.
Do I want to know why she’s called ‘THE DEVIL’? 🤣
LOL.
She’s riiiiiight on the edge of what we consider unacceptable levels of maternal aggression. Meaning you gotta kinda watch it around her until her calf is a four or five months old. Most of our cows we really only allow to be so protective for maybe the first few days after giving birth, and then we expect them to chill out.
She might be gone after this calf, since she squared up to my dad a couple times this round up. Didn’t chase him, but some snorting and head tossing.
Plus, she just LOOKS mean, doesn’t she?
I can’t really say if she looks any more or less meaner than the others lol. I’m more of the city type so I see a cow and I’m more focused on it being a cow than its temperament 🤣🤣.
What do you guys do when a cow gets too ornery to keep being a mother? If it’s site appropriate to say.
If she gets too ornery, too old, or isn’t raising good calves, she gets taken by trailer to the local sale barn and sold as a ‘pound cow’. Those cows get processed into cheaper meat than nice young market animals, but they still get eaten.
My pet cow went to the sale barn just this Saturday, and I was so sad about it, took my time saying goodbye. But she was slowing down a lot, showing some signs of arthritis and respiratory issues, and her last calf had been kind of stunted because she wasn’t producing milk like she should. Better to sell her when she was still worth something, then let her get sick.
A cull cow in decent shape is worth plenty. Right now about a buck a pound. That grumpy old girl is worth more than a thousand. But her calf, when completely finished out at about 2 years old, is worth about twice that per pound.
Beef from older animals is still beef. We’ve had to salvage a old cow that got hurt one winter on the ice. The hamburger was delicious. It had a sort of stronger more minerally flavor, and the maid-rites were mouth watering.
Just wondering, since you called one of the cows your pet, have you ever just let any of them just live and die naturally after their usefulness?
I totally understand that you guys need to make money off of them, I’m just curious on the if, and if so, then how that is decided.
@daveydial
We have had cows die naturally on us, or have to be put down on the farm, but it’s not from a conscious decision to do so. Rather we let them go one year too long and their bodies give out. Cows are such big animals that they can go from ‘moving kind of slow’ to ‘hardly getting around’ in a matter of weeks once their joints start to go. There was an old cow I posted last year, with her last calf, who had to get brought home from the pasture and never made it to the sale barn.
Unlike some other producers we don’t cull at a certain age. Unless a cow is bad, we’re usually keeping them as long as possible. The good ones are getting sold with likely only a year or two of natural lifespan anyway.
A favorite cow, like my pet, might get a bit of a reprieve. Be allowed to slip back in the breeding cycle, lose a calf to misfortune one year, get a little babied with extra feed or the easiest pastures. Get kept an extra few years even if she’s ‘moving slow’ But we’ll still want her to be producing calves. And usually she will.
We have an old cow in the lot right now, getting treated for arthritis. We were going to sell her but took her to the vet first, and the vet said she would calve in a month. And she did, a lovely black bull calf that’s already worth more than she is. But it’s a pain getting her treated and sad to see her gimping around. So that calf is getting weaned early and then she’s getting sold.
They can get so miserable so quickly there at the end of their lives.
Thanks for the questions! 😀
Thank you, Comic Book Harriet. Another most enjoyable trip down Funky Winkerbean’s memory lane. A trip that makes most of us ask the question, “Just what the hell happened, Tom?” It’s great seeing the first appearance of Principal Nate and other early FW characters.
Poor ‘Wicked’ Wanda Waskowski. I always got a kick out of how she was drawn. She resembled the offspring between a cabbage patch kid and H.R. Pufnstuf. No wonder she was always so angry.
Ooo. Look. Cows! Thanks for sharing the photos of the little ones. One of the photos reminds me of a mosh pit. I almost want to dive in. Common sense dictates not to. (Hey, SP, I ended my sentence with a preposition 😱)
Headline: Idiot Woman Trampled at Bovine Bash
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Not to be a nitpicker, but a true Medieval Englisher*would count two. In no particular order, I show amended sentences:
1. I almost want to in dive.
2. Common sense not to dictates.
*a minor public service benefitting all purveyors of SOSF.*
🔮I find it very difficult to make up sentences that spontaneously end in a preposition. (Being married for 49 years, my sentences usually end with a “Yes, Ma’am!”)
Anyone mind if I start in on the Tues. 4/30 Dinkleshaft:
So, it appears that Holly Budd Winkerbean (who was last seen living in retirement somewhere in Florida) somehow learned that her former high school band director (who she has encountered several times since leaving school over in FW) was doing a book signing of his most recent memoir at a small used bookshop in central Ohio and decided she would fly/drive/take the train the over 1,000 miles to see him. Also, Dinkleberg apparently goes to these events with readymade release forms, just in case he runs into someone whom he should have gotten to sign such a form before his book went to press.
