I had so much to say about this week in Crankshaft.
- Why did the week start with a holy war against cup holders and fancy armrests?
- Why are fancy armrests an issue when you can simply ignore them if you don’t want to use them?
- Who hates fancy armrests so much they’d choose a movie theater just because they don’t offer them?
- Why are these the same seats the Valentine Theater had before it closed down, became a strip club, and re-opened? Was this some kind of 1940s strip club? (Knowing Tom Batiuk’s tastes, it probably was.)
- Why did Crankshaft and Mary Marzipan enter the theater after Max and Hannah were cleaning it up, something you would do at the end of the night? What non-existent customers even made this mess?
- Who did Ed and Mary pay for their ticket? Did they just walk into the theater?
- Why are they on a date (confirmed by Mary) when she broke up with him in 2010? We haven’t seen Mary since her “bus driver PTSD“, at which time she and Ed were not depicted as a couple.
- Who’s watching Max and Hannah’s small child?
- Why is the theater down to two customers when it looked like this three weeks ago? How the hell is this theater viable?
- Why have they already stopped showing Starbuck Jones III? Could they only afford one screening? Did it bomb harder than Rise of Skywalker?
- How is this even a prank? Shouldn’t a prank confuse or mislead you? All he had to do was look at the sign.
- Could Max and Hannah be any more boring, even compared to other couples in this boring universe?
But all of that pales in comparison to what I’m about to tell you. This blog has a strict no-politics rule (see #3 at right). But we have to discuss a contentious, politicized issue today. Brace yourselves for unpleasantness. I’m not kidding.
The last two days have featured Max putting up a marquee for a movie called Stormy Weather. I thought this would be another Phantom Empire, a 1935 western serial that Tom Batiuk adores and frequently name-drops in his comic strips. So I looked up what this movie is. It’s a 1943 musical with an African-American cast, including the biggest black stars of its day: Cab Calloway (seen by modern audiences in The Blues Brothers), Lena Horne (seen by much smaller modern audiences in The Wiz), jazz pianist Fats Waller, and dancer/singer/actor Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. The movie is a fictionalized biography of Robinson.
So what’s the problem? I’ll let Wikipedia explain:
“Although Stormy Weather and other musicals of the 1940s opened new roles for African Americans in Hollywood, it still perpetuates stereotypes. Notably, the musical numbers in the movie contain elements of minstrelsy. The performance of a cakewalk, for example, features flower headdresses reminiscent of the Little Black Sambo figures used in historical misrepresentations of Black American males.”
😮🤯
Earlier in the week, posted Y. Knott asked me “Did you ever expect that you would — at any point in your life — sincerely and unapologetically type the sentence ‘Oh, I’ll have some things to say about Cup Holder Week?'” Well, I sure as hell didn’t think Cup Holder Week would involve me sincerely and unapologetically typing that paragraph.
And there’s no question this is the movie the Valentine is showing. The July 12 strip depicts the movie poster. It matches the real poster you can see on the movie’s Wikipedia page.
Yes, I know Stormy Weather was racially progressive for its day, just by virtue of existing as a mainstream offering. Yes, I know the movie is part of the National Film Registry for culturally significant films. Yes, I know it’s well-rated on IMDB and other such sites. Yes, I know the argument that media historians shouldn’t shy away from depictions that might come off as troubling today, like certain Tom and Jerry and Warner Brothers cartoons, or Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Yes, I know the “Jumpin‘ Jive” sequence is iconic. (Fred Astaire raved about it. It’s well worth five minutes of your time.)
I don’t want to get into a discussion about any of that. Or of any other buzzwords that become instant flame wars. Let’s just say that our nation has some historical baggage about its handling of race. It makes us all a little careful about what we say and to whom.
You can’t just stick Stormy Weather on a marquee in the year 2024 with no explanation. It invites questions about why, and who its intended audience is. Especially when the theater in question was just visited by Entertainment Tonight for a major Hollywood premiere, and is owned by a prominent white actor. It’s too niche an offering, and too full of depictions that make people uneasy nowadays.
And if you think I’m being overly sensitive about this: do you remember the week Crankshaft ran two different stories? One story was a standard “Ed’s grilling starts major wildfires” shtick. But this was a week when wildfires were doing major damage to Canada, even requiring a provincial capital to be evacuated for three weeks. Arcamax and GoComics ran two different strips all week. We never got an official explanation why. The most likely reason is that the wildfire story was a little insensitive under the circumstances.
It’s common for TV shows and movies to be delayed if the fiction comes off a little too real, in light of recent real-world events. This isn’t quite the same; it’s not a temporary coincidence that will blow over. The idea that the Valentine would show this movie, three weeks after it hosted a mainstream Hollywood premiere, would make a lot of people uncomfortable, or at least confused.
Which I don’t think was Tom Batiuk’s intent. I think he just needed a real movie title to use. He needed one that would make the July 12 joke work, and is consistent with the Valentine’s usual offerings. This movie could have been almost anything. He chose something with minstrelsy in it. That is a baffling choice.
And it’s a great example of Batiuk charging headfirst into something without considering the implications. His past depictions of racism, transsexuality, ill treatment of Muslims, closeted high school students, prisoners of war, PTSD, CTE, suicide, amputation, and even cancer were all appallingly shallow and insensitive. I’m sure he’s trying to honor Stormy Weather. But without any context, exhibiting it feels like a racist joke.
Now that you know what it was and what it contains, read the July 13 strip again. Does that joke hit a little differently now?
Son of Stuck Funky 
I feel embarrassed for batiuk
Related to the Batiukverse: the Week After Wally And Becky Drunkenly Drove Over Nobottom Road
Les: Let me guess, they didn’t even do the lesson in the first place.
Probably because the whole thing happened in the first place
I decided to voice over this one strip, Here’s the file of me voicing over this strip in MP3 audio
WOW, that Susan strip. Her best friend’s dying and…IS THIS JUST ME, or is the “thing she doesn’t tell” “I LURVES YOU MR MOORE”
It’s that, isn’t it?
