I Am The God Of Hellfire, And I Bring You…

114 thoughts on “I Am The God Of Hellfire, And I Bring You…”

1. Still Gabby says Let the games/burnings/self-addulation begin

2. Here’s a question: why is Dinkelberg giving away copies of CAFCP to the St. Spires Biddies when, back in late January, he similarly came in with a box full of Drums Along the Sidelines and charged the gals for them? Is he trying to get around not getting them to sign release forms?

   No way I’m sitting through six weeks of this nonsense. If anybody wants me I’ll be over in “Mary Worth,” helping Estelle and Dr. Ed plan their animal-themed wedding. Peace out, y’all.

   1. No way you’ll deprive the Arcamax/Go Comix dims of your wisdom!

   2. That story is just as frustrating. Estelle is a complete idiot and deserves to be with Wilbur, or better yet Arthur.

      1. Mary Worth is turning into Funky Winkerbean, in miniature.

         Wilbur Weston is basically Les Moore, except that he’s only being enabled by one person (Mary) instead of the entire universe. And the other characters, even Mary, will occasionally express their annoyance with Wilbur, but won’t do anything about it. Wilbur is even a self-proclaimed writer like Les is, even though he’s exceptionally unskilled at the topic he supposedly writes about.

         Why can’t Mary (or writer Karen Moy) see that Wilbur needs an intervention just as much as Aldo Kelrast did? He’s basically the same pushy undateable guy with bad interpersonal skills, worse hygiene, and no respect for women. But Aldo gets flung off a cliff, and Wilbur’s going to end up getting Estelle because of some contrived argument over the stupid Spinal Tap wedding she wants to do.

         1. Why can’t Mary (or writer Karen Moy) see that Wilbur needs an intervention just as much as Aldo Kelrast did? He’s basically the same pushy undateable guy with bad interpersonal skills, worse hygiene, and no respect for women. But Aldo gets flung off a cliff, and Wilbur’s going to end up getting Estelle because of some contrived argument over the stupid Spinal Tap wedding she wants to do.

            If I were Karen Moy, I would have Wilbur get his head stuck in a toilet and drown, and everyone in Mary Worth celebrates his death

            1. Moy had Wilbur drunkenly plunge off a cruise ship into the ocean at night. He survived that. At this point, the only thing that might kill Wilbur is for the Kurgan to cut off his head, I think.

            2. Wilbur dying would have been way more satisfying. Not because all us snarkers love to hate Wilbur, though that wouldn’t hurt. But more because it would have reinforced the idea that bad choices have consequences – even for main characters.

               Wilbur’s death could have been Aldomania all over again. And it would have disposed of a character who was narratively spent. And it would have set up a ton of stories for Dawn and the rest of the cast.

               But Moy chose the coward”s way out. She give Wilbur plot armor, and rescued him from a situation he had no realistic chance of surviving. Horrible, horrible choice.

         2. It didn’t work with Aldo, though.

            1. I would argue that the intervention worked as intended; it just had unforeseen consequences. Nobody know Aldo was an alcoholic who’d destroy himself that very day.

         3. Wow, I never thought about it that way. Wilbur Weston is just a fat Les Moore.

            1. Les has a daughter named for a season…

               Wilbur has a daughter named for a time(mop) of day…

               Dear Wendy, I think we have a problem!

3. “Books have always mattered to me,” Batiuk, an Akron native and Medina resident, said. “They’ve been an important part of my life, and so it was less choosing this topic than it was not ignoring it. Because the topic is out there.”

   Uh, yeah. While I can’t really argue with this scorching hot take, if it was any more vanilla it’d have sprinkles on top. “I’m in favor of the oxygen protection bill, as oxygen is out there”.

   “If they read this and see that I’ve made a point about how crucial books can be to people’s lives and how banning them is detrimental, that’s a good thing,” he said.

   I’d wager that it’d be a far, far better story arc if he came out in FAVOR of book-bannings and/or burnings. At least for us, as few if any others would notice. No one would see that coming, right? He could have really blazed another exciting new trail here, but, predictably, he went for the Dinkle gag instead. Some things never change.

   Worst of all, it’s a terrible Dinkle gag, even by Dinkle gag standards. “Churches Are For Choir Practice”…WTF? I have to assume that the church is the new football field in Dinkle’s twisted realm, but you have to know way, way too much about FW history to even get the joke, which means it’ll play for maybe thirty people, all of whom will think it’s stupid.

   1. It’s a snowclone. (location) Is For (activity) Practice. At least it’s a recognizable structure.

      But “Football Fields Are For Band Practice” has no currency outside Batiuk’s twisted idea of what he thinks the Funkyverse fandom is. (For one thing, he thinks it exists.) This might have passed muster in 1986, when Dinkle was still a well-defined comic strip character, and comic strip characters themselves had some cultural weight. But those days are long gone.

