This week’s post will be an installment of This Week In Act IV, and also a historical deep dive into a past Funkyverse tale.
Crankshaft has been revisiting the Lillian-Lucy-Eugene love triangle. The week ended today with Eugene sailing a boat solo into the waters of Summit Lake, a real place in Akron. The story looks like it continues into next week, so we’re not going to cover it all today.
I say “we” because this post is very much a team effort between Comic Book Harriet and myself. There will be at least one follow-up to this post, even if the Crankshaft story ends at this point. (It’s hard to imagine how a story can end with an old man boating into a lake by himself, but Batiuk gonna Batiuk.)
We must also give an assist to Comics Curmudgeon guest host “Uncle Lumpy”, who made the definitive comment about this story 13 years ago.
Eugene, Lucy — this is not romantic, touching, or poignant. It is stupid, and you two deserve exactly what you got.
https://joshreads.com/2011/10/friday-post-3/
On July 17, 2003, Mindy came over to help Lillian pack, because Lillian was selling her house to obnoxious yuppies Morgan and Chase Lambert at the time. Mindy finds the letter, and Lillian arrives to tell its story. Eugene and Lillian were “just friends,” but Lillian wanted more. They invited kid sister Lucy along to an outing at the aforementioned Summit Beach Park. Eugene wanted to enter a dance contest, but a self-conscious Lillian declined, and Lucy volunteered. Of course, Eugene and Lucy connected instantly, and Lillian became jealous.
It should be noted that Lillian is absolutely wrecked at having to tell this story.
Still, Lillian sowed the seeds of her own destruction. Come on, Lill, you brought another girl along on your outing with your beau, and you turned down his dance invitation? That was stupid, and you deserved exactly what you got.
Next comes the part we all know. Eugene proposed by snail mail with a “no response means no” clause, as he went off to World War II. Lillian hid the letter. Lucy had a breakdown and was sent to a sanitarium. Lillian was so wracked with guilt that she never married, and spent her life taking care of Lucy.
In a story starting on February 9, 2009, Lillian visits Lucy in the hospital. Soon, Lucy is visited by a writing crutch:
On March 3, Lillian confesses her misdeed to a dying Lucy. Lucy gives no response to this, even though she spoke lucidly the day before. Another example of how Funkyverse characters are assigned whatever traits they need for today’s strip, subject to change the next day.
Lucy soon dies, and the strip walks through a week of the same photo-corner, sepia-toned memory shots of Eugene and Lucy that Crankshaft is showing this week. In some cases, they’re shot for shot remakes. Compare March 11, 2009 and July 16, 2024.
There are two more key story points. First, Lucy frequently says “Eugene was here”, but this is written off as the irrelevant muttering of someone who’s not all there.
Second, there’s a funny subplot where Ed Crankshaft is supposed to dust Lillian’s home while she’s away. He forgets to do this, and tries to do it at the last minute via his usual methods. It’s a rare case of Ed having a motivation for his hijinks, and a rarer case of comedy and tragedy being well integrated in the Funkyverse. Also, I wanted you to see this image:
On March 15, 2017, Tom Batiuk made a blog post where he said he couldn’t find a way to “elegantly bring closure to the story.” This is baffling, because March 13, 2009 was probably one of the best endings Batiuk ever wrote in his life.
Lucy really was getting messages (and possibly visits) from Eugene! Very Twilight Zone – this episode in particular – but still a great ending.
Twilight Zone was famous for this kind of twist, where the ending introduces a new fact that reframes the entire story. But it doesn’t work here, because we don’t have enough information to re-examine the story.
The example Twilight Zone episode I gave was about a man who had a nervous breakdown, and seemed to be having a second nervous breakdown. The twist is that what he saw was real, and left unmistakable evidence for others to find. The ending is left vague; we can infer whatever resolution we wish to.