Man, gotta love that Becky is just described “out of surgery, she’ll be okay” and waived off as we focus on Wally angsting over causing the accident. Fair enough that him being the one behind the wheel is serious, but downplaying anything serious in the moment when it turns out she didn’t even walk away with her whole body (did they just choose not to tell Funky that?), all in the service of a cheap reveal where she’s all “so my scholarship’s useless and my future’s in doubt and looking like eternal high school but I’m good, tell Wally I don’t blame him!”
Reads like an after-school special in that respect.
It was just ghastly, shock-value-crazed BatYam at his worst. A dreary, dreary story of loss and disfigurement, disguised as an anti-DWI treatise, that ultimately had no point anyhow. He couldn’t just let them have a close call, or even be arrested. He had to start hacking off limbs.
And another case of “even the villains must not face any criticism.” Wally was clearly at fault here. He should have faced repercussions, or maybe felt some geniune guilt about it. Though to be fair, Becky didn’t seem to care too much either. She couldn’t be bothered to press charges or sue anyone, just like Lisa didn’t.
Like so many things, the Becky being okay after surgery strip improves dramatically with an Arrested Development gag grafted on to it.
The loss of Becky’s arm is a great example of what I called “appallingly shallow and insensitive.” Nothing is given any weight, except the things that are more important to the characters. And, to filling the story with as much “ghastly shock value” as possible. Also, cheap irony. Becky was the president of SADD? Did we ever see this in the strip, or did TB just make this up on the spot? That is AWFUL.
I remember reading those Act II arcs at the time, and wondering “who the hell is this even for?”. He just one day decided the strip needed an amputee, which is a very strange and oddly specific artistic decision. And of course that amputee had to be a trombone prodigy, as it wouldn’t be so tragically ironic any other way. Sigh.
I feel like that week would’ve been better if Batiuk spent a few minutes making rewrites
But alas, “First revision is the best one” according to Thomas Martin Batiuk
I’ll be charitable, and put it down to his usual brain-dead cluelessness and utterly incurious nature. I picture him saying “GOSH DARN! Why does the computer not find Grandpa Google when I yell into the mouse?! Ahh, who cares. Silent movies were everywhere in the 40s! My brain told me!”
Lena Horne once did an Esther Williams-esque dance number in an Olympic-sized pool. When the shoot was over, they drained all the 1000s of gallons of water out, so no white actor had to touch it.
As to Mickey Rooney, I put off watching Breakfast for decades just knowing about it. For those who haven’t seen him in it–Have you seen ANY WWII cartoon involving the Japanese? But I think they should leave it in, just with a warning before it begins. The warning should read: “This movie is a product of its time, and my God were people dumb as shit then! Laugh not at the dated caricature, but at the idiots who thought that the movie needed this washed-up actor. Notice how he’s only in it for 5 minutes, and his entire presence could be summed up by Audrey saying, just once, ‘My upstairs neighbor called the police on our party again!’ Imagine how much money we could’ve saved, reducing his role to 10 lines!”
You have no idea how many Cab Calloway CDs I own. And if we’re getting semi-political, anybody reading the Phantom? The plot is “The Ghost Who Walks” vs “The Musk Who Tweets” vs “The Penis-Head Man Who Won’t Let His Employees Pee.”
As to Mickey Rooney, I put off watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s for decades just knowing about it. Have you seen ANY WWII cartoon involving the Japanese?
Some criticism of Breakfast at Tiffany’s makes that comparison.
Batiuk has always been as ham-fisted as a pair of pork boxing gloves. If there’s an oafish way to broach a topic, he’ll find it. I’ve always found his annoying love of 1940s-1950s pop culture kind of weird, especially his undying affection for that stinky old movie house that only shows eighty year old films no one would even consider paying to see. I’ve always had an irrational hatred for dumb fictional business ventures that would file for bankruptcy after a month in “real life”.
Coming soon: Funky is despondent after his ice delivery business goes belly-up, prompting Wally to offer his a job at his new Studebaker dealership.
1. Wonderful post. Good job. I enjoyed reading it.
2. I politely disagree with your opinion of *Stormy Weather.* It is no criticism of you, BJ6000. I hold you in deep respect.
3. I also have a high opinion of Wikipedia, but one cannot criticize SW as a stereotype. Why? Talking and musical pictures had only been around since 1929’s *Jazz Singer*. SW was made in 1943, that is only 14 years. No time to build stereotypes. If you compare SW to any other 1930’s and 40’s musical, you would find similar plots, acting, singing and dancing.
3. Tremendous stars, most in their prime. Most, however were not represented well on radio and movies. SW provided jobs for the actors and their families during a continuing depression and WW2. Not unlike Al Jolson’s attempt to make an all black film with him in blackface. He provided jobs and publicity.
4. Obviously, I am not defending Hollywood and racism. Yet entertainment is a business. In the 1930’s,1940’s, and 1950’s, where was their economic focus? Among the white population. Why? The country was 90-95% white. During those years, the black population had a very small middle class with little disposable income. That changes in the 1960’s. Advertising takes notice and begins promoting their products to a larger black middle class. TV begins writing scripts with black supporting actors, and TV shows starring blacks by 1968.
5. Vaudeville, burlesque, and minstrel shows as live entertainment were still popular and common during the 1940’s. This would be especially true in the rural areas not supported by electricity. It was reflected in films such as *Holiday Inn* and even in the 1950’s with *White Christmas*. Ted Danson makes a poor decision to do blackface with Whoopi Goldberg in 1993. Yet Ben Stiller creates comedy gold with Robert Downey Jr. in blackface in *Tropic Thunder* 2008.
6. As you can tell, I have seen Stormy Weather. Loved it. Seen it at least twice, and even more in clips. Well worth your time if you haven’t watched it. BJ, you are spot on in your description of the Nicholas Brothers. They darn near steal the show when they perform with Cab Calloway. If anyone wonders what is the difference between a singer and an entertainer, watch Cab Calloway.
7. Stormy Weather has beauty, art, and acting. If Wikipedia insists on categorizing SW as only stereotypes and racist, I believe they are the ones that are backward and narrow minded.
SP:
I’ve seen “Stormy Weather” at least twice myself and I agree wholeheartedly with your comments.