      1. I’ve been familiar with TomBan’s work for decades, and it still took me a second to realize “oh, yeah, the football field gag”. The average person, one with no idea who they’re dealing with, would have absolutely no idea why it’d even be considered a joke.

      2. AND FURTHERMORE (ahem), this is a tactic I feel he doesn’t get called out on enough. He does these gags that are only gags within a very limited and specific FW context, to a point where they aren’t really jokes at all. And not just once in a while, but all the time. It’s a cheap story-stretching gimmick that amuses no one but himself, but it often gets overlooked in our zeal to mock the larger story arc. And it still gets me mad all these years later. Sigh.

         1. “Football fields are for band practice” isn’t even a gag. It’s more like a mission statement. At best, it’s a character description.

            Like Schreoder playing the piano. Schroeder playing the piano is the root of a lot of things in Peanuts: his love-hate banter with Lucy; his lack of skill in anything else, especially baseball; his artistic and sensitive personality; his obsessive fandom for Beethoven; and that being an easy way to troll him.

            Tom Batiuk would just have other characters stand around and talk about him. “Oh, that wacky Schroeder is playing the piano again! He sure does love playing the piano, doesn’t he? I remember a time he played the piano in the rain! I smashed his Beethoven statue once, and he had a whole closet full of them!”

            It’s like a criticism I heard of Family Guy: “it’s in the style of a joke, without being a joke.”

      3. I think TB watched the same high school performance of Funky Winkerbean’s Homecoming that I have on my hard drive. The only thing that got a bigger laugh than Dinkle finishing Coach Stropp’s sentence (said to the girl’s soccer coach in an effort to kick them off the field) “Football fields are for…” with “BAND PRACTICE!” is Crankshaft’s song at the end.

         And here we are… with that old Dinkle gag running in Crankshaft.

4. I have one thing to say to the Byrnings

   BRING IT ON (whatever it has, if anything at all)

5. YAY! I by that I mean, that CBH, BJ6000, etc will be gracing us with their meanderings. Boo to Bathack trying and failing once again to be a ‘writer’. It’s almost as if he himself doesn’t think comic strip/cartoonists/whatever he thinks he is, is good enough. He has to tell us all, that he is a serious ‘writer’. Much like Dinkle, Les Moore, and Lillian.

6. Ooof. One strip in and I think we’ve already gotten to the point where the only thing that can redeem “The Burnings” is if TB reveals that Trogdor is behind them.

7. We know how this is going to play. The hero character (Lillian or Les, or perhaps Lillian advised by Les) will point out that Fahrenheit 451 is about book banning, and this will be treated as an insight that no one (including Ray Bradbury) had ever considered.

   I predict he will get several key points of the book wrong, because, hell, it’s just an old book, why do any research? See: “King Kong.”

   1. I remember the last mass middle finger to normal people and the prissy, self-satisfied ignoramus lecturing everyone. If it isn’t Crankshaft being the hero, Batty will point Suicide Girl at us.

      1. I think it’s implied that Lillian will be the hero, since Batiuk is spewing his “I didn’t know how strong she was” nonsense.

         1. Having her be the hero means that instead of a bus driver being the murder victim in her books, it’s going to be a band mom

         2. But will she open a lot of doors, as Lisa did?

         3. At least if she becomes a martyr, it’ll be one idiot woman killing another.

      2. “Batty will point Suicide Girl at us”

         Susan? Marianne? I can’t believe I have to say this, but “if I had a nickel for every Suicide Girl” this weirdo has, I don’t know which one. But I would have at *least* 2 nickels!

         (It won’t be Lisa. Her doctors screwed up insanely, but OF COURSE all she did was waste away in agony. Not the kind of agony Tom had when his mother didn’t bring him chocolate cookies, because had there e’er been as mistreated as whiny Tom?)

         1. Actress Actress Idiot Woman didn’t sink the chances of passing the school levy by calling taxpayers imbeciles who didn’t want to face cancer reality.

8. “The Burnings” will assuredly very much suck. But I am just as assuredly very much looking forward to SoSF’s “The Roastings”!

   1. The Roastings? I like that.

9. It’ll be a hoot-and-holler stinker wherein a pretentious and imbecilic snob gets to look down on everyone who ever made him feel small by calling them stupid. It’s Suicide Girl defending that bleak, nihilistic play about dying of cancer all over again.

   1. Based on the above, I want to see this become an episode of “Tales from the Crypt,” with John Kassir leading us into “The Burnings.” Bring on the nauseating yelp-yarns!

      1. Just so long as the cover isn’t sideways.

10. And of course, the fun part will be having him be filled with pride at missing the point Bradbury wanted to make: “Television is a plague on society that should never have been allowed to exist.”

    He’ll focus on the burnings and not on Mister Gimmick or The White Clown or Seashell radios because the silly, empty man has a silly, empty head.

11. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    Day Two Of The Byrnings: Tom, go ahead and give us Dick Facey already

12. Hmm, the supposed plot is that Lillian’s bookstore gets targeted because she’s selling this banned book to the students. Who do not need it since their school is obviously not including it in the class curriculum. So why are they even trying to buy it?

