COTTON (Gary Cole): “Good evening, sports fans, Cotton McKnight here, coming to you live from Village Booksmith in Centerville, Ohio, welcoming you to the finals of the World’s Smuggest Man competition! Live on ESPN8, The Ocho. And with me as always, my partner in crime: Pepper Brooks!”
PEPPER (Jason Bateman): “Yo! What’s up, Cot? Fist bump!”
COTTON: “Thank you, Pep. Our challenger is a choir director from right here in Centerville, Harry L. Dinkle The World’s Greatest Band Director!”
PEPPER: “And that’s not an idle boast, folks, he legally his changed his name to that. That should give you an idea of how smug this man is.”
COTTON: “He’ll be facing our champion, who’s been called the Michael Jordan of competitive smugness. And much like Michael, he is returning to the sport after a two-year absence. Of course, it’s none other than the G.O.A.T. of insufferable, punchable smugness: Les Moore, from Westview, Ohio.”
PEPPER: “This is a man who manipulated actress Marianne Winters into hand-delivering him her Oscar trophy after he tried to veto her casting, gloated that the film lost money, and cancelled a previous version of the movie over a kill fee he didn’t even fulfill. At the Backpfeifengesicht Cup in Germany, nobody could resist slapping Les for more than 14 seconds. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what makes Les Moore a champion of smugness.”
COTTON: “I’m expecting a smug-off for the ages here tonight. In fact, these may be the two most smug men who’ve ever lived. Though I notice Dinkle’s not wearing his signature medal today.”
PEPPER: “I think he’s trying to get into Les’ head by showing that he doesn’t feel the need to get into Les’ head. Like if you challenged Carrot Top to make you laugh, and he left all his props at home just to show you he doesn’t need them. It’s a bold move, Cotton, let’s see if it works out for him.”
COTTON: “Competitive Smugness is a complex sport, Pepper. And… we’re underway! In the first panel, Les opens with a Sarcastic Question. He’s pretending to be interested in Dinkle’s autobiography when his own book series has won so many awards and is clearly stronger.”
PEPPER: “Solid opening move, Cotton. Sarcastic interest is hard to resist, and Les does it so well. How will Dinkle respond?”
COTTON: “Dinkle’s going for a Full Word Balloon! Will he pull it off? Yes! Les mockingly asked Dinkle about his 11-volume biography, and Dinkle blows it out of the water by actually writing a 11-volume biography! 66 words, I think that’s the biggest word balloon so far this season! We’ll get the stats truck to check that. I think Dinkle got a couple of the titles wrong, but still a great reversal! That is commitment, Pepper!”
PEPPER: “Yes, sir! And that’s where I think Dinkle has the edge here. Les Moore is one smug man, but he’s a lazy kind of smug. He’s all passive-aggressive sarcasm, smirks, eyerolls, and unearned superiority. Dinkle puts in the work! He will overwhelm you with his smugness!”
COTTON: “We’re on to panel 3. Les counters with a False Humility, pretending to be impressed with Dinkle’s many volumes when he knows Lisa’s Story is the greatest work in the history of literature, and now cinema as well. Will Dinkle take the bait? Yes! Les evens the score!
PEPPER: “Les Moore’s insolence can be so wonderfully understated you don’t even realize he’s insulting you. Dinkle sure didn’t there. Les makes a sarcastic “quantity over quality” argument, and Dinkle walked right into it. Great battle so far!”
COTTON: “And that’s the end of the first strip, we’ll be right back after this. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll go back to Batton Thomas at Montoni’s. Or Crankshaft will run over Keesterman’s mailbox again. Or someone will find a priceless comic book. Or maybe even something about book burning! Who knows?”
Son of Stuck Funky 
For some reason I heard all of this in the voices of Gordon Ramsey and Joe Bastiarch on Master Chef
BJr6K: This is a masterpiece. I could picture the blow-by-blows as they ego’d it out…over only two panels!
ANd I had so hoped, we would never see Les again. Foiled again.
Yes, Tom, be sure to remind Crankshaft readers that the cackling old asshole is the beloved old band director character everyone over sixty remembers so fondly, and do this by listing some of his “greatest hits” in hilarious parody book title form.