The last time I saw it, a noted film historian introduced the film and told a story about a crucial contribution Cab Calloway made to the film. It seems that Lena Horne just couldn’t get the title song right, and director Andrew L. Stone was beginning to despair.
Calloway said that he could solve the problem and went over to Horne, whispering two words in her ear.
The words were “Ethel Waters.” The song was so associated with Waters that other artists were reluctant to undertake it. Calloway threw down a challenge, and Horne accepted it, gloriously.
Waters’s performance of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” (with a little help from Julie Harris and Brandon de Wilde) is a highlight of the 1952 film “The Member of the Wedding.”
She also introduced a powerful song about lynching called “Suppertime” in the 1933 Moss Hart/Irving Berlin revue *As Thousands Cheer.*
Anonymous Sparrow,
One of the joys of “Stormy Weather” was watching Fats Waller for my only time. It seems this was his last performance on film. Apparently, he took ill in LA, and died on a train in my Kansas City. Good man. Great performer.
1. I mentioned *Tropic Thunder* as having comedy gold blackface. Some movies are not so special. One of which is *Hollywood Hotel 1937*. This film has so much going for it. Absolutely great music provided by Benny Goodman. “Hurray for Hollywood” opens the film. Then there is a 10 minute rendition of “Sing! Sing! Sing!” that blows the audience away. It is the most athletic dance song of all time, performed by the greatest band. It is said, “In the Mood” has claim to the most children conceived during a song. “Sing!” may have produced the most in shape dancers.
There is a scene where Dick Powell meets an elevator boy. The kid looks just like my Dad at that age. Of course it was not him, but a son can dream.
2. But the worst part of Hollywood Hotel has to be its use of Hugh Herbert, a very good character actor. The film has the actors making a film within a film set in the antebellum period. Twenty or thirty slaves are sitting in a group, and all of a sudden Hugh stands up in blackface. It’s worse than it sounds. Then to make matters worse, it includes Ted Healy in a major role. Disgusting piece of humanity that financially abused and tried to ruin the Three Stooges.
So good to talk with you again!
🌈☄️🔥💥☀️
Sorial: you are on a roll today!
😀
SP:
“In the Mood” turns up in “The Jewel in the Crown,* the first of Paul Scott’s *Raj Quartet* novels. Daphne Manners writes to her aunt that it made for a romantic moment with Hari Kumar. (She also mentions that her aunt probably doesn’t know the song.)
In a scheme to make Dino Manelli jealous, Nick Fury interrupts a date Dino’s having with Ilsa Koenig. Fury asks her to dance, and says that the band’s playing “In the Mood,” and he sure is.
As the two planned, Dino gets jealous and admits that he loves Ilsa. This is in *Sgt. Fury* #65.
We only see Ilsa twice after that, once in the guide to the women who’ve crossed paths with the Howlers in the 1969 *Annual/*Special,* in which Fury muses that she remained with the Allies while her brother Eric Koenig returned to the Axis (a very bizarre storyline, that, which perhaps only Steve Englehart at his peak could have made completely plausible), and then in *Sgt. Fury* #114, when the Howlers think Fury is dead, causing Eric to reflect:
“I always hoped he would marry my sister Ilsa. I would have been so proud to call him — brother!”
I’m enough of a romantic to hope that Dino married Ilsa and they had a daughter named Jody together (mentioned in the 1967 *Annual*/*Special*).
Now that I’ve kept a promise to myself and watched “The Magnificent Seven” (after seeing “Seven Samurai” once more), I think I need to put “Tropic Thunder” and “Hollywood Hotel” high on my to-watch list. Thanks for the recommendations!
Gabe Jones, play a solo on Wah-Hooter* for Sorialpromise!
*
The rarely used name for Gabe Jones’s trumpet.
Anonymous Sparrow,
I am so honored to have a Gabe Jones solo! Thank you.
I missed Fury’s Englehart years. I so enjoyed him on many other characters. I will check and see if I can get them as a trade paperback.
I did begin with the original Sgt. Fury #1. I believe it was in the summer of my second grade year. My older brother was a huge fan of Batman and of War comics. Jack Kirby had so much fun writing stories about WW2. Kirby and Lee were not afraid to add real stakes into their writing, I know you are aware of issue #4 and the first death of a Howling Commando. Also as you know, Dino Manelli was a take on a real entertainer. I doubt many new readers are familiar with him nowadays. No spoilers from me.
(AS, I digress for a moment. To answer the question from Be Ware of Eve Hill, I can vouch for the authenticity of “In the Mood” and its reputation.) [inquiring minds want to know!]
Back to you, sir. When you watch *Hollywood Hotel*, and you see the young elevator operator, say hello to my Dad.
C’est la vie!
SP:
I fear I was unclear.
Eric Koenig returning to the Nazi fold began with *Sgt. Fury* #65 under the auspices of Gary Friedrich.
There were hints that Eric might not have been a villain in #70-71 when a mysterious plane helps out the Howlers and the Missouri Marauders, and in #77-79, it turned out that he was actually a double agent for G-2.
Fury spent most of #79 unsure of his loyalties; in #81, Eric muses that “the sergeant trusts me again,” and the storyline was never mentioned again, even though as a letter-writer noted, “you still have a million things to explain.”
Steve Englehart at his peak in the 1970s excelled at accounting for lacunae and lapses in Marvel storylines, and, for that reason, I think he could have made sense of this arc. Unfortunately, he never got the chance, and comics being what they are, I don’t think anybody will ever try to make something more coherent of this…though there’s no telling.
The book you seek does not exist, unless it’s in Dylan Horrocks’s *Hicksville.*
In his “Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books* blog, Alan Stewart made me aware that Mike and Lee Allred belatedly (forty-five years after the fact) accounted for the developments with Deadman Jack Kirby introduced in *Forever People* #9-10. But I can no more see this happening with Eric Koenig than I can with DC reconciling the ending of *Metamorpho* #17 with Rex Mason’s return to the auspices of Simon Stagg.
Anonymous Sparrow,
Always remember my friend, if I am ever unclear, the fault is always with me.
If I remember correctly, Englehart took over Silver Surfer. I loved those issues.
DC captures the magic of the Howling Commandos with an American Revolutionary character called Tomahawk. He formed Tomahawk’s Rangers.