    I can’t wait to see how Lillian’s bookstore getting attacked leads to the destruction of almost all bookstores in the land, as was implied at the end of FW.

    AH HA HA HA HA, I kill me. Of course there will be no connection or explanation.

    1. However, Lillian’s bookstore survives the Burnings, since it is still there two generations in the future for Summer’s daughter and granddaughter to shop at. It’s most of the other bookstores in America that get burned down.

       Maybe it will be the anti-censorship crowd that burns down the bookstores. “This bookstore refuses to carry Fahrenheit 451! Burn it down!”

       1. Lillian’s bookstore seems the LEAST likely to survive the Burnings, if that’s also where they started. It’s like saying Pearl Harbor or Sender Gleiwitz survived World War II.

       2. That would be so very entertaining, and display a dry sense of irony while lampooning all sides of the censorship debate.

          So nothing of the sort will happen, and as others have pointed out, we’ll have a straw man whose incoherent and unrealistic arguments will be easily defeated even by a pompous peabrain like Les.

          1. I like the idea of the Burnings being the handiwork of an anti-censorship crowd. It reminds me of Bernie Wrightson’s cartoon of a sheepish Visigoth explaining why he and his kind had attacked Rome:

             “We wanted literature, music, art…we were starved for these things. We didn’t sack Rome, really. We were just looking for poems. I’m sorry if we broke some stuff…”

             Mark Twain, who was not a fan of Jane Austen (a lot of famous people aren’t: the Brontes and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others), said that if a library contained no Austen, even if contained no other books, it was still a library.

             A bookstore with no works from Les Moore and not a single volume of Harry Dinkle’s autobiography is a fine bookstore.

             Unless, of course, the only items on its shelves are Lillian McKenzie’s mysteries…

13. I’m also curious how a scholastic book ban extends to stores not even being allowed to sell the book in question. Especially after the local precedent of Blackburn v Comic Books.

    And, the Village Booksmith is an unlicensed store run out of Lillian’s attic. If anybody wanted to shut her down, they could just turn her in to the Department of Revenue. And I bet Department of Labor would love to hear about her unpaid elementary school-aged ‘volunteers.’

14. If anyone understands, please explain this to me: What does it mean when a school “bans” a book?

    Weapons and drugs are banned in most schools. Lockers or even bookbags may be searched if contraband is suspected. If a student is caught with the forbidden item, they may be suspended, expelled, or even arrested.

    Is it the same for banned books? Do they search for printed copies, and search electronics with Kindle, Overdrive, Libby, or any other reading apps?

    What happens if you are caught in possession of a banned book?

    I ask because I’ve never heard of a school banning a book. I’ve heard of books that are no longer on the recommended or required reading list, but that encompasses literally 99.999% of all literature.

    And I’ve heard of books that are not in a given school’s library, but that encompasses 99.9% of all literature.

    Can anyone explain exactly what a school book ban entails?

    1. Gabby says–it generally means it can’t be assigned to students, nor be in the library collection. I don’t know what happens if a student brings their own copy to school, but I suppose it might be like any other potentially disruptive student action.

       But, I live in Florida, so who knows. We have the death penalty

       1. I’m not sure what would constitute a ‘disruptive action.’ Is just bringing the book into the school in some form disruptive in itself, the same way a gun would be?

          How would this be applied to bookstores? Is Lillian required to verify what school a person attends and determine whether that school has banned a book? What if a student goes to a different school district and buys the book there? Can Amazon be prosecuted for selling Fahrenheit 451 to a student?

          This all sounds like a gross violation of the First Amendment. Is this arc supposed to be based on a particular case?

          1. Gabby says, I’m not a First Amendment expert, although I sometimes play one in the classroom 🙂

             In terms of “disruptive,” I suppose a school can label any behavior that way (such as hairstyles, clothing), subject to eventual judicial oversight. I would imagine if a student brought a banned book and read it aloud in the cafeteria, that would be disruptive.

             I don’t think a private business, such as a bookstore, could be prevented from selling a book, unless it was found to be obscene by the courts (which is at least for now a pretty tall barrier

          2. It is constitutional to protect minors from potentially obscene material, like the FCC’s content rules for network TV. I think that case was Pacifica. The bigger obstacle to this story is: local governments can’t tell bookstores what to sell, except for very clear reasons, like pornography to minors. “Obscenity” laws have pretty much been laughed off the books by the Supreme Court. The modern book banners don’t really have a leg to stand on, but what the Roberta Blackburns of world do now isn’t really “banning.” I can’t go into more detail without getting into politics.

             1. It was FCC v Pacifica. Better known as the “Seven Dirty Words” case.

             2. My understanding is that over-the-air broadcasting is held to a very different standard from cable or internet or other forms of broadcasting.

                The reason is that there are a limited number of frequencies available, and thus broadcasting licenses are a very finite resource.