“Oh, yeah! I remember that! Ha ha! He used to take over the football field for BAND PRACTICES! That’s so fawkin’ funny! And band moms…LOL!”.
If such a Crankshaft reader exists, I suggest handing out torches and pitchforks at once. Talk about desperate, shameless shoehorning. Speaking of which, f*ck Dick Facey. The bearded dick with ears is a lifelong Westviewian, who’s worked at the high school for decades. How would he be unfamiliar with Dinkle’s endless shtick? And are we to seriously believe that Dinkle hung around that high school every day and somehow remained unaware of Les Moore’s cancer book? That’s simply not possible. Once again the Batty One just totally ignores the entire history of the strip for no reason, other than it was only Thursday and he was still three strips short.
Why is he doing this? What are the odds that either of these annoying jerks will have anything whatsoever to do with the story, which I assume he’ll get to eventually, maybe? Seeing Les in Crankshaft is like seeing a waitress spitting in the wrong food. It’s repellent, sure, but in a different way.
There’s no way Dinkle and Les could have worked together all those years and not known about each other’s books. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were promotional flyers up in the teacher’s lounge for every publication.
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)
Les: I HATE YOU!
(he then gets run over by a train)
I said I was looking forward to “The Roastings”, and I was not disappointed. Outstanding work, BJr6K!
(But pace yourself … we’ve still got 5-1/2 weeks to go!)
The problem with his smugness is that he’s too stupid to realize that only a knuckle-dragging simpleton can be smug. He and Dinkle are walking punchlines who don’t see how absurd they are.
Also, we can expect to see passive-aggressive nonsense that reminds us that Batiuk is the template for the preening nincompoops who smirk their way through life. Alda had the honesty to admit how messed up Hawkeye Pierce is. Tommy will never even see it’s horrible to be Les.
That’s a great observation. I think smugness goes hand-in-hard with *unearned* success. Genuinely accomplished people get their confidence from their deeds. They know how hard it was to do, and don’t need to rub the success of the finished product into the faces of others. And they know a lot of success is luck anyway.
Les’ arrogance stems from his complete *lack* of confidence. He’s a fraud, and he knows it. So is Dinkle. So is Lillian. So are Pete and Darin. So is Tom Batiuk. You know who’s not smug? The genuinely accomplished characters: Bull Bushka, Flash Freeman, Phil Holt. Even Ed Crankshaft, as much of a jackass as he is, isn’t smug about his high-level baseball career.
I guess that’s why he’s so defensive when he’s challenged on any issue.
Les doesn’t know jack shit about anything other than his 16 year long bitching and moaning over his dead wife
He certainly has no damn business inflicting his stupidity on their child.
The mess with the telescope is more proof that insecure idiots who know they’re imposters puff themselves up.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Five of The Byrnings/Day Two Of The Complete Jackass Olympics of 2024
The two worst people of the Batiukverse and two years after their last meeting in 2022
WHERE’S THE BOOK BURNING!? I WANT TO SEE SOME ACTION
Oh my god Thursday is a golden goose of a strip! Finally approaching the subject matter of the arc is one thing, Les letting loose his first punchable smirk is another, but the star of this strip is that “Banned Books” display – shamelessly retraced by “Dangerous” Davis from the Sunday stirp last year, already fresh in our minds from being reposted by the news articles promoting the arc as a relevant piece! Gosh you can just see how the perspective on it was made for that special angle looks off in the way Davis tried to reframe it here (and I’m wondering where exactly he traced it from last year), and that sign just looks so obviously edited in with a text editor instead of traditional comic lettering, especially in the 2nd panel.
Still, this spotlighting of the pile today has me confused; the jailbird-striped items to the right of the book “Beloved” at the bottom (how often does that come up in general I wonder? I feel like I only really heard about it when my literature class focused on it.) Is that another book? A stack of flyers? Carry-bags in a conveniently-tight stack, given the visible “handles” in today’s remix of the illustration? There seems to be words within the stripes but they’re too small to read.