Kirby was screwed over by DC management in what is known as the DC IMPLOSION. So shortsighted. I do not know if Jack could have advanced his storyline on his own, but cancelling him kept us from being blessed.
I will research *Hicksville*.
SP:
It’s strange: when the Marvel Age of Comics turned to World War II books, they didn’t do especially well with them. In 1970, *Sgt. Fury* became a semi-reprint title, and with #121 in 1974, it became a full-fledged reprint title.
*Captain Savage and His Leatherneck/Battlefield Raiders* lasted nineteen issues.
As the Howlers lost Junior Juniper, so did the Raiders lose Lee Baker…but Pinky Pinkerton replaced Junior four issues later. There was never a replacement for Lee and his headshot remained on the cover. (Even more weirdly…in a story called “Savage’s First Mission,” we learn that Lee wasn’t even a member of the unit at the time! He joined later.)
*Combat Kelly and His Deadly Dozen* lasted nine issues.
Compare that with Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Johnny Cloud, the Haunted Tank, Mlle Marie, Captain Storm and Gunner and Sarge.
My principal exposure to Tomahawk is through the *Who’s Who* entry for the team, and I’ve seen Miss Liberty work with the Black Pirate, Enemy Ace, Jonah Hex and the Viking Prince in a JLA/JSA crossover. I like your comparison of the Rangers to the Howlers (who, technically, are Rangers, as the U.S. Army didn’t have Commandos in World War II: Winston Churchill made them honorary Commandos in His Majesty’s Armed Forces after their first mission) and I’m sorry to see that there is no *Showcase Presents Tomahawk* volume for me to examine.
I’ll have to hope that readcomiconline is cooperative.
Anonymous Sparrow,
My immediate opinion is the DC War stories were grittier, more realistic. Marvel’s had more unbelievable plots, “Let’s capture Hitler!” However saying that, issue #13 with Captain America would rank highly as ‘comic of the decade’. It is that good.
As mentioned, my brother loved the War Comics. But I did like *the Haunted Tank* and *Gunner and Sarge*. (I don’t think I was old enough to fully appreciate *Mlle Marie*.
I think another reason for DC’s popularity was the artwork by Joe Kubert. He just made Nazi human monsters look like humans that needed defeating.
You make it the start of a wonderful week!💎❣️
SP:
An excellent point about Joe Kubert, who could do certain super-heroes well (Hawkman, naturally) but whose artwork was better suited to soldiers and super-civilians like Tarzan of the Apes. (Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the dozen or so covers he drew for *All-Star Squadron,* but that series was set during World War II.)
There was also an immediacy to the DC war stories: whereas Marvel used an omniscient narrator, who was enjoying himself to a certain degree even when things grew dark, DC had a first-person narrator (Captain Storm, Johnny Cloud, Jeb Stuart, Gunner, Sgt. Rock and in the case of the first Mlle Marie story, the G.I. who crosses paths with “the Battle Doll”), and these guys were doing their best to win the war and not get killed doing it.
The one *Sgt. Fury* story I can recall with a first-person take is #86, in which Izzy Cohen takes center stage.
(Which is ironic, in a way. In #49, the Japanese capture the Howlers and decided to take one aside for special questioning. Izzy figures that he’ll make them pick him by keeping quiet, and it works, removing him from the First Attack Squad of Able Company until #59. Maybe Gerry Conway, who wrote #86, thought he should get to talk a lot to compensate.)
*Sgt. Fury* #13 proves that the number thirteen could be very lucky indeed. Stan Lee on scripting, Jack Kirby on pencils, Dick Ayers on inks, Cap, Bucky, Lady Pamela Hawley, Bull McGiveney, Fury’s praise for Pinky (“that limey is all Howler! No wonder Britain’s lasted so long with great guys like him!”) and a nurse pulling rank with Dum Dum Dugan…
So much to love!
Not that it matters, but as Sunday was Bastille Day, I feel it only fitting to note that July 15th marks the 225th anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, now on display in the British Museum.
AS,
Rosetta Stone unlocked the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then compared it to Greek and Latin, if I remember correctly. Happy July 15 to you.
A question from me? About 1940s musicals and 1960s war comics? I wouldn’t know where to start. Although I think my brother’s high school band played “In the Mood” as part of the halftime show at a football game.
Actually, I’m more familiar with the version by the Canadian rockers, Rush. Both of my brothers were huge fans of the band, buying all the LPs and attending the concerts whenever they came to town.
♫ Hey, baby, it’s a quarter to eight
I feel I’m in the mood ♫
That’s all of the lyrics I remember. Romantic? isn’t it? I tried embedding the music video but I keep getting the spinning working/waiting symbol, AKA “the wheel of eternal torment.” WordPress is apparently not “In the Mood” to embed my video.
In the late 1970s, my brothers and I all had decent stereo systems. We sometimes held our own “Battle of the Bands”, all three of us playing our music louder and louder. This eventually led to closed bedroom doors, which Mom didn’t like. Christmas gifts that year included stereo headphones for each of us.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
1. I regret never meeting your Mom.
2. “WordPress is apparently not “In the Mood” to embed my video.”
You are quite the wordsmith.
@BWOEH That’s “In The Mood,” from their first album just called “Rush.” Neal Peart wasn’t in the band yet, so Rush’s lyrics were a lot more straightforward. That’s one of the few songs from that album where they actually start to sound like Rush, and not Canadian Tire Led Zeppelin.
Sorial Promise:
Oh, I believe you’d like her. Everyone always said they did. But, if I were you I wouldn’t count on getting a word in edgewise.
I remember bringing my college roommate home to meet my family. Beth was a notorious chatterbox. Mom immediately started grilling her. “What are you studying? Where are you from? Are you keeping my daughter out of trouble? Are you making sure she eats well?” (Muth-er!!) When Mom left the room to make tea, Beth looked at me all agape and laughed, as if to say “What the hell was that?” Beth met her match. Mom blew her away. 😂
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
I am sure your Mom took pride in keeping up with college age girls.
The most important question she asked was, “Are you keeping my daughter out of trouble?” She was sly, that one.