                An over-the-air broadcasting license is considered a form of public service, since it’s using a finite public resource. Therefore, it’s theoretically supposed to be done in the public interest, and should avoid obscenity.

                Cable and internet are theoretically unlimited, so there is no duty not to offend or to be a service.

                (Side note: This seems to have always been the case. As early as the 1970s, I remember seeing soft-core pornography on Manhattan Cable TV.)

                The same idea can be applied to books. There’s no theoretical limit to how many books can be written, printed, bought, or stored, so there is no implied duty of writers or publishers to educate or serve the public.

             3. My understanding is that over-the-air broadcasting is held to a very different standard from cable or internet or other forms of broadcasting. The reason is that there are a limited number of frequencies available, and thus broadcasting licenses are a very finite resource. Therefore, it’s theoretically supposed to be done in the public interest.

                That’s exactly how I learned it in college, and why the FCC it has the power it does. I don’t know how ironclad that is now, though, because more modern broadcasting technologies don’t consume bandwidth like that. I wonder if the FCC has that kind of muscle anymore, since broadcasters can bypass their purview (and the FCC has never had any sway over things like cable TV).

                There’s no theoretical limit to how many books can be written

                And the Funkyverse is proof of that.

             4. “Obscenity” is illegal in all media, although the definition is somewhat general. A finding of obscenity is also based on “community standards,” which means something could be found to be obscene by a court in one jurisdiction, but found to be not obscene by a court in another jurisdiction.

                Over-the-air broadcasting is also subject to liability for “indecency,” which is a broader, more restrictive limitation. The FCC has initial jurisdiction, but its decisions can be appealed to the Federal Courts (as happened in Pacifica). Pacifica revolved around the notion that broadcasting was ubiquitous and intrusive. The case was brought by someone who said he was offended by the broadcast and was in a car with his “young” son when they heard the program–which was a public radio discussion/documentary about obscenity. Turns out the guy was head of a media morality group, and his son was in his late teens.

                Anyway, since access to cable/satellite, streaming, dvd’s, etc, require an affirmative step–purchase, paying for a subscription, etc., those are under fewer restrictions

                ps–BJ6K, who was your MMC 4200 instructor? If I remember when you said you were in Hogtown, was it Colleen Sullivan?

             5. The name Colleen Sullivan sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t think I took a class with her. The “Mass Media Law” class I had to take to get my Mass Comm degree I took at the University of South Florida.

                I didn’t stay in Hogtown for long; I transferred to and ultimately graduated from USF. Which is why I know about New College, since it was a USF branch campus at the time. As were FGCU, and Florida Poly.

                USF should have beaten UF in football in 2022. Which is amazing how hard we sucked at the time.

             6. She taught the Media Law course in the big auditorium around the time I believe you were there. I taught in there the next period so we would cross paths every MWF.

                Didn’t know that about FGCU (did know about Florida Poly). The governor (Jeb! or Martinez) made a big deal that they would not award tenure, just long term contracts, and somehow that would attract top faculty. It’s a pretty mediocre school.

    2. It means that it is not in the school library and it is not taught in the literature classes. In other words it is a molehill. Batty will do his best to climb it…and fail…but nonetheless nobody else cares.

       1. What would happen if the student got the book from a library? Presumably the library would be destroyed by the burnings too.

          I had the impression from the final FW strips that The Burnings were a global cataclysm, but they seem to at least have been US-wide. Can we look forward to the fiery destruction of every bookstore, library, and dusty World Book 1966 Encyclopedia collection in the attic of every grandma in Ohio?

15. Can we just speedrun this arc to the place where Les states that he can get there faster than (name your favorite public service/authority) while proclaiming, “USA!”

16. I have not read Fahrenheit 451 in a long time, so I went over to Wikipedia to confirm…

    The book is, according to Ray Bradbury, not about censorship.

    The society does not burn some books while promoting others (e.g., Hitler burning Jewish literature while promoting Mein Kampf); the Firemen seek to destroy all books. The medium is the target, not the content. Books can be saved and re-read as desired, they can be discussed, they promote thinking; in the society of F451, the instantaneous, stream-of-consciousness media of radio and especially TV rule. Everything is entertainment and everything is in the moment. People are reduced to the state of the Far Side cartoon featuring the two microorganisms, where one says to the other, “Stimulus, response! Stimulus, response! Don’t you ever think?”

    Do you think Batty’s upcoming story arc will recognize this? Or do you think he picked F451 simply because it’s memorable?

    1. To be fair, Ray Bradbury changed his mind a lot when discussing his intent. He talked a lot about television and media that encouraged anti-intellectualist behavior being the target of his allegorical writing, but he did in the past talk about it being a reflection on censorship of the government-enforced variety. Near the end of his life, he also made the claim that it countered the idea of political correctness (how milder it was in his lifetime) and that his world was the result of that going too far.