Yeah, sure, makes perfect sense.
By the by, am I crazy, or didn’t Holly write her own autobiographical book, recounting her glory days baton twirling and self-immolating, sometime in the tail end of Act III? Will she be the guest signer at the Village Booksmith next as this arc reaches the four-week milestone?
You’re not crazy, JJ, Holly’s book was a one-off OMEA gag in 2022.
None of it makes sense. Why does she say she’s ‘Holly Winkerbean now’? She’s been Holly Winkerbean for at least 20 plus years of strip time, since she and Funky married when Cory was little, and now she’s a grandma. And Dinkle knows that full well because they’ve been acquaintances in the same town for most of it.
The last few arcs, I’m starting to suspect more and more that Crankshaft isn’t long for the comic pages, this is feeling like the weird backwards looking victory lap that 2022 was for Funky Winkerbean. Except worse.
I think Crankshaft is done at the end of 2024, because this shit is self-indulgent to the point of spite. He usually doesn’t push THIS hard. “Oh, you’re going to cancel me? Well, I’m going to do nothing but book signing arcs, and show everyone how I’m supposed to be treated.”
Which is all this is. It’s Tom Batiuk’s fantasy that people ooh and aah over him because he’s a writer and you’re not. Which wouldn’t be true even if was a good writer, of more than 20 words a day, of something with actual fans, in a format that isn’t waiting for death.
But it’s the treatment Les got. It’s what Summer got. It’s what Lillian McKenzie got. It’s what Dinkle’s getting. After Dinkle already got a record contract and tour with his nursing home band, and a sales award from the government of Belgium. When all these people are demonstrably shitty at their self-appointed jobs. Which was the joke half the time!
Same with the stupid comic books bullpen. It’s his childhood fantasy of how the creation of his favorite media is supposed to work, and his superstar role within that fantasy. Like I’ve said: Tom Batiuk has severe maturity problems.
The book arcs are like being interviewed by a cop who’s trying to catch you in a lie. “Okay, let’s go over this one more time. A character writes a book and what happens? ‘He gets a publishing contract.’ And then what happens? ‘He does a book signing where he looks down his nose at a long list of adoring fans.’ And then what happens? ‘It gets nominated for awards.’ And then what happens? ‘He gets to make a movie, and he gets absolute veto power over it.'” It’s going to be walked through exactly the same, every time.
This is what The Burnings are going to be, with extra smug martyrdom piled on top of it. The only question is, which benighted hack is going to be at the center of it. My money’s still on Les, though Summer is looking like more of a possibility. The town burning the book that would ultimately “make humanity our nation” would be a very on-brand ending for the Funkyverse and for Tom Batiuk’s career.
Yes, I agree with your predictions BJ. Batty is going to go full on crazy with the stupidity. It would be totally hilarious if the syndicate just cancelled him and refused to run the final strips. Here is your check, now go away.
Do they even have any incentive to stop him from burning it all down?
The Westview Mafia hit on John Darling was the only interesting thing that ever happened in that strip. And I’m sure Batiuk has a contract clause that gives him complete ownership and editorial control of the Funkyverse. So the syndicate has no motivation to preserve the franchise for new creators, a la Mark Trail or Gil Thorp.
If they’re smart, they’re hoping for hilariously bitter fireworks. Batiuk might actually entertain the public for the first time in 30+ years. I’m certainly hoping so. Bring on the Burnings!
And when we beady eyed nitpickers bully him by remembering the past accurately, he can simper that it’s called (inept) writing.
I thought he was trying to wrap it up for a while there but there’s also the possibility he’s smoothing out the rough edges to make it run on autopilot, permanently. Yes, i know, even more than that.
I remain suspicious that he wants to keep? sell? pass on? the strip space and leave it running like Garfield or god help us Marvin. Just genial gag-a-day, something you could hire someone to write or draw or both. It’s a bit like a professor getting tenure then hiring his own adjuncts to do the teaching and run the lab… which if they aren’t doing it already, they soon will be.
Batiuk is historically protective of the Funkyverse, and very opposed to letting anyone else do it. He also has no heir apparent, like Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Crock did. He has an adult son, but there’s no evidence he has any interest in cartooning. So I don’t think it’s that.
Tom: Hey Dan Davis, can you keep providing clip art to fill the space on the comics page after i retire?
Dan: No, i could never do that.
Tom: Let me put this another way–can you keep cashing checks made out to whoever fills that space every day, and Venmo half of it to my_artless_progeny@tombatiuk.com?