This brings to mind one of my top goals in life. I have always wanted to meet someone whose claim to fame is having lived in all four mainland U.S.A. time zones.
Now, I am not talking about visiting all 4 time zones. I have done that! But to actually meet someone that lived in all 4. It is an elusive goal, but it is on my bucket list. I fear never to be crossed off. 😢
My bucket list includes seeing live productions of all of William Shakespeare’s plays.
I think the last ones will be *Henry VIII* (sorry, Peter Noone, and the widow next door) and the three parts of *Henry VI.*
BWOEH:
Here’s a quotation from Robert Frost:
PRECAUTION
I never dared be radical when young
For fear it would make me conservative when old
I suspect I never had a roommate at college for fear that I would have to become their keeper and face someone like your mother.
Or someone like Patricia Lockwood’s mother from *Priestdaddy.*
Soril Promise:
Mom was loving but controlling. She’d do things for my siblings and me rather than let us fend for ourselves. She expected me to attend Kent State because that’s where my older brother went. She would say, “It would be more convenient if you did.” What was next? Making sure my class schedule matched his so we could ride the car together? I chose Ohio State not only because of the partial scholarship but because I wanted more freedom. I love ya ma, but cut the apron strings! While I was in Columbus, we still talked once a week on the phone. A weekly tradition we kept until she died.
Finally read my bio, huh?
Considering your time in the armed services, I bet you’ve been further east, west, north, and south from KC than me.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Until yesterday, I didn’t even know there were biographies. On Jetpack where they notify you of likes and comments, I accidentally touched your avatar where you liked a comment, and your bio came up. So I left a subtle hint to you that I had seen it.
As far as my time in the USAF, I spent 3 years in Omaha. Spent a month at Fort Lee Virginia. But only flew to the west coast. I had to perform oil analysis in Rapid City S. Dakota. But no direct flights home. To get back to Omaha, I flew to Northern California then to Southern California, and then to Omaha. So I have only lived in Missouri and Nebraska. I was in Nebraska when Nixon resigned. The next day’s headline in the Omaha World Herald was “Man has Big Red Living room.” Nixon resigning was under the fold.
Cheers!
🫡
Anonymous Sparrow:
Not only did Mom not scare Beth away, we were college roommates for four years. Then we shared an apartment for another couple of years after graduation.
We still keep in touch. Any time I travel back to Ohio, swinging through to see her is a must.
The Pretenders sing of going back to Ohio in “My City Was Gone” and finding the pretty countryside has been paved down the middle.
Chrissie Hynde would probably take some comfort in the fact that someone like Beth was still there.
Before the day ends, I should listen to Mott the Hoople’s version of “Ohio” and perhaps to Phil Ochs’s “Boy in Ohio.”
And I am awaiting my copy of *Hicksville* to arrive. I am hoping it comes with the ‘Anonymous Sparrow’ autograph. That would be special.
I know what Chrissie Hynde is referring to. I looked up my old neighborhood where I grew up on Google Maps. It used to be surrounded on three sides by densely wooded areas. My friends and siblings used to play in those woods. We were “free-range kids” who rode our bikes everywhere. The woods are now all but gone, replaced by housing developments. The movie drive-in where my friends and I used to sneak out of our houses’ to go watch movies is gone. Replaced by a strip mall. The little go-cart track is now an ice cream shop. The public swimming pool down the street has been closed for decades.
The central junior high has been torn down. The old high school is gone. There used to be four elementary schools. Now there is only centrally located school. The bowling alley is gone. The family-owned burger restaurant where my friends and I used to hang out in high school has been torn down and replaced by a taco bell and a gas station. Almost every place that I remember as open fields has been developed.
Even my family home is different. The aluminum siding is still white, but the bright red brick facade has been whitewashed. The inviting faux red shutters are now an icy blue. There are almost no trees or shrubs. Who lives there? A Russian communist from the 1960s?
Sad now.
My husband parents, despite being in their late 80s still live in the same home up near Lake Erie. My SIL lives on the west side of Cleveland with her brood. My Mom and Dad are both gone now. My younger brother and niece live on opposite sides of the state.
Beth has not been able to use her communications degree, but has made a career in restaurant management. Her three kids are literally spread out all over the country, living in Washington D.C., San Diego and Chicago. She invited me to see the great eclipse in April. In hindsight I wish I had taken her up on her offer. All three of her kids were there. I would have like to have met them.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
(I typed Be, and my iPhone filled in the rest! Apparently I make comments to you often enough my phone remembers you. It does the same for Anonymous Sparrow.)
Your comment is the dictionary definition of: You can’t go home again.
As far as the eclipse goes, hindsight is 20:20. There are people I should see again, but I will just make excuses, and not go.
Mrs. SP is under the weather yesterday and today. I have postponed her spoiling me until tomorrow. It is the very least I can do. If it gets serious, I may make you or Anonymous Sparrow come out here to the Midwest to wait on me.
😎🤪🥸
SR, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I agree with it; I don’t think I ever said anything contrary to any of it. I never said Stormy Weather was a bad movie, or a racist movie, or that it was “only” anything. Just that it contains some content that is a legacy of outdated racial attitudes, and is uncomfortable to watch nowadays.
I’m aware of Tropic Thunder and other movies that tried to use outdated racial tropes for effect. Bamboozled and Soul Man are two others. Maybe they weren’t successful, but they had a clear intent. They knew what they were aiming at, and making the audience uncomfortable was a big part of it. Blazing Saddles, a movie I adore, has that effect nowadays because people don’t like hearing the word they use all the time. Racial attitudes have changed that much in just 50 years. This is 81.
What bothers me is Batiuk opening this can of worms without having a reason. He routinely name-drops things he likes, and wants the audience to learn about. When he introduces something new and the first relevant word about it in the Wikipedia article is “minstrelsy”, it raises questions.
All he needed was a movie title. It could have been almost anything. This joke is like a toaster that runs on spent fuel rods from Chernobyl. There are much safer ways to fuel it, and the end result isn’t remotely worth the risk.
This is why I appreciate SOSF, and why I appreciate you.
And I appreciate you! I knew you and Anonymous Sparrow would have some insightful comments, given your deep knowledge of the era’s pop culture. Thank you both. And thank everyone else who commented.