We can’t make inferences here, because the story told us nothing beyond “Eugene proposed by snail mail, Lillian threw away the letter, and then nothing happened for 60 years.” To put it mildly, the story is incomplete. We have to speculate before we can speculate. We are left to wonder:
Did Eugene ever marry? Comic Book Harriet thinks he did, but couldn’t confirm this. If he did, then this story becomes like Cast Away. The romantic leads still loved each other, but life events led them into making other commitments they couldn’t just walk away from. This easily could have happened to Eugene. But we don’t know, and Batiuk apparently didn’t feel his life after Lucy was relevant to the story. Batiuk later butchered this same scenario with Wally, Becky, and John Howard.
Did none of these people grow up? Eugene’s shyness, Lillian’s jealousy, and pettiness spiraling out of control are all very believable for teenagers. But these characters all became adults. And Eugene went to war, for Chrissakes. The whole nation did! The “Rosie the Riveter” movement would have absorbed Lillian and Lucy. They didn’t have time to sit in their house and mope about missing their boyfriend. Between 1941 and 1945, a lot of young women had that problem.
Short answer: this is the Funkyverse, so of course nobody grew up.
Did Lillian never try to atone for her cruel act? What we know about the story gave Lillian years to undo what she did. Eugene was gone for a long time, and wasn’t exactly in a position to date, unless he was into German men. Lillian had plenty of opportunity to admit to Lucy what she did. And during this time, she would have realized it wasn’t worth keeping hidden. I can understand why Lillian might have kept this under wraps while Eugene was fighting in a war he might not return from. But she must have kept it secret after he came back, and returned to the same town. That is ugly.
Did Eugene and Lucy never try to find each other? Again, years passed between Eugene’s letter and his return from the military. Why on earth would he not try to contact her? Why on earth would she not try to contact him? People who love each other don’t passively let their love die like this. Hence Uncle Lumpy’s “this is stupid” comment.
Why on earth would Lillian not try to pair them up? If she didn’t want to do that, then why on earth would Lillian not try to claim Eugene for herself, since this was the entire reason she hid the letter?
Imagine if Lillian had fessed up. Eugene could have come home to find Lucy standing there with that letter in her hand, ready to say yes. What a great ending that would have been. Congratulations, Eugene, you won the war and got the girl. And Lillian would have freed herself from a life of pointless guilt and loneliness.
The more you dig into this story, the worse it gets.
Did Eugene and Lucy never find each other by accident? It’s even more unlikely that these two wouldn’t have encountered each other by chance. As far as we know, after the war ended, they both lived in the same small, insular high school town. This kind of insular:
When did Lucy have her mental breakdown? Lillian’s lifelong commitment to Lucy, and the use of the antiquated word “sanitarium”, imply that Lucy was still of marrying age. Which begs the question yet again – why didn’t Lillian try to fix this? Was giving her own sister a mental breakdown still not enough motivation for Lillian to do something?
How long have Eugene and Lucy been in contact? The Twilight Zone ending opens up a range of possibilities, from “Eugene just sent a few end-of-life condolence flowers” to “they’ve been secret lovers for decades.” But this is a storytelling dead end, because we don’t know any of the facts discussed above. We don’t even know if their communication was two-way, or if he did actually visit her. The hospital staff would have known this, but the story leaves it uselessly vague.
Trying to make any sense of this story is like being Bart Simpson, watching his own imagination fail him.
I’ve said a lot of positive things about this story, and I stand by them. But when even Batiuk gets the details right, he gets the big picture wrong. Lucy’s story is so shallow that it kills any possibility of speculation, and then ends in a way that forces you to speculate. And there’s more “it’s called writing” where that came from.
Son of Stuck Funky 
It should be noted that Lillian is absolutely wrecked at having to tell this story.
I think that Lillian was faking being emotional just to gain Mindy’s sympathy, which is one of the many qualities of a sociopath
here’s my edit of the Swollen Head Lillian McKenzie
Related to the Batiukverse: My Updated Height List for The Batiukverse (Act I characters only)
*Rolanda Mathews: 178 cm and 160 lbs (142 lbs in Act I)
I should keep these height headcanons to myself
Honestly, it was interesting the first time, but I think it’s been explored enough by now. The mini-deep dive you did on the hostage situation was great. Personally, I’d love to see more of that.