Addendum; the GoComics community seems to think the mystery pile is for a bunch of posters based on ones by the Banned Book Week program. Interesting, though I couldn’t find a match for them on Google.
Did find amusing “Wanted” posters for banned books, Harry Potter was part of that lot. I wonder if Batiuk will play that card given HP’s actual burning history with churches, because the same people on Twitter who roasted him for portraying ICE agents as simply mistaken and easily swain by Montoni’s would actually revel in some illustrations of those books burning.
Hi, long time reader, first time caller.
Given the bibliography of our 2 smuggers, maybe Batuik is trying to convince us that Book Burning is good? Burn all the Dinkle Chaff to leave only that Les wheat!
Welcome! Great name BTW.
I don’t think Batiuk is going to side with the book burners. The end of FW implies that the Burnings were a bad thing. I also don’t think he has any concept of quality. Notice that Dinkle’s absurdly unreadable book is given equal status with Les’ world-defining masterpiece at the signing table.
I get the reference!
First Dinkle and now Lillian bouncing their insufferableness off of Les…
Cotton McKnight : Looks like it’s gonna be a two-on-one, a ménage à trois of pain.
Pepper Brooks : Usually you pay double for that kind of action, Cotton.
I really wanted to work in Cotton and Pepper’s reactions to the bondage gear the Average Joes wore as uniforms.
COTTON (genuinely shocked): “Oh my sweet Jesus.”
PEPPER: “That’s rad.”
Related to the Batiukverse: Week Three of The 2001 Storyline of Jim Kablichnick Going Insane Over A Speck of Paint On His Telescope
If aliens landed in Westview, they would immediately haul ass out of there because they would instantly get cancer and Dick Facey will write a book about that
That may protect you from aliens but it won’t protect you from Fred firing your ass
Darin: He thought the dot on the telescope was a fucking alien spaceship, of course he’s insane.
(cs grabs a skull and holds it up, and starts talking to it)
Alas, poor Bill Collins. I knew him well, as in not very
Les, Nate told you that Bill Collins was sick the day before
What an astoundingly stupid storyline. The man is a science teacher for fuck’s sake.
Tom is a man who is known for holding grudges for DECADES. Bull spent years crawling to Les for forgiveness, and then Les spent the week of his funeral smearing him.
Wanna bet some science teacher once won a very simple argument with Tom the 8th Grade Art Class Teacher?
And he’s friends with John Byrne? How very very odd. I wonder what the two of them could possibly have in common. Boggles the mind, it does.
You would think at some point that he’d check the lens to see if he’s being tricked. The fact that he thinks the aliens want to broadcast his thoughts because being made a sap of is not an option paints him as another smug dimwit.
Batiuk: “Okay, Jay, OKAY! I’ll do a ‘funny’ strip. But someone’s gonna die at the end. Now will you stop calling and let me concentrate on being a genius?”
Little known fact: The first book signing was in a Chinese opium den in the 15th century.
Tom Batiuk has said that his favorite super-hero is the Silver Age Flash.
I’m beginning to think that his second favorite is the Silver Age Atom.
We had a “Time Pool” reference in *Funky Winkerbean* and the Atom used to go into Professor Alpheus V. Hyatt’s “Time Pool” intermittently and have adventures in which he met Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne and John Fielding…and became the basis of “Aladdin and His Magic Lamp” (he was Al-Atom, you see, and he helped a boy named Hassan find a treasure…full details in *Atom* #3, which also introduced Chronos).
Years before that, we learn that the means by which Jim tried to make his students remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites is the one Ray Palmer used on a field trip in the very first story featuring the World’s Smallest Super-Hero, which appeared in *Showcase* #34!
Make of that what you will. All I’m sure of is that the feature which followed the Atom in *Showcase* was the Metal Men, and I know that Batiuk’s not a big fan of them, based on his “Flash Friday” about the Super-Spectacular which reprinted their origin.
I wonder how he feels about Aquaman. who had a run in *Showcase* #30-33.
I wonder how he feels about Aquaman.
Either Tom hates him or doesn’t give a shit about Aquaman
He’ll need a little more time to mullet over.