Dan: Sure, i could do that!
I recall somebody mentioning Brian Batiuk works in television production in Cincinnati. I’m sure it’s a much more lucrative career than a syndicated newspaper cartoonist.
I’m witnessing more and more cartoonists on GoComics complaining in the comments about how little money they’re making. Batiuk is so fortunate his strip is still in newspapers. Many are not so fortunate. You’re right to worry about the future of comic strips.
Hmm…his son works in television production, just like Pete worked for a film studio, and then Pete decided to ditch that to go into comic books. I wonder if that’s supposed to be a message.
I guess my point was that TB Jr doesn’t have to have an interest in cartooning or any talent in it, he just has to keep the IP intact and farm it out indefinitely. Some of those strips other legacy strips may be done by the heirs but is there any reason they have to be?
So filing the rough edges off and making it as easy as possible to be turned out by some subcontractor could be preferable to just leaving and letting some new strip come in, losing a constant (meager) income stream. I used to resent that but tbh i don’t really expect much from new strips anymore either.
Either way i suppose we’ll see this fall if it continues or not.
I guess I don’t see the need for such a plan. What day-to-day tasks are left to farm out? TB has long had other people doing the art, which is mostly re-used anyway. He’s made the whole franchise so low-effort he can keep doing it himself as long as he stays alive. He’s inadvertently created the perfect zombie strip.
bad wolf:
You mean like ‘Browne Creative Enterprises’?
The Comics Kingdom’s ‘Meet the Creators’ section for Hägar the Horrible lists Dik Browne, Chris Browne and Chance Brown. Sadly, all three are no longer with us. Chance passing away just recently in early March.
Yet, Hägar the Horrible still features the “Browne” signature. If any of the Brownes are still drawing the strip, Hägar the Horrible would truly be a “zombie strip.”
Bad joke. Shame, bwoeh, shame.
I know Eric Reaves, who draws Hi and Lois, is a member of Browne Creative Enterprises. Perhaps he draws Hägar the Horrible. too.
Anything’s possible, but I’m betting against the “Crankshaft is ending this year” scenario.
1) It’s been reported that Crankshaft is gaining, not losing papers. The syndicate has no interest in shutting down a commercially successful property.
2) I don’t think Batiuk wants to shut it down. It’s an easy gig, and it keeps him (at least vaguely) in the public eye.
3) If getting totally self-indulgent was a reliable predictor of what Batiuk was going to shut down, The Komix Thoughts blog would have been torpedoed years ago.
No disagreement, though for #3 I meant the syndicate would get tired of the self-indulgence. Clearly Funky Winkerbean overstayed its welcome to the point where the syndicate killed it (though that was a different syndicate).
Well, he’s currently with the same syndicate that distributes 9 Chickweed Lane. So clearly, long-running, repetitive, narrowly-focused self-indulgence is not something they’re bothered by.
On 1): I would assume that in the last year, a LOT of inoffensive and bland strips were added. Because of the rapid and IMO deserved departure of Dildobert. I would say it left a Black hole on the comics page, but–oh, Adams just ran away again.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
OH NO
IT HAS BEGUN
Les: I AM THE LORD OF LANGUAGE, AND YOU ARE MY ARCHANGELS.
Today’s thing is a follow-on to yesterday’s effort in that yet again, we are expected to let him revise continuity to suit himself. It barely worked in Archie Comics. It doesn’t work here because Dinkle should be asking the Doublemint Twins why they look like two of Becky’s ducklings.
Today’s Harry L. Dinkle is A Fist Magnet (Just Like Les Moore, Jack Doherty and Lillian McKenzie)/Funky Crankerbean
TIMEMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!
As I type this, I’ve been texting with Kent State Student Son of Fan Fan, who’s still considering whether or not to go to the Batiuk event on campus, which starts in less than an hour.
I said, “Don’t buy a book account on my account”, but if it were me, I might go to check it out, but try to make it look like I was there some something else, and not for the signing.
In the totally different subject department, I sometimes think I should start a blog or write a book or something entitled, “Things my son texts me”. Today he asked, “Do you think I can get him to sign my photo of Henry Kissinger I have in the bathroom?”
I responded,
If he does attend, I’ll report back on what he says.
If he wants an autograph, encourage him to go get one. And be courteous, but I think you have that under control.
I have a friend who collects inappropriately autographed books. His prized possession is a copy of Hamlet signed by Weird Al Yankovic.
He did stop by and say Hi, and told Mr Batiuk that his Dad had been reading his strip for a long time. (He didn’t request an autograph.)