       Could be all of those things though. Still a point to be made that Crankshaft is going to be aiming a little too high for saying current censorship is aiming a little too high and behind-the-times to call it an issue of censorship of the ‘think of the children’ public masses on an intellectual level. I’ve said it before but that book is not what the more topical book bans are concerned about.

       1. What’s going on at New College of Florida is a good example of how “more topical book bans” work nowadays.

          1. Also, the Marion County Record.

          2. I don’t view disposing of unwanted/unused books as being the same as banning them. These aren’t rare or irreplaceable books, nor is anyone being prevented from getting them from a library or bookstore.

             My local elementary school recently put literally hundreds of books — texts, fiction, and nonfiction, including some well-known classics — into giant clear garbage bags, and left them out for the recycling truck to pick up. Is that considered a book banning?

             1. The books in question were intentionally destroyed because of their “woke” content. They were not made available to anyone who might want them. By the way, I wasn’t just talking about that particular incident.

17. Pretty much a “me” question, but anybody have any thoughts about the GC commenter woolsey2001? Only been around GC for a week, follows only B.C., only comments on CS and randomly on Ripley’s. But, sure as a sporto spotting a vendo, he’s proactively attacking people. With bland personal invective. And he doesn’t get whole threads killed at sunrise. Single comments within threads. Like they have some inside connection at GC. Somebody sure hates to hear “Tomsturbation”!

    If you wrote 11 *months* in advance the laziest comic ever, and you found out the End isn’t just Near, but 12/29/24…What would you do with your extra time? Leave devastating observations like “whine whine”?

    Asking for a friend.

    1. We try not to involve other sites and/or their regulars here at SoSF. We are aware that some folks like to comment on multiple sites, and we don’t care, but we can’t have other communities poisoning our well, so to speak. It’s more or a request than a steadfast rule, but it’s worked well for us for many years.

       1. Hi Epicus. I like the new avatar.

          @billthesplut isn’t the only person to violate that undocumented rule this year. May I suggest the “other communities” rule be added to the Site Rules at the top of the page? Something like, “Leave conflicts on other communities at the other community.”

          While I’m on the subject of the Site Rules, what does NSFW mean?

          1. NSFW = not safe for work. Stuff you wouldn’t want to be caught with at work. Or at home, depending on who you’re married to.

             I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a violation, it’s more of a friendly reminder. The problems begin when someone with a “commenting persona” on a different site visits our site in character, and starts doing shtick. Then you have the forty comment threads full of mindless back and forths, which is what we really frown on. It’s off-topic, which is already a rule. And we do play pretty fast and loose with that rule as it is, but we can’t bend on that.

             Thanks re: the avatar. That was Leo, the official cat of SoSF, who crossed the rainbow bridge a few weeks back after nineteen fun-filled, judgemental years. Someday I’ll get over it…maybe.

             1. That’s what I thought NSFW stood for.

                I was going to be smartass and suggest SoSF’s and my definition of NSFW were different, but your explanation makes sense. Most of us are adults here, with common sense, and the ability to monitor ourselves. I get it. You can’t be as stringent with NSFW here as you would be in a typical workplace.

                There was something in the comments the other night I was shocked to see. Something I found offensive and inappropriate. I expected to see the comment removed at some point, but it never was. If the moderator on duty didn’t feel the comment warranted removal, it’s up to me to make the adjustment (not read that person’s comments anymore).

                —————————

                I’m saddened to discover the fate of Leo. What a beautiful cat.

                I think I know how you feel. I had a West Highland Terrier (Westie) who passed in 2017. He was 14. MacDuff was my dog, not my husbands. I picked him out, and he was registered under my name. He was my cuddle buddy. My first, and for now, last dog. I wouldn’t rule out adopting a cat someday.

                My husband has a dog, Rusty, a Dane-Shepherd. We share in Rusty’s care, but he’s my husband’s dog. It’s no fun for me to walk Rusty, as he weighs almost as much as I do. Sadly, Rusty is getting up there in age and has recently been diagnosed with hip dysplasia. Mr. BWOEH has always liked big dogs. The sad thing about big dogs is their life expectancy is much less than that of smaller dogs.

                I’ll always remember when I met my husband-to-be’s dog for the first time. He had a Great Dane named Caesar. I was a taken aback when Caesar galloped towards me. He put his big paws on my shoulders and licked my face. I had passed the “dog test”.

          2. NSFW = “Not Safe For Work”. A kind of a catch-all for describing images (or text) that may be too sexual, violent or otherwise objectionable to be displayed on someone’s workplace computer.

             1. Thank you.

    2. Is it “other communities” when you’re suspicious the week-old commenter is Tom?

       1. Good question. I completely missed how you were talking about BatYam there, and that’s on me, so my apologies. I’ve always been a little edgy about cross-pollination between the various comic strip snarking sites, and I’ve always taken a hard line on that, but I did totally misread your comment, and thought it was something else entirely. Which it wasn’t.