I’ll leave now.
Anonymous Sparrow,
Those are kind words. I do not remember if the name is the same, but I remember a female hero that was a takeoff of Dr. Light. Almost identical uniform. I believe she is Asian.
We reference *Identity Crisis*. That should have only been sold as a graphic novel and not as a comic book. The author also writes prose that I have read. His work on the Justice League colors my opinion of his other work.
Back to the Atom. I liked Ray Palmer more than Henry Pym as Antman. Artwise they are equal, but the Atom stories are stronger, better plotted. Marvel never seemed happy with him. Every few issues there was some drastic change, eventually leading him to be kicked off of *Tales to Astonish* in favor of Namor. Of course 10 issues earlier, Pym starts sharing the comic with the Hulk. Don’t get me started on how much that tripped my trigger and sent me to pure joy by his interpretation by Steve Ditko!
I have never got into the 1940’s version, Justice Society member the Atom. DC rarely used him in the Silver Age. He never really got on my radar.
Tremendous joy to you on this Labor Day Weekend. The boy and the grandkids are coming over. I am blessed to know you.
I had to keep a safety watch on my phone when the Triumvirate of Smirk appeared in CS. I feared it would burst into sludge!
Jusqu’à ce que nous parlions à nouveau!
Yeah, the female version of Dr. Light was called Dr. Light. So DC had two people running around using the same name, one a hero, the other a villain.
The villain wound up being portrayed as an ineffectual boob, until he eventually got killed during a Suicide Squad mission. Then he came back and the whole “Identity Crisis” thing happened to explain why he became such an ineffectual boob, and… yeah. The less said about that series, the better. (His defining characteristic went from “ineffectual boob” to “sex criminal”. Thanks, DC!)
The hero became such a vital part of DC that she joined the Justice League… where they promptly forgot she was even a member and just stopped appearing in any issues after, like, the first one. (And when they referred to her secret identity, they kept getting it wrong, leading to a hasty retcon to explain how she changed her name at some point. I think it’s safe to say no one at DC ever cared about that character.)
And she STILL probably made out better than Hank Pym over at Marvel. Wally Winkerbean says “geez, at least I didn’t get the Pym treatment”.
Green Luthor,
When the publishers want a chew monkey, they sure go all out, don’t they? TB included.
I see you posted on GoComics. That was a pleasant surprise.
Identity Crisis was DC at their worst. The heros basically do the same thing to Batman.
I probably have a minor opinion on 9/1 Crankshaft. “Kindle Lite” was a pretty good title for a murder mystery. I think Davis did a good job on the cover. (I am very easy to please. I have a very low threshold.
Enjoy Labor Day, my friend!
SP:
You’re thinking of Kimiyo Hoshi, the lady Doctor Light, who was introduced in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
I’ve looked at the collected Identity Crisis, but not too closely. I haven’t read Brad Meltzer’s words without pictures, but after another journey into Jodi Picoult’s fiction with The Storyteller (hey, that’s what Tom Batiuk says he is…), I won’t be likely to see what she did with Wonder Woman.
Perhaps Ant-Man’s problem is that he is linked to insects, while the Atom is linked to the building blocks of the universe. Elsewhere, I was reflecting on letters columns, so I’ll share this opinion from Avengers #98 on the third of Hank Pym’s alter egos, Goliath:
“The old Goliath was a lousy character. Super-brains, super-strength and a completely devoted woman. You must have seen what a lousy character he was, because you kept trying to give him a problem…”
(Which, notes the LOC correspondent, was generally getting stuck at different sizes, not one of the better Bullpen brainstorms.)
Both Ray and Hank went through a divorce.
Ditko’s Hulk has to content with longer runs with Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, but it is very solid.
(Love the look of the Leader’s Humanoids.)
Long ago I found a list of JSA member appearances in the annual meeting with the JLA. Heading the list was Dr. Fate (yea!) with seven out of nine, and ending it was the Batman with no significant appearances at all. (Save for a silent cameo here and there, as in 1970, and, I think, 1968.)