We must know … how many other people were there? And how fast were the books flying off the shelves?
As readers here likely expected,
Hey, that’s awesome!
And wittier than the book signing banter in today’s Crankshaft…
What do you mean? First thing i think of when i hear “banned books” is two that are on virtually every required reading list of the last 3 decades.
Oh, I will have a LOT to say about today’s strip. Harriet promised you a screed about this book signing crap, and today’s shitpost added a couple hundred words to it.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Dinkle: I AM THE GREATEST BAND DIRECTOR WHO HAS EVER LIVED!!
(Timemop runs in, and yeets him out of the window)
I know the continued school presence of Formerly Retired Formerly Deaf Band Director Harry Dinkle has been questioned as to its plausibility – and I just ran across this reddit post from a year ago:
I’ll copy the text in case the link doesn’t work (huh, looks like it won’t even show up):
I (22f) am a first year art teacher at a high school and I love my job. I even had a mentor, Jack (70m), at the beginning of the year. He was one of the former art teachers at the school, the person after him and before me quit the job. Jack said he would help me with what he could but to keep in mind that he was retired. I was very grateful for his help and quickly got the hang of things so I thought he wouldn’t be coming around anymore. Boy, was I wrong.
He has been at the school almost every day milling around the hall where my classroom is located. Sometimes he comes in and just sits in the corner which I don’t mind too much, however, one particular day he decided to try to take over the lesson. I pretty much kicked him out and he complained to the principal that I wasn’t being a team player.
I tried my best to ignore or work around his presence but it was quite difficult to do so when he kept sending me lesson plans to use. I have told my principal that I find this not only annoying but insulting to my teaching ability and his response is just that Jack is trying to help a “newbie” like me.
It’s all very annoying and I have tried my best to keep my cool but it all came to a head today. My seniors wanted to do a big project so with the help of the office manager, we reached out to a bunch of places to see if they would be willing to donate any materials. For some reason Jack was cc’d on the email but I had grown accustomed to his presence in every corner of my life so I thought nothing of it. That was my first mistake.
My second mistake was not responding to the email right away. The email was asking if I still needed any supplies and then listing what they would be able to donate for my class. When I got back to my home and opened my laptop to reply, I saw that Jack and the company’s rep had already had a conversation on the email thread. Jack replied saying that we didn’t need those supplies and cc’d someone else who could use the materials.
I saw red. I replied to everyone and apologized for the confusion but I did need those materials and that Jack did not work at the school. I then set up a three-way call between Jack, the principal, and myself. I dug into them. They said they were sorry I felt that way but Jack was only trying to help. I said that I didn’t “feel” that way, it’s what was actually happening, and that if they really wanted to help me then Jack could do us all a favor and stay retired.
The principal again reprimanded me, saying that I was being inappropriate and going against the school’s culture. Jack didn’t say anything else and hung up, leaving only me and the principal who told me that the three of us would have a meeting Monday morning when we got back from break.
I am still angry but I also feel bad. He was helpful in the very beginning and I’m sure it’s difficult to leave something you have dedicated so much of your life to. So, AITA for digging into Jack and telling him to stay retired?
It’s all so calculated, isn’t it? 22f “feels bad” and is apologizing all over herself for standing up to this prick, who is way out of bounds. Which is exactly what he wants.
Manipulators know how to exploit the basic decency of others. They see it as a weakness. “But he’s been so nice!” No, he fucking hasn’t. He was nice to get your defenses down, and for no other reason. Like any playground bully, he hits you until you hit back, then goes crying to the principal and acts like YOU victimized HIM. (Les Moore is a master of this.)
22f needs representation at this point. She’s tried to settle this through proper channels, and adminstration sided with the interloper over the employee. I smell a good ol’ boys network. The teacher’s union, school distict adminstration, a lawyer, or the police need to be made aware that this school is letting unauthorized people undermine teachers, and disrupt school activities.
How is this assclown even getting onto a school campus in 2024? Let me guess, it’s a “nice” town like Westview, that prides itself on not having security mechanisms like those awful big-city schools have. Well, this is exactly why they need them. A uninvited visitor doesn’t have to be a child molester to be a nuisance to others.
She should definitely be talking to her union, and hopefully the union isn’t full of old boys too.
I wonder when Jack last had a security check done?
Lena is required to be the only person not aware of this self-aggrandizing blowhard in order to set up the dumb joke.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Lena: You’re that asshole band director who was fired for being a racist bastard, right?
Dinkle: Right, (pauses) wait, NO I’M FUCKING NOT!!
(Dinkle tries to bodyslam Lena but Rocky and Andy tackle Dinkle to the ground)