          Yes, if someone was to present proof (even flimsy proof) that BatYam was commenting on his own strips, then you betcha we’d be covering that. He’s always on-topic. Seems far-fetched, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

       2. During my early days as a Funky Winkerbean snarker on The Comics Kingdom, there was a Batiuk defender some people thought was Tom Batiuk himself.

          It’s been about five years, but I don’t want to break site rules by naming them. People here who snarked on FW in the CK comments back then will instantly know who I’m referring to. This Batiuk defender’s initials were R.R. This person would insult the snarkers by calling them “jobless bed wetters” who “lived in their mother’s basements” and “subsisted on government cheese”. Like TB, this person would call the snarkers beady-eyed nitpickers and hidebound literalists. Many snarkers would go toe-to-toe with them. To the point of accusing this person of actually being Tom Batiuk. Many would post comments like, “We know it’s you, Tom. Just admit it”. Eventually, this person defended TB too vigorously and the Comics Kingdom moderators had no choice but to ban them.

          Like your antagonist, this person was probably just a troll.

          1. Many years ago, I was a commenter on a very obscure page about–a comic strip about a pantsless political duck, let’s leave it there.

             We’re talking a site with like TEN commenters. Then one day, “Nick” turns up. He gives an angry speech written in the same cadence, spelling, grammar, and <b>random bolding</b> that his strip had. It was followed 5 minutes later by “Rick,” and it was just “Nick”s rant exactly again. Yeah, it was the author. He really didn’t like replying after we called out whoever “Dick” or “Prick” was today, and we all gave up after a short while.

             Was it him? I can’t prove it was. But I like to think so.

             1. A cartoonist created multiple sock-puppet accounts to confront snarkers? If true, that’s sad and pathetic.

                And to think I thought Brooke McEldowney was thin-skinned and immature for closing the comment section on his titles. I always thought if he doesn’t like the criticism, he should stop being a perv.

                My favorite interaction of all-time between a cartoonist and a snarker was sometime last year. There was a solitary snarker in the discussion of Adam@Home. Every day, the snarker mocked the strip. After a week or so, the cartoonist, Rob Harrell, confronted the snarker. He wrote something along the lines of, “It bothers me to read your criticism day after day. You seem to be the only reader in the comments who voices their disapproval. Why don’t you try my other title, Big Top, to see if it is more to your liking?” The next day, the snarker was gone. I thought it was a rather mature response.

                Somebody like Batiuk couldn’t take that approach, though. Not in a strip where the snarkers outnumber the non-ironic readers by more than 10:1 (20:1?).

                If Batiuk closed the comments, he wouldn’t have any readers.🤣

             2. ArcaMax still allows comments about 9CL

             3. Sorry if you guys are getting tired me harping on GC’s Mystery Date. I noticed last night that his comments pop up exactly when the strip goes live, and they’re always fatuous to the point of non sequitur. Then, he responds to other commenters by complaining that they’re commenting at the same time he’s awake. …And? So what? He did it 3 times in a row to me last night. Why is he so obsessed with the time?

                But then I had a thought, and here it is: “OK, Akbar, you can put your giant fish head on and yell “It’s a trap!” because I sure walked into it! I thought you were a human, but you’re just ChatGPT with bad input! “GIGO, ” I should’ve known. Well, I’ve learned, and I’ll treat just as what you are: an overworked Russian bot flooding Facebook with Minion memes about how Putin is the Moon-God or whatever.”

                I figured that if I was wrong and it was a human, “you’re like badly made ChatGPT” would be a decent insult at least. If it was AI, it would leave the comment alone. A few hours later, someone deleted it. Hmm.

          2. I vaguely remember RR. Who I really remember would go by the initials FF, though the user name was all one word.

             FF was a being who had apparently noclipped out of a dimension where, without changing a single thing, Funky Winkerbean was regarded as meaningful, funny and charming. (Imagine such a world.)

             FF showed up around the time of the first attempt to film “Lisa’s Story” and was quite effusive about each day’s offering, claiming that yet another high point had appeared with every episode.

             FF assured readers he was “real” but at some point he must have noclipped back into his own horrifying dystopia, and he was never heard from again.

             1. I remember FF too. They’d write a lengthy paragraph insulting the snarkers, telling Batiuk to ignore them, and praising Batiuk’s skills. Multiple people would flag his rants and the moderators would dutifully remove them. FF tried to be clever by copying and pasting his rants several times throughout the discussion. People would flag those too. In the end, he trolled too hard and was banned (banished?) from The Comics Kingdom.

                I don’t recall a @BeckoningChasm on The CK. As Epicus Doomus mentioned, you most likely kept your comments and profile name separate from SoSF to avoid cross-pollination. Doesn’t mean I’m not curious about what profile name you used, though.😉

             2. Before the Great Comments Purge at CK, I might have commented, but so rarely that I don’t remember what name I used. If I recall, prior to the GCP you didn’t need to register with CK to leave a comment.