The Golden Age Atom was there with three (1963, 1965 and 1971). In contrast, the Golden Age Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman had five.
Yet in the 1940-51 series, the Atom was the second most seen character (missing only two issues) after Hawkman.
This is probably due to the fact that the two characters don’t share the same powers…though the trivialist in me notes that in the 1960s there are two double-Atom issues in the Mighty Mite’s title, while there were no meetings of the Hawkmen in the Feathered Fury’s title. (Could that be because it would also mean bringing in the Golden Age Hawkgirl?)
September 1st is Father’s Day in Australia.
Anonymous Sparrow,
Ditko was so special. He drew and inked. I think he inked Kirby in Hulk #2, and made Hulk look like pure horror.
Of course, Ditko handled Spider-Man with perfection. He captures teen rejection and depression so accurately in those early issues. As a kid, I felt that pain.
Dr. Strange? Ditko could draw 2D multidimensional worlds like nobody’s business. I do not believe DC tried anything similar with their magic characters that early in the 1960’s. But by the mid 60’s DC caught up. Surprisingly, they used a mingling of Earth 1 and Earth 2 heroes to do it. Hal Jordan and Alan Scott meet up in Green Lantern #40 that I believe is still in continuity about the origin of the DC Universe.
Then DC opened their mystical worlds with Hourman and Dr. Fate teamups in Showcase #55. Then they breakdown the door with the Spectre in Showcase #60 and #61. Very grown up writing.
I did like both versions of Hawkman. Did they ever reconcile them into one person?
I enjoy our conversations, my friend.
SP:
1965 was a great year for Golden Age Heroes!
As you mentioned, Hourman and Dr. Fate join forces in two issues of Showcase.
In addition, as you also mentioned, that year, Alan Scott and Hal Jordan team up to deal with the menace of Krona (what Krona caused will two decades later be central to Crisis on Infinite Earths).
(The two Green Lanterns work together again in 1966, 1967 and 1968, which is quite impressive when you consider that over at The Flash, the Barry Allen/Jay Garrick crossovers slowed up considerably after the reintroduction of Vandal Savage in 1963.)
(Shut up about immortal wounds and meteors, Batton Thomas.)
In the annual JLA/JSA team-up, the evil Johnny Thunder of Earth-One has prevented the Justice League from coming into being, so the only heroes we see are half-a-dozen JSAers.
While over in Brave and the Bold, we had two issues featuring Starman and Black Canary, with an appearance from Wildcat in the second.
“I want to go to there,” Liz Lemon occasionally said on “30 Rock,” and after skimming the Wikipedia piece on Carter Hall, I do not want to go to there with Hawkman, even with the Gentleman Ghost as my guide.
A moment of silence for Carter Hall’s son Hector, who was briefly a Sandman.
He was not dumber than Garrett Sanford, no matter what Brute and Glob said.
Since you read Marx’s 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, I feel bound to point out that today is September 2nd, the day on which the French lost the battle of Sedan to the Prussians, ending the Second Empire…and leading to the declaration of the Third Republic two days later.
“Allons, enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive…”
Anonymous Sparrow,
“The Day of glory has arrived.”
Beautiful! ✨💥💫 🇫🇷
I always felt the appearances by Earth 2 characters were top of the line stories. I think Gardner Fox put more into them than his usual fine work because he grew up with these heroes.
Compare the issue where Flash gains 1,000 pounds and has to enter an industrial dehumidifier to that very special issue with Flash, Jay Garrick, Professor Zoom, and Vandal Savage. Man! That is writing!
Anonymous Sparrow,
You brought back memories when you mention the Atom. I read those issues. He had a great cover where he is battling a Venus Fly Trap. I remember Chronos. I still can tell the difference between mites and tites thanks to Ray Palmer. He had a good introduction into the Justice League. His foe Dr. Light owns the worst retcon in all of comics. DC should have created an entirely new villain.
Crankshaft 8/312924 the Triumvirate of Evil all on one page!!!(An aside to Be Ware of Eve Hill: count carefully. There are only 3, not 20!)
A 20 emoji salute to Anonymous Sparrow…
🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡
🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡 (20, not 3!)
SP:
Then again, maybe Tom Batiuk doesn’t like the Silver Age Atom.
We know how he feels about editors, and Ray Palmer was named for Raymond Alfred Palmer, who was a writer (good…) and an editor (not sure if that’s good…).
I agree with you about what was done to Dr. Light (rape is not and should never be a super-power).
Which reminds me of something odd:
In his first battle with the Justice League, Dr. Light did surprisingly well; he took his eventual defeat as a sign not to take on the entire group at once, but to pick them off individually. Hence, his battles with the Atom in “Lock Up in the Lethal Lightbulb” and Green Lantern in “Wizard of the Light-Wave Weapons.”
But that seemed to be all, and by the end of Fox’s run on the JLA, Dr. Light was taking on the whole team in one form or another (Nos. 61 and 65, the first with a cluster of costumed crooks and the second through T.O. Morrow’s super-science).
So imagine my surprise when in looking at *Flash* stories from the 1960s, I found “Here Lies the Flash — Dead and Unburied,” in which Dr. Light tried a third time to take out a solo JLAer…and my even greater surprise when I revisited “A Matter of Light and Death” (that is the title) in *World’s Finest* #207, in which Light fought Superman and the Batman…and referenced his unsuccessful skirmishes with the Atom, Green Lantern and the Flash.
Continuity is a good thing.
But Sorialpromise is better!
A strip I would love to see, but which would never occur to Batiuk.
This would involve Emily and Amelia, the twins who, last I remember, work part time in Lillian’s bookstore. I’m just going to refer to them as “Twin” in the following dialogue because it doesn’t matter which one of them says any particular line.
Twin: “Uh, Ms. McKenzie, we can’t work at your bookstore for a while.”
Other Twin: “Actually, we can’t even come to the store at all for a while.”
Lillian: “Why? What’s wrong?”
Twin: “We saw that ‘Banned Books’ display you have out ….”
Other Twin: “And we don’t want to be arrested when the police raid your store.”
Lillian: “Oh, is that it? Those books are ‘banned books’ because some schools don’t allow them in their curriculum or their libraries. Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to get arrested for selling them.”
Twin: “So … they’re not actually illegal books? Just not allowed in certain schools?”
Lillian: “That’s right.”
Twin: “Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re not going to get arrested ….”
Other Twin: “But that’s a lot less interesting than what we originally thought.”
Related to the Batiukverse: Miis of the characters (I’ve missed doing this)
Pam Murdoch
Jeff Murdoch
Crazy Harry
Andy Clark the Bus Driver
Lena
Rocky Rhodes the Bus Driver
Mary Marizpan
Dr. Leslie Hallet
Bulk Dombrowski
Mickey Lopez-Bushka
Batton Thomas/Tom Batiuk
Sherry Carlyle
RE: the 8/31 BannedShaft: Actually, that should be the 5/2 ‘Shaft. because TB is reusing the same “punchline” of someone confusing “banned book” for “band book.” It made no sense four months ago, because Lizard Lil could just look at the cover of “Drums Along the Sidelines” and–I know I’m giving her credit here–figure out it’s about marching bands. And it makes just as little sense here, as Dinkleberg should be able to see the sign referencing “banned books.”
And the Labor Day Smirkathon continues. Where’s Jerry Lewis when you need him?
Re: today’s Crankshaft.
Boy, Harry’s “Band Books”/”Banned Books” gag just never gets old, does it? That is one quality piece of humour! You could probably run that sucker every few months, and it would work equally well each time!
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Six Of The Byrnings/Day Three of The Complete Jackass Olympics:
It’s “banned books”, Harry. Not “band books”
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Random Passerby: Oh no! It’s the Terrible Three! IT‘S EVERY MAN FOR THEMSELVES!
(man runs away screaming)
Welp, I think we know what’s going to win the “Most Punchable Face” award this year, because there’s NO WAY you can beat a smirking Les, Lillian, AND Dinkle all in one panel.
(Wait, I hope Batiuk doesn’t take that as a challenge…)
Judging from Sunday’s strip, it looks like he did.