Nice. Here’s my version:
I think that Lillian was faking being emotional just to gain Mindy’s sympathy
Fair point, but it seemed pretty sincere to me. Lillian has no reason to put on airs for Mindy, an acquaintance who’s about to be an ex-neighbor. (Unlike Les Moore, who has a motivation to act out for every person he encounters.) And the story expects us to believe Lillian has kept this awful secret for a lifetime. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Eugene’s contact with Lucy wasn’t completely an enigma prior to her death: It was shown in 2003 when Lucy was moved into hospice that Eugene was by then regularly sending her flowers, but in her mental state she refused to see the notes and was implied to remain oblivious to her lover’s final outreach efforts. If the bedside ramblings she had in 2009 reflect this, she may lucidly become aware of this and have been able to reconnect with Eugene on some level before passing. At the least it’s likely that the box of notes Lillian acquires are the same ones from the flowers, but whatever inconsistent colorist has taken over the Crankshaft archive somewhat ruins the clarity with their mismatched efforts. Damn is it ugly.
Also Barney the Death Cat is a rather clear riff on Oscar, the therapy cat in Rhode Island who was famous for having this presumed ability in real life. Dunno if Wikipedia’s “in popular culture” list is all-encompassing, but by its byline Tom could hypothetically pat himself on the back for being one of the first to invent his own Death Cat for a story, beating a House episode that used the same premise by a month. My favorite is still the one in Doctor Sleep, though.
Like I said to Joshua K. below, I thought Lucy’s actions were vague, and were contradicted by other story points.
Cats have been known to react to illness and pregnancy in their owners, because of their godlike powers of scent. I think Oscar’s actual skill was giving a shit about random people.
Note that this inconsistent colorist made Barney orange sometimes and not others. He’s orange again in strips after the ones I showed.
And Batiuk should be in that Wikipedia entry.
UPDATE: It’s there now. I just added it.
If you do go to that Comics Curmudgeon link, make sure to scroll down to read Uncle Lumpy’s comment on that day’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. Trust me, it’s worth it.
As to when Lucy had her mental breakdown, it seems to have been right after she found out that Eugene had left for the Army, quite possibly the same day. https://www.gocomics.com/crankshaft/2003/07/29
I thought Lillian was a little vague here, and a later telling of the story contradicts this point anyway. The contents of the letter are shown in https://www.gocomics.com/crankshaft/2011/10/13. Eugene says in the letter that he enlisted rather than wait to be drafted, and then proposes. So it can’t also be true that enlisting was in response to Lucy’s non-reply. (And considering the era, he was getting drafted anyway.)
You bring up something important I overlooked, though. How did Lillian know this? She knows Eugene took an action in response to Lucy’s non-reply, which can only be true if she was in contact with him, at least indirectly. You’ve unpeeled another layer of ugliness in Lillian’s actions.
Who is this guy?
He’s an utter nobody. What am I supposed feel when paddles into the sun? Joy, sadness, whimsy, bittersweetness? He’s NOBODY. This is the worst arc Tom’s written. There’s nothing here but more Tomsturbation. TOM knows what it’s about! Nothing else matters!
oh, i plan to dive deeper into this. But you’re right – the story asks us to care about this unknown, unintroduced, not-talked-about-in-a-decade character. In a story that’s long been drained of all possible intrigue.
Btw Eugene is at least 97 years old if he fought in WW2. And rowing is strenuous exercise, even for the youngest and fittest of us. (Have you ever seen a rowing team? They’re built like furniture movers.) The mere act of rowing to the center of a pond may be enough to kill him. Which i fear will be the point. One more for the Funkyverse body count.
For some reason, reading that made me laugh uncontrollably
I think that it makes more sense to have him just walk around being passive in the face of arbitrary and stupid adversity.
I thank God every day for giving me the will and plain old-fashioned horse sense to continue to studiously avoid Crankshaft. While I’ve already given this Crankshaft content my full blessing and SoSF Seal Of Approval, I gotta say, jeez. This shit is just ghastly. Human misery, featuring really long stretches of mind-bending tedium…why THIS man was given two daily comic strips will forever remain a mystery.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
All that effort to launch Voyager 2 has been for nothing because some jackass named Ed Crankshaft destroyed it
“Tom Batiuk made a blog post where he said he couldn’t find a way to “elegantly bring closure to the story.” This is baffling, because March 13, 2009 was probably one of the best endings Batiuk ever wrote in his life.”