18. Monday, Banana Jr. 6000 posted: “Wow, you applied to Marvel and DC? Do tell.” Well, since you asked:

    Basically, when I was young and foolish, the Big Two still accepted unsolicited submissions. I decided to try my luck.

    I sent two or three ideas to DC, but the only thing I remember about them was that one featured Captain Marvel (the original Big Red Cheese) fighting Ibac (or maybe King Kull).

    I also sent at three to Marvel. One, a “Marvel Team-Up” story featuring Spider-Man and Captain America, would have introduced Red Guardian III, who somehow was a murdered teenage ballerina (I’m pretty sure I had an explanation back then).

    The others were post-Jedi “Star Wars” tales. One would have been about Luke and company dealing with various criminals jockeying to take over Jabba’s operations. The other would’ve have had the characters traveling to a planet just outside the borders of the Empire/Old Republic in search of group of Imperial war criminals. Mostly what I remember about it was that the planet was ruled by a theocracy and that the Force was considered heretical. Luke would have been pushed into the background and Chewbacca would have saved the day.

    The closest I ever got to writing for the comics (not counting a couple letters that made the cut at DC), was a brief correspondence with the late Mark Gruenwald concerning the full history of the Skrulls and Dire Wraiths (from “Rom”) split off from them and explaining the Wraiths’ name, which I always thought lacking (I said it was the English translation of an extremely sanitized Galadorian euphemism for the vilest swear word in the Skull language). He liked my ideas and thought they could be included in a planned update of “The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe,” but time passed, plans changed and it was never to be. Ah, well.

    1. Erdmann, thanks for telling your story. Do you if “when the Big Two still accepted unsolicited submissions” coincides with 1974-ish, when Batiuk went to New York to interview with them?

       1. My efforts were about 12 to 15 years after Batty’s, but as far as I know, publishers were open to unsolicited submissions dating back to the industry’s early days. Of course, that’s all a thing of the past now.

          1. No big media company accepts unsolicited subscriptions anymore, because too many people send them in and then sue the company when they see them make a story with a vaguely similar plot.

    2. Very interesting, Erdmann. My own experience with giving comic book writing a shot was in the early ’80s, when I sent some Superman Family (Jimmy Olsen, Private Life of Clark Kent) stories and a couple of Whatever Happened To (updates on obscure/forgotten heroes) stories into DC. Nothing came of it, but I received a very nice letter from editor E. Nelson Bridwell, who liked my idea for a “Whatever Happened to Space Cabby?” tale. He suggested I try coming up with ideas for the horror anthology books, but a “real world” job got in the way.

       1. E. Nelson Bridwell, from all I’ve read and heard, was a lovely man.

          The most famous of the “Whatever Happened to…?” stories is probably the one about the Crimson Avenger (*DC Comics Presents* #38).

          Alan Grant used the Space Cabby nicely in an issue of *Lobo* (#21).

          Come on, #7433, there are fares a-waiting!

19. And, as you can see from the last minute edits I made that somehow didn’t make it into the final version of my previous post, I know the value of a good editor and sincerely wish I had one with me. [Sound of me banging my head against my desk]

20. Watching Dinkle puffing himself up while hinting at Lilian Lizard’s unknown strength raises a delicious possibility: his being all hat and no cattle.

21. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    Day Three of the Byrnings: Looks like Lillian and Dinkle are having a smirk-off

    1. Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean

       “Hard”? It’s pretty much freakin’ impossible for Dinkle to be humble, because his ego is the size of the solar system

22. Related to the Batiukverse: Week One of The 2001 Storyline of Jim Kablichnick Going Insane Over A Speck of Paint On His Telescope (I found these images on CK before they axed the strip from that site)

    

    In the 2001 NCAA championship, the Duke Blue Devils defeated the Arizona Wildcats

    

    

    Mooch: What are we waiting for?

    

    You know, Jim, for a intelligent guy like you, you’re pretty fucking stupid

    Like, how did you not think that was a speck of paint?

    

    Darin: They should call it “Stupid Motherfucker”. (smirk)

    

    Darin: Mooch, that’s not what I had in mind.

    1. Someone should tell Matt and Kablichnik that nobody calls the NCAA Championship “the big one”, no matter what sport you’re talking about.

    2. Act II Kablichnick was kind of a kook, he once blamed climate change on the youths and their vidja games… saying their thumbs rotating on d-pads was causing hurricane rotation to speed up and intensify.

       Mooch was a fun character. No wonder TB ditched him during the Bush administration.

       1. After Act I, Batty developed the uncanny ability to discard what the readers liked and promote what they didn’t. A very unique ability.

          It’s bizarre.

23. The Burnings off to a slow start, but at least we start with a semi-classic modern Crankshaft moment rather than something more pretentious than like an equivalent to Marvel’s Watcher (Lord of the Late return?) lecturing us on the themes of the imaginary story that will follow. Though I suppose some folks wouldn’t mind that either.