You are so welcome.
Good post here. Funny, I didn’t think to look up details about the movie in question. I think I heard of it somewhere but never have seen it (but the list of significant movies which I have seen is rather short so that’s only my willful ignorance at hand there). Usually when he goes out of his way to name drop something old, some of the respondents will have something to say about it, and this time, not a peep. Out of anyone who had anything to say about this week’s strips, yours is the only writing to address this aspect to it. That was elucidating.
I wouldn’t ascribe any particular motive or malice behind the choice. It is strange nonetheless.
I agree. I don’t think there’s a motive or malice here. It’s Batiuk’s usual sloppiness, but this time he’s wandered into something he should really leave alone. Not that anyone’s going to tell him. Least of all his syndicate.
Nah, there’s no malice or intent there. None of that even remotely occurred to him. He just likes that movie. It’s from the 1940s, so he’s more or less contractually obliged to like it. Only three things really bring out any real malice from BatYam’s poison felt-tip. One, Hollywood. Two, fanatical comic book collectors/speculators who’ve ruined his beloved childhood hobby for filthy lucre. And three, scumbag deadbeat birth fathers barging into their abandoned son’s life as part of some dumb get-rich-quick scheme. Those things really bring out the venom.
Oh, and air travel. Batiuk hates air travel as much as he hates taking interesting photos of places he visits. Otherwise, he reserves the bulk of his malice for his own characters, some of whom he really seems to despise. And he likes the ones everyone else despises, which never helps. But that’s a whole other thing.
Batty also seems to have an intense dislike of the U.S. Postal Service. He’s written dozens of strips in Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft lambasting the governmental institution’s inefficiency and inconvenience.
Batty’s dislike of the postal service compeled him to blow up a post office in Funky Winkerbean. USA!
It’s possible his intense dislike was the result of the U.S. Postal Service’s refusal to put Funky Winkerbean on a commemorative stamp.
Yes, the USPS. He hates the post office, too. He has such weirdly specific grudges. So, sending a rare slabbed comic book via air mail to Hollywood would be Batiuk’s worst nightmare.
…and buying it from “Fleabay” first. That’s another one of his pet hatreds.
The fun part is his whiny, petulant reaction to being called on his juvenile lack of proportion, sensitivity and fair play. Becky has to have her arm hacked off to prove a point and that’s something we should just accept.
The thing that gets me about the Fri.-Sat. “Fun at the Valentine” strips is that “Stormy Weather” appears to be the only film they’re showing for an extended period of time. That’s not how any rep cinema I’m familiar with ever handled its schedule. Most venues focusing on older movies would book thematic double features (put “Stormy Weather” with “Cabin in the Sky” or “The Wiz”, an Orson Welles or Humphrey Bogart twinbill, or “El Topo” with “Freaks,” for example), and each double feature would only play for a day or two. There is no way a theatre in Podunk, Ohio could draw enough moviegoers to have just “Stormy Weather” showing two or three times a day for several days.
Also, where are they getting these vintage film posters to display outside the theatre? Do you know how much an original one-sheet for “Citizen Kane” sells for?
There’s no reason to assume they have original one-sheet posters. Reprinted “Citizen Kane” posters can be bought off Amazon for less than $20. Whichever distributor supplies the Valentine with their film prints can probably get them posters to go with them.
Well, whaddaya know. Amazon even has “Stormy Weather” repro posters…although I refuse to believe Batiuk is aware of it. Good call, Joshua.
I think a better business model for a single screen movie theater would be second run movies at a discount, say $4 or $5.
It makes sense to me, but we all know Batty has the business accumen of a turnip. Batty lives for his nostalgia even if it doesn’t make any sense in the modern world.
Sure, the country is full of moderately successful second-run venues serving communities that don’t live near multiplexes (and even those that do. Back in 1977 a suburban theatre near me picked up “Star Wars” in the Fall and ran it for over a year). But that wouldn’t satiate Batiuk’s urge to prove that only Old Vintage films, much like Silver Age comic books, are Pure Art that speaks to our inner homunculi. Even though he has no concept of how repertoire cinema locales operated back in the day.
Batiuk must like battling for control of shared armrests, and sitting in cramped vinyl seats that are patched with duct tape and have broken springs poking him in the backside.
Batiuk: If you’re not suffering, you’re not watching the movie the right way.
I can just imagine Batiuk flying to the SDCC. He’s sitting on an airplane in the back row of a cramped economy section hoping that he’ll have to sit smooshed between two overweight people. Let the battle for the armrests commence!
Perhaps Batiuk prefers traveling across the country in something more “vintage”, like in the rumble seat of a 1929 Ford Model “A” coupe.
Batiuk: You’re not traveling the USA in an automobile the right way unless you’re picking bugs out of your teeth.
——————————
There was a second-run theater close to where I grew up. My friends and family went there more often than the local cineplex. Tickets were $2, $1 for children under 13. Much to my pleasant surprise the theater is still in operation. It seems they’re doing quite well. Their website says, “This single-screen budget theater shows 1st-run & classic movies in a historic setting.” They’re currently playing ‘Inside Out 2’ and ‘Despicable Me 4’. The website says, “Tickets always $5.”
This isn’t a small theater. Much to Batiuk’s probable disappointment, photographs of the interior show the theater has upgraded the old seats I remember to something much more modern. The webpage mentions 400 seats, but the capacity was undoubtably higher before they upgraded to “new larger comfy seats.”
Batiuk would have loved this place back in the day. There was a bookstore nextdoor that had at least two comic book spinner racks. A vintage movie theater with uncomfortable vintage seats and komix for sale next door? Somebody fetch the smelling salts. Batiuk must be feeling faint.
There were a couple of 2nd-run theaters right by me in the early 80s.
One was in…a bank. They’d remodeled it, but…no one removes a bank vault. I think that’s where they put concessions. If you love very bad Star Wars ripoffs, the phrase “the Movie with Flying Walnuts” might make you think of one. If not, the good guys’ spaceships looked like 18th century sailing ships, and the bad guys’ ships…had fur? You know, or you don’t.