So of course he had to wreck it then. He has never ever ever learned to leave well enough alone. He kept digging up Lisa’s festering corpse in order to ‘finish’ her story – dude she was dead. That kind of finishes things for most people.
And of course the temptation to wallow in yet more ‘revolting sentimentality” to borrow from Oscar Wilde was something he has never been able to resist.
and side note as a bit of science nerd i didn’t much care for the Sunday strip – Voyager is an amazing accomplishment – so it makes sense that Batiuk with his ‘nothing new is good, and any effort is futile’ would want it destroyed. There is something dark and profoundly mean spirited at the heart of this strip and one reluctantly suspects the author as well.
In that blog post Batty is actually showing photos of the old Chippewa Lake Park. It closed in the 1970’s and I went there as a child. It is near Batty’s house. The ruins were very popular with local photographers but have since been removed completely. There is a railroad museum nearby and they have been trying to lay tracks to the lake so they could offer rides on their vintage Cleveland streetcars.
All of this trivia is infinitely more interesting than the crappy story Batty created.
If Batiuk had the slightest amount of curiosity about anything, he might have learned that many people are interested in exploring and photographing urban decay, up to and including Pripyat. He acts like the appeal of such places is a narrow window into the human psyche that occurred only to him. Because as far as he knows, it did.
Then again, he might also have also learned that once such place was once a Lil’ Abner theme park, and that would give him would something new to be bitter about.
Crankshaft’s already doomed the entire earth to destruction. So why not have him destroy the last artifact of the human race?
Tom Batiuk is one of the nastiest people I’ve ever encountered. Selfish, arrogant, untalented, self-entitled, petty, judgmental, mean-spirited, full of phony humility, and a Stage 4 case of Dunning-Kruger disease.
Whoa! Little harsh there, dude.
I think he’s a clueless old man who’s failed upwards for 50 years. He doesn’t understand any human emotion he himself hasn’t experienced. He treats Hu-Mans as an alien species. He both assumes we all know what he’s thinking, while assuming basic “John Darling Etc” stuff is esoteric knowledge. What was the deal with “geezer rows boat for a week”? I really doubt that any reader had an idea. (Especially that wave of people coming to complain about “people making jokes” flashmob that came from nowhere on Saturday, only to disappear. Where were they from? Some another stumbling dinosaur of a strip, like Marvin or Pluggers?)
Fair. I’ll back off a little. I keep up with his blog, and it doesn’t give you the best impression of the man. I get why a lot of you avoid it. Maybe I should too. It’s a valuable window into the creative process, though.
Related to the Batiukverse: a Funky Winkerbean 2002 storyline where Darin and Mopey Pete (and eventually Les and Chien) make shitty jokes about eyes (I pulled this from v7.comicskingdom.net prior to FW and Crankshaft being removed from Comics Kingdom altogether)
The start of a puntastic shitshow
I’m sure this is one of the very few times that Chien shows any other emotions than “bitter at the entire world” and “absolute apathy/I can’t take life anymore so I’m going to slit my throat with a knife made of diamond”
yet another strip where Chien is actually happy (which is 2% of her appearances)
Chien: It’s still broken after Darin punched it in a fit of rage after I turned him down on a date.
Nice going, Ally. You made Chien sad
It’s almost impressive to have a string that long of successively unfunny jokes…
and also the fact that Durhruhin, Mopey McMopester Pencil Eraser Head Les and Chien are laughing to their own terrible jokes while Ally is getting increasingly agitated
I imagine that when he pulls the TV out, he’s watching the Crankshaft movie.
As Bart is shown to be laughing and experiencing enjoyment, this is clearly something that could only be imaginary.
On the second or third day of the “story,” I predicted it would end with Eugene showing up at Lilliopsaurus’s bookstore. To sign the bestselling and award-winning book he wrote about his unrequited love for Lucy. Lil is moved to confess her treachery. He forgives her, pointing out that if he had actually married Lucy and lived Happily Ever After, he never would have become an Author, the highest form of life in the Batiukverse. Smirks all around, The End.