    Starting off with the Dinkshaft plugging a new book as well? That’s one Funker down on “Half of Funk’s Cast Appears”! I wonder if he’s going to be one of our pro-free-speech patriots running through these weeks if he’s going to be at ground zero of the action for book signings.

24. “The Burnings off to a slow start…”

    That’s classic Batiuk, though! Start slow; continue slow; build inexorably to a glacial middle; tease the promise of something interesting happening; skip over that part; end completely stagnant. Voila! Story arc a la Batiuk!

    It surely can’t be a coincidence that ‘Batiuk’ rhymes with ‘static’.

    1. That’s actually a really good description.

25. Guess who’s back, back again, Les is back, warn a friend.

    1. Boo!
       (What does “Rate Up” and “Rate Down” do? I was going to choose “Rate Down” on Rusty’s post, due to everyones feelings on what it means. But then I thought the Algorithms might think it was a reflection on Rusty, and not what the post represents.)

       1. Not sure, but I do not care either way. Vote up or down, I won’t be offended.

26. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Day Four of the Byrnings: HE has arrived

    by that I mean Dick Facey is finally in the Comic Strip Formerly Known As Crankshaft, and we hate it so much

    1. He’s a “necessary” evil because all the author inserts have to wade into this mess.

    2. “Live at the Carnagie Hall”?

       C’mon.

       Spelled wrong — it should be Carnegie Hall — and there’s no “the.”

       For someone so entranced with NYC, Batiuk sure gets a lot of commonly-known, easily-Googled things wrong.

       Two egregious errors in one word zeppelin, AND the re-emergence of Loathesome Les, humblebragging about his literary output? We’re off to a real rip-roaring start here.

       1. Attention to detail was never his strong suit. We’re not only going to see this in this arc, we’re going to watch Jffff not make heads or tails of the Bombers beating the Ticats.

       2. The Carnagie Hall is where Batiuk met Joe Schuster.

       3. I had thought the misspelling was part of a joke, in which Harry Dinkle tells people that his band is going to perform at Carnegie Hall, but then finds out that they were actually invited to perform at the Carnagie Hall, which turns out to be a (fictional) much less prestigious venue.

          But Batiuk really did publish a FW compilation titled Harry L. Dinkle Live at Carnegie Hall, spelled correctly on the book cover. (See https://www.amazon.com/Funky-Winkerbean-Harry-Dinkle-Carnegie/dp/B000GUTJ10 .)

       4. Old Joke:

          “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” asks a visitor to New York.

          “Practice, practice, practice,” says the native New Yorker.

          (During the pandemic, when Carnegie Hall was closed, signs outside made the answer “patience, patience, patience.”)

          “The Carnagie Hall” is the place you get to without “practice, practice, practice.”

          Factual notes: there is a Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. It figures in Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case.”

          And Dale Carnegie spelled his last name “Carnagey” until 1922.

27. There’s no theoretical limit to how many books can be written

    And the Funkyverse is proof of that.

    Behold! The prophecy of today’s strip!

28. Checking in on Arcamax early in the morning, man was it a shocking surprise to see Les so soon! Seems like he doesn’t get much impact for now though, as he’s left to the straight-man role to be befuddled by Dinkle’s writing audacity.

    How much interaction did they really have in the past, anyways? You’d think both having writing careers would see them bump into each other more often.

    1. I don’t think it matters if they interacted much. Dinkle doesn’t really see people that I ever noticed.

29. Related to the Batiukverse: Week Two of The 2001 Storyline of Jim Kablichnick Going Insane Over A Speck of Paint On His Telescope

    

    

    Linda: I’m serious, James. Have you considered the possibility that Darin and Mooch painted a dot on your telescope?

    

    So, did Les get probed (like Eric Cartman) or what? because this strip gives me the impression that he did

    

    Unknown voice: Dad, what are you doing?

    Jim: NOTHING, BRIAN!

    

    Well, well, well, another character that will be forgotten and thrown away like nothing happened

    

    Les: Matt, since I don’t know jack-shit about science, you don’t have to.

30. I was wondering if the “burnings” was the lustful feelings between a one-armed man and an old comic strip writer or an old woman and her ancient choir director. But today the Beast emerged from Hell and moved from Funky to Cranky. The time of trial has arrived…..

31. Best Actress Award Winner Les Moore appears in a new strip for the first time in almost two years. He’s already making it all about himself and whining by the second panel.

    Classic Les Moore!

    I believe it’s the Dread One’s first appearance in Crankshaft since February 3rd-4th, 2022.

32. Related to Dick Facey: Since Les is in the Comic Strip Formerly Known as Crankshaft, I have a edit of the FW strip where he gets tackled by the football teens (I replaced the football with Jarate from Team Fortress 2)

    

33. 08/30/2024. Since the art is recycled, I needed to look it up here to find the date when it was first posted.

    https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2023/08/29/murder-she-smirked/

    I’ve taken a moment to look over the comments again. Many salient points remain 100% applicable right now.

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