Another one was in an old 1st-run, small theater. The movie was Tron. Full house! The show began with ads. Yeah, those are everywhere now, never worry if you get there 20 minutes late, you just missed that M&M ad.
No one had ever seen an ad before a movie then! We paid for the trailers and a movie! And this was some very ancient-sounding man using a slide projector (!) to show still photos of local businesses, and boy did people get mad. First “WTH is this?!” followed by anger, followed by yelled outbursts. Then baffled amusement. We were in Tolland County, on the main road the Tolland Turnpike. It’s pronounced “tol-LAND.” The laughter built, and kept going into hysterics. This was being announced LIVE, and you could hear him getting confused, then annoyed, and then just ANGRY. He had no idea why!
He kept saying “Tolland” as “TOE-land.” Over and over! Maybe he was Tarentino’s grandfather?
They did not do it again.
billthesplut:
Seen it. There’s a restaurant near where I live now that was an old bank from the early part of the 1900s. The vault is used as a small private dining room. I’m claustrophobic. That’s a hard pass.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Poofesure: SON OF A BITCH, I’VE BEEN STUCK ON THIS HOLE FOR TWENTY MINUTES!
(Crankshaft puts the ball in, and flips Poofesure off, which causes Poofesure to strangle him)
(Does anyone here know who Poofesure is? If you don’t, he’s an American youtuber who plays Wii Sports and other games and rages and destroys wiimotes)
I respectfully submit that the Valentine’s marquee has nothing whatsoever to do with old movies having potentially racist scenes or uncomfortable chairs. I believe it is an homage to the Valentine’s strip-club past: “Stormy Weather” is a pole dancer and “Vintage Seats” is a thong-oriented revue.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
See, here’s what he could have done. Sure, it would have been a rip-off, but it would’ve ripped off something over 25 years old and he could claim it was a playful homage:
Panel 1: Dumbass Husband is just about finished climbing down from the ladder on the marquee. Dumbass Wife walks over and looks up at what’s he’s done.
Panel 2: DW says “Hey, that’s pretty good, but Stormy Whether what?”
Panel 3: DH looks up and sees the marquee saying “STORMY WHETHER” and exclaims “Great googly moogly!”
Following day:
Panel 1: DH is on a snack break, looking annoyed at the marquee. Rando comes up to him.
Panel 2: Rando: “Hey, you misspelled….” DH “RARRGH!” as he waves him away.
Genius!
“Got the reference!”
Add misspelling jokes to CTE on the list of things Snickers television ads have done better than TB…
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Dear god, it’s a Lillian McKenzie (Loathsome Lizard) week
Lord have mercy on BWOEH
It’s a Lillian week where Monday starts out with Tom putting up a neon sign to get people to buy a book which apparently is going to be contradicted by what is going to come in this week. That’s just swell.
I knew I was forgetting something on my list of “appallingly shallow and insensitive.” Dementia, and Lillian’s attitude about causing it. She shattered two peoples’ lives for absolutely no reason. Even though it was kind of their own fault, for relying on snail mail and not caring enough to follow up. But it’s okay, because Lillian took a long-irrelevant letter to a long-destroyed building. The important is that thing Lillian gets closure, not that she rights a wrong, or even acknowledges what she did. Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.
Lillian should’ve suffered a truly horrific fate a long time ago, such as being boiled alive, being bit by a western taipan, being put on a electric chair (without shaving her entire body and using the driest sponge in the world, and at max voltage) and/or being dragged off to Hell (the same thing could also apply to Dinkle, Crankshaft and Dick Facey)
I think Lillian being publicly shamed and ostracized would be more than adequate. And the “being “dragged off to hell” bit.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I am now strictly on Team Epicus Doomus in my steadfast refusal to read Crankshaft. I am adamant on that.
I can only imagine what hellish horrors Batty is inflicting upon you poor souls.
Let me guess. Lillian is at a book signing sitting next to Timemop who has suddenly also written a book, The Fubar Funkyverse: How I Did It.
They are holding hands as they make lovey-dovey-eyes and kissy faces at one another. In the second panel, Lillian says…
Lillian: Last night was fantastic. 💏💞
The actual contents of Crankshaft aren’t nearly as hellish as your imagined scenario.
Sorry for the possibly scarring mental image. I’m damaged goods. Collateral damage from the Batiuk Wars.
No worries, I’m more jaded than a crime scene cleaner at this point.
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean:
Lillian hears someone knocking on her door, Lillian opens it and gets her neck snapped immediately
Making me think of “Night Call” on “The Twilight Zone,” and of its source material, Richard Matheson’s “Sorry, Right Number,” in which Mrs. Keene’s caller is on the way.
It’s been a good week for thinking of lesser-known “Twight Zone” episodes. By the end of the matinee for *The Notebook* musical, I was thinking of John and Marie Holt from “The Trade-Ins.” (Wonderful score, but I think *Fun Home* handled the same character at different times of their lives aspect much better.)
I don’t think Lillian in *Crankshaft* will inspire such happy thoughts, but then, as a rule, I don’t think of Centerville of late, or at any other time of the day.
Another one I stole from the Simpsons.
Panel one: “You IDIOT! You ordered the PORN version!”
Panel two: a line of trenchcoat-wearing Centervillians stretching down the block.
Panel three: (wry smirk) “There might be hope for the Valentine after all!”
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Great, another week of Batiuk whining on how “the good old days” are much better than what we’re living with
Meanwhile in Judge Parker: WAIT, SAM DRIVER IS DEAD?! BUT HOW!?
Ah, he just loves to shoehorn in little bits of Akron history.
https://www.akronlife.com/arts-and-entertainment/the-330-s-million-dollar-playground/
He got to see it in its dying days. Woo hoo, more Akron trivia. I suppose a good writer could create an interesting story using this as a background, but Batty is not that person. This place has special meaning to him and so he expects it to have meaning for his readers. But for us it is just dull and stupid.
Well, duh, of course they were better in the past. Just look at that trashcan; you’ve got a wide-open shot to toss in your drained Moxie bottle, your empty Sweet Caporal cigarette package and matchbox, those discarded White Tower hamburger wrappers, and all your other detritus. No narrow side slots to aim for and no wondering what’s recyclable and what isn’t. It was truly a Golden Age of Garbage…and Batiuk’s about to add to it.