I still kinda think something like this might happen, providing the story didn’t just sputter out last Friday (rowing a boat backwards into the sunset does seem perfectly Batiukian). I will admit to even kinda hoping it goes that way, because it would be so perfectly Batty.
Batiuk has heard your wish, and has made your dream come true! Enjoy a baffling Batiuk ‘ending’ of one plot arc, followed by a week of Ed Crankshaft making weak puns in a diner. Truly, the apex of Batiuk’s ‘art’!
I can’t decide what would be peak Batty here:
Of course, one has to marvel at Batiuk’s admission that he couldn’t find “a particularly elegant way to bring closure to the story”, given what we now know he considers to be an “Elegant Solution™”…
looks like a job for Zanzibar the murder chimp.
“Timemop The Elegant Solution™ and Zanzibar The Talking Murder Chimp” could be the greatest TV show since “BJ & the Bear”.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Hey, at least nobody is smirking
Eugene’s rowed himself off the scene, Ed and the Dale Evans posse are back, and it’s a malaprop that makes sense and is slightly amusing. All in all, I call this a Monday morning win.
This is really what Crankshaft does best. Ed’s punning can be legit good sometimes.
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
For some reason, I had a weird dream in which Ally Roberts and Chien were working at Montoni’s
Eh, why not? Everyone else in the strip did…
I can’t picture Chien working at Montoni’s because she might smash a bottle and cut her wrists to escape the painful existence that is living in Westview, Ohio and to avoid eating any of the flavorless shitcakes that Funky calls “pizzas”
Meanwhile in Mary Worth
The Crowd: GET THE FUCK OFF THE STAGE, YOU SELFISH FUCKS!
I hate to use Comic Sans. How can I obtain the “Batiuk” font?
I don’t know if an actual Batiuk font is available, but I tend to use “Vigilante Sidekick” as a “good enough” substitute. (Although it doesn’t have an apostrophe in the font for some reason? Ah, well.)
(Yeah, it’s pretty obviously not the same font, but… like I said, it’s good enough for the few stupid edits I make.)
https://fontmeme.com/fonts/vigilante-sidekick-font/
I use either the Timmy Failure font or the DOAWK Speech font
I’ll look them up. Thanks!
It’s close, but doesn’t have those fancy schmancy Batiuk signature “F”s that resemble flags flapping in the breeze.
Beats Comics Sans. Thanks!
Saying that a font “beats Comic Sans” is the faintest praise that can ever be given to anything. 🙂
Comic Sans is one of the greatest failures in modern history. It was conceived with a legit purpose: be a typeface for use in lighthearted material, in contrast to the Times New Romans of the world.
But it failed so spectacularly at that one job that it’s not even an example of what NOT to do. It is a complete abomination. There is no reason to use it. Ever. Not even to make fun of Comic Sans, or things that would use Comic Sans. Its uselessness is so self-evident that it can go unspoken. Especially now that plenty of good comic-looking fonts exist.
Banana Jr. 6000:
I know what you mean about Comic Sans. A manager at one of the places I worked overused the font. There would be a message from him on the bulletin board, “There will be an all-hands meeting in the auditorium at 2:00 PM. Attendance is mandatory! No exceptions!”, printed in Comic Sans. 🤦♀️
Employee: I’m confused. Is the meeting for real? Or is somebody posting a joke?
On the break room fridge: “The break room refrigerator will be cleaned out the last Friday of every month. Any lunches or condiments remaining will be tossed.”
Employee: You’re going to toss my salad? Thanks!
It is next to impossible to convey authority when using Comic Sans.
Fonts are not an area of my expertise. Typically, I use a handful of the standard fonts that are business-like. My image editing program, GIMP, does not list the fonts on my machine to choose from. At a minimum, you have to at least start typing in a font name. Unsure of what to use for the mock strip, I selected Comic Sans because “comic” was in the name (Comic Sans for a comic strip). Sorry about that. 🙂
No worries, we all did that at one point. Which is another layer of Comic Sans’ suckitude: it LOOKS like it’s the right tool for the job. If they’d called the font something less on-the-nose, like “Snickerdoodle”, it would have quietly faded into history. It might even have gotten a great Undertale character named after it.