By the by, how is Lillian remembering what Lucy and Eugene did on their “canoeing outings”?
And wasn’t she the one who split them up?
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Lillian: Eugene! Am I glad to see you!
Eugene: Get away from me, you despicable lizard-like monster! You ruined my and Lucy’s lives just because you were jealous of Lucy being in love with me!
Eugene swings a hammer at Lillian’s face, smashing her skull to a million pieces
Meanwhile in the Cavelton Area of the Dallisverse: Does anyone here read Judge Parker? Then I’ve got something that will rattle you to your core
SAM DRIVER (the main character of Judge Parker since the 1960’s) IS DEAD 😱😱 😱😱😱😱
Insert dramatic thunder
Brace yourselves! There’s new Crankshaft “Merch” on tombatiuk.com !
There is now a second design. Ed Crankshaft is shown terrorizing his family and neighbors by pouring gasoline on an overloaded grill.
Still only $34.95 for the apron. No ups. No extras. Well, except for shipping… and taxes.
By the way, the “new” image features Jeff’s mother, Rose, alive and well. Also shown are Ed’s dog and cat, Homer and Pickles, respectively. Neither of these pets has been shown in the strip for several years. It is obvious Chuck Ayers drew the graphic sometime in the past before he left Crankshaft. Guess what the signature on the design is? If you guessed “Batiuk & Davis,” you are 100% correct. Art steal!
If nothing else, after the constant barrage of Funkyshaft comics antics and one-note Ed behaviors, it feels a little refreshing to get a Lillian arc that dives into her notorious backstory of ruining her sister’s life. Batiuk may’ve put a big advertisement for his book into the text yesterday but you can look up a fair chunk of the climax of that saga for free on GoComics, and it was at least as interesting as whatever soap opera’s usually on the morning hours TV. Taking it relatively slow too, you don’t see that too often.
Does make one wonder if he’ll finally tie up loose ends with Eugene chewing out Lillian or this is just more of characters not knowing of each other’s actions in ironic sadness.
Does make one wonder Batiuk will finally tie up loose ends.
He won’t. He said years ago on his blog he doesn’t know how.
Several years ago there was a story arc featuring Ed and Lillian’s high school reunion. Eugene crashed the reunion to tell Lillian how much he liked her new murder mystery and to get her to sign it (go figure). Lillian had the chance to confess to Eugene but remained tight-lipped.
Eugene suggested to Lillian that she write a book about Lucy. That book turned out to be ‘Roses in December’. Any chance of melodrama turned out just to be another chance for Batty to shill one of his books.
The smart money is on your latter lowered expectation.
If I were Eugene, I would’ve told Lillian to eat shit and die
’twas LOIS who had the good sense to dump Ed. The other white-haired girlfriend.
Lois was the victim of Ed’s infamous line that she didn’t need pepper spray because she was too old to worry about being sexually assaulted.
That strip got Batiuk into some trouble. Many readers thought the strip trivialized rape by saying that only young, attractive women need to fear sexual assault, implying that rape was in some twisted sense a compliment.
What were you thinking, Batty?
Newest among my thinking that CS is done when the contracts come up on 12/31: Is TB sanding off the edges? Changing his earlier, and very criticized strips, to make his legacy more palatable?
He’s just going to retcon everything now. Ed is 105? No, he’s 65, just like Cindy is 35! Is Lillian a heartless monster who went out of her way to destroy lives? No, now we’ll find out that she was a victim of a misunderstanding and innocent! Funny that this happened after Tom turned her from villain to her being A Published Author With Book Signings, which makes everything she ever did perfect.
What about that awful arc “Teenaged Susan has carried a torch for ME–err, umm, LES–so hard she almost killed herself?” (Until she was rescued by…CHRIST. I mean that as a swear, not who Tom thinks *IS* Christ)
Time will tell. Maybe Wally will have been a POW for only 19 years this time. Maybe Becky’s arm will grow back.
BTS:
Grant Morrison had Buddy Baker grow a new arm in *Animal Man* No. 3.
Over at Marvel, we have Dr. Curt Connors, who turned to reptiles to see whether he could restore his missing arm. He succeeded, but it turned him into the Lizard.
Were Becky to go to work for Connors and be exposed to his lizard formula, should she call herself
A) Lizarda?
B) Lizardette?; or
C) Lady Lizard?; or
D) Something Else Entirely, such as Spawn of the Scissor Lift Scourge?
The polls are open!
Any legacy Batty had has been shot to hell by FW Act III. Like cancer it has spread to Crankshaft. He’ll only make things worse as time goes on.
I dislike Lillian, not because of the stolen letter melodrama, but because when she became Batty’s author avatar, she took over the strip. Sometimes for an entire month. I liked her better as the oft-put-upon neighbor who was the unintended recipient of Ed’s shenanigans.
I read a Crankshaft strip from 2007 in the archive not too long ago. Ed was complaining about things at a Cleveland Indians game. The joke was Jff saying Ed was 7 going on 70. That meaning he was born in 1937. So, Ed struck out Hank Greenburg at the age of 3 and stormed the beaches of D-Day at the age of 7. Quite a prodigy!
Don’t confuse Batty with facts and continuity. He’s a “storyteller.” He’s like a country bumpkin telling a story to tourists outside the general store. He never tells it the same way twice.
I love how Ayers so lovingly draws that napkin sticking out of That Cranky Guy’s collar because while he’s totally a slob who spills all over himself while eating, he’s got enough self-awareness to avoid it. But then he’s drawn sitting in a restaurant with his shitty gimme cap on and doesn’t even bother to take his stinky jacket off.
I grew up in Ohio and very few people, mostly older men, tucked napkins into their collars. It was viewed as a habit of persons of lower social standing, i.e. country bumpkins. The combination of the napkin, with wearing the hat and jacket indoors, implies Ed is someone who’s unsophisticated and lacks social grace. A quirk supporting .
RE: Wed. 7/17’s Winkershaft:
At last, a comic strip with the courage to show how 21st-century small-town America has suffered under the reign of Big Kayak!
What’s worse, the rental boats nowadays only have those fancy armrests with cupholders!