I use “MV Boli” which is in my Windows install. Google Fonts has many free handwriting fonts: https://fonts.google.com/?classification=Handwriting
It absolutely kills me that he hired someone to digitize it, and they publicize it as well, but they do not make it publicly available. Sure, they probably realize it would only be used for these edits of existing strips, but still…
They also do watered-down versions of various lettering styles so maybe they just need some $encouragement$
Someone in the discussion must have mentioned that webpage before. It must have been where I saw the ‘TOMBATIUK’ font.
I could have sworn I saw someone use it here in a mock strip. I stand corrected.
I have at times photo-edited letters from existing FW strips, to make new words in the Batiuk font. One was the post-wedding strip where Corey Winkerbean says “Fuck.” This is usually more trouble than it’s worth, but in that case, I think using the authentic font made it a lot funnier.
Banana Jr. 6000:
That was a classic mock strip. You did a fantastic job removing Holly’s speech balloon, copying the reflection from the windshield, and applying it to make it appear as if Cory shut the driver’s side window in Holly’s face. Rage, Holly. RAGE!
I didn’t realize how much effort went into the font.
That one wasn’t actually as perfect as I wanted. I wanted the third panel to have little bzzzzzz *chunk* effects, like he was rolling up the window in her face. But it could never come out like I wanted, so it comes off a little static.
Matching the font in PhotoShop is a pain in the ass. I only do it when the joke really needs it. The “Rappin Around”/John Malkovich parody was another one. I took letters and copied/flipped them around in pieces to construct all the letters I needed.
Honestly, it’s (almost certainly) the case where they were commissioned to create the custom font, but the ownership of the font belongs to the commissioner (i.e., Batiuk), so Blambot simply doesn’t have the right to sell or distribute the actual font. They’re allowed to use its existence for promotional purposes (saying that they made the Batiuk Font), but that’s as far as their rights go. If anyone can make the font publicly available, it’d have to be Batiuk himself. (And I rather doubt he has any interest in doing so.)
(I’d rather doubt that any of the fonts listed on that page are actually publicly available. But the point isn’t to say “hey, look at what fonts you can get here” but rather “hey, look at all these people who we’ve made professional custom fonts for, and we can do it for YOU, too!”)
here’s another Swollen Head Lillian edit of mine
I made her head blue because fuck Lillian McKenzie
It makes her look like Violet Beauregarde. (That’s not a complaint or a criticism. Actually, Lillian could have used a tour of the Wonka factory…)
Oompa loompa doompety DOO
You must atone for the things that you DO
Oompa loompa doompety DEE
You screwed Eu-gene and your sister Lu-CY.
What did you think, all your effort would CAUSE?
Did you not see, that it had a few FLAWS?
You and your sis never got to be WIVES.
Your selfish actions WRECKED. THREE. LIVES.
(Plus one that was never born)
Oompa loompa doompety DOOK
Nobody cares that you authored a BOOK
Your greatest title will reach number TWO
Murder in the oompa loompa doompety YOU!
Eat hot death, Lillian.
I reiterate: this is some ghastly, ghastly shit right here. I saw “dying Lucy” and I knew everything I needed to know. Deathbed confessions, secret pacts, untold secrets, unfulfilled yearnings…it’s like an old King Diamond album. But nowhere near as fun. Remember, Tom Batiuk gave up being funny for this crap. Seems like a real “no-win” situation to me.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Cs grabs a $2 guitar, walks up to Crankshaft and bashes it on his skull
My third Inflated Lillian Head edit
Chien is saying “You are already dead” in Japanese, by the way (which is a reference to Fist of the North Star)
Batty is great at creating characters that annoy me. Chien is one of them.
I liked Chien as a character. I worked in record stores from 90-97. Goth culture had just begun. But, like basically anybody working in a music store those days, they were smart funny weird. (Except every single guy who thought he was a rock star, and acted like they were the lead singer of Warrant. One would think that Sam Goody would’ve awakened to this after their sexual harassment class action lawsuit in the late 80s–but Boys Will Be Boys!)
I liked Chien when she actually had personality traits of her own. Not this drone who mouths Tom’s terrible anti-puns. Hey, anyone guess by the first time she complains, Dumb Glasses Lady is going to make the exact same unfunny joke–BUT FAIL?! And everyone hates her, just like I’m sure TB thinks Crank is funny. [IT ISN’T]
I like Chien too. I imagine her as someone who doesn’t fit into Westview, and is perfectly fine with that. She doesn’t need these losers or their comic book-based social structure. She’ll join them when it aligns with her interests, like with Les in bashing the football team. But she’s not interested in their drama, so their usual manipulation tactics wouldn’t work. She sees Westview for the easily-ignored bunch of rubes it is. She seems worldly, perhaps from moving around a lot. (When I was in high school, I got on well with those kids.)
Chien could have been interesting as a minor antagonist. A Chien-Dinkle conflict could have been fun, but it would immediately expose how weak Dinkle really is. Apathy is kryptonite to zealots. Chien vs Les could have been fun, considering they’re usually allies. But Batiuk can’t even comprehend that kind of nuanced relationship, much less write it. And he certainly can’t comprehend a character ever taking a position opposed to anything Les wants.
So we get what we get. Chien’s is used to (1) enable Les stories, or (2) enable smirk-and-eyeroll stories. She also comes off as way cooler than other characters, simply because she doesn’t give a wet shit about anything the Funkyverse expects us to obsess about.
As Harriet said about Batiuk’s use of the Eliminator: Batiuk just couldn’t think of anything else to do with her. All he can do is keep pounding that one note.
This little guy is so cute I had to post his picture.
Retiboletus griseus, commonly known as the gray bolete, is a species of bolete fungus in the family Boletaceae.
This week’s Crankshaft-starring wordplay makes me think that Batiuk was told “Keep your terrible drama out of the strip or we will drop you. Go back to the old guy’s malapropisms.”
So Batiuk dramatized his situation by having Eugene (Tom Batiuk “Drama” and “Heartbreak”) sail into the distance, never to be seen again.
Or it could just be his amazingly lousy writing.
It’s just his usual inability to commit to a tone or direction, combined with his desire to keep getting paid. Nobody’s edited his work since Jay Kennedy died, so it’s way too late for anyone to start caring now. And if anyone tried, he’d be bitching about it on his blog.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
I have no idea what Crankshaft is saying, either he’s making a shitty pun or he’s saying that Mitch became Electro
He’s confusing “elocution” with “electrocution”. (Why Ed would know they word “elocution” is a mystery for another time.)
Also, they’ve either forgotten that Mitch is Ed’s GREAT-grandson, or they’ve forgotten that Ed’s grandson’s name is Max, not Mitch. (In which case Max, despite being an adult who once owned a business, is only just now learning to read.) I can see this one going either way, honestly.
(That would put in an interesting twist on that recent “Stormy Weather” strip. “You misspelled the title!” “Uh… you know I can’t read, Generic Blonde Who Is (Probably) Not My Twin Sister!” “Gotcha!” “I still can’t read!”)
You know, if the strip’s creator/writer cannot keep straight if Mitch is Ed’s great-grandson or grandson, there’s no reason we should expect Keesterman to do so.
Also, in actual (non-Harley) strip time Mitch is about 4 1/2 years old (even though his appearance varies from 2 to 8 years), so at least he’s a good half-century up on Cranky regarding literacy.
Hah! I thought for sure that with Crankshaft uttering the word “Sonic” in today’s strip, that would have had you launch into all sorts of directions.
Cindy and Mitch. Are these the two characters for whom Tom has the most difficulty in keeping their ages straight? Most everyone else is a nebulous “adult” or “teenager” so that’s easy enough to not worry about specifics, but this isn’t the first time that he’s had Mitch referred to as a grandson.
I wasn’t feeling up to it because I’m currently in Wisconsin for a three day vacation
Besides, I only include Sonic related characters when I feel like doing so
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Crankshaft suddenly turns into a AI generated monstrosity of Sonic, and then walks through the window, without breaking it