Has anyone else ever wondered what a Tom script looks like before he sits on it for eleven months? Do they collect dust in a drawer, or are these actually edited and rewritten in that year?
TOM, 9/23: “Let’s see…Scene: bookstore! No, comic book store! NO, book SIGNING! No, AUTHOR SIGNING! Dialogue: Someone says something, someone else says something…maybe a pun that makes no sense unless spoken aloud…they all smirk…COMEDY GOLD! I’ll work out the other details in January.” (naps)
(RAAANNNGG! Alarm goes off in June) Tom yells “GOL DANG IT! I’ll just send it to…whoever draws this now.” (hits snooze)
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
I think this is the second sideways strip since 2002
also, throw rocks at Lillian’s cranium and poor BWOEH for having to deal with the Loathsome Lizard
Ah yes, the dreaded sideways strip. How clever Tom. I still cannot believe the syndicate lets him get away with this nonsense. Do they have any control over him at all? I could see the syndicate giving someone like Watterson free reign, but not Batty.
At this point, I think Andrews McMeel just lets Batiuk do what he wants
Syndicates have been letting Batiuk do whatever he wants since Jay Kennedy died in 2006.
Crankshaft has added papers this year. As long as the property keeps generating revenue, they’ll remain strictly hands-off.
Still Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Seven Of The Byrnings/Day Four of The Complete Jackass Olympics
Lillian, I wonder if anybody would give a shit if someone killed you right now
Related to the Batiukverse: Week Four of The 2001 Storyline of Jim Kablichnick Going Insane Over A Speck of Paint On His Telescope
Les: Mooch Myers has been taking it especially hard, he’s not even going to class at all. I keep asking him why, and he told me that he caused Bill’s death.
Lisa: Did you tell him that Bill had a heart attack in his sleep?
Les: No, I haven’t.
Panel 3: Top ten pictures taken before disaster
Jim:…..I’M GOING TO PUMP EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU ACID-BLOODED SONS OF BITCHES’S ASSES FULL OF LEAD!!
So even back then colorists would lose track. That or Jim ran out of aluminum foil and switched to some green-tinted plastic bags he saved somewhere.
I wonder if in writing this turn Tom was partially influenced by the “Balloonfest” fiasco in Cleveland 1986, where they released a crapton of balloons at once for fundraising PR and utterly failed to plan for the consequences of where they ended up. There is parallel in balloons here causing disaster, though given the dates it seems more probably he would’ve lampooned it with a zany week or two back in Act 1.
Yeah, this is almost like a movie or TV ending where the A-plot and B-plot merge. The concept is actually not bad.
And I can give Kablichnik’s story a pass. Many “scientists” believe in things that their knowledge of science should preclude. But I won’t forgive a teacher for bringing a loaded gun to the funeral of a fellow teacher. That would be grounds for immediate termination, and Kablichnik would immediately become “remember THAT guy?” He’d be what everybody thinks Ed Crankshaft is.
In fairness, I don’t think he brought the loaded gun to the funeral. I think the balloons just happened to drift by his shelter, he didn’t actually attend the funeral or anything. (At that point, I doubt Jim even knew Bill had died.)
I like to think that Darin, Pete/Mopey McMopester and Mooch went to the funeral because they felt responsible for Bill’s death (especially Mooch)
I don’t even know if he ever learned it.
Jim is reminding me of someone, but I just can’t place who…
I see why Les and Lisa get along so well. They both love making other people’s funerals about themselves. Lisa, fuck you and the cancer you rode in on.
The arc is still young, but I’m putting a tentative half-spot on “Sunday Comic Cover” on my Bingo board! Starting the month with a Sunday novel cover is definitely still worth snarking about, and after the week ending on a barrage of smug smirks this is honestly far less annoying to stare at. Heck of a start to Burnings month, for sure!
Also props to Davis on this front; rarely does a cozy murder mystery even show a moment of murder about to happen, so congrats you’ve made your cover more interesting than most of what you’ll find in an actual book aisle.
I’m glad we were forewarned about this arc otherwise I would have been screaming “NOOOOOOOOO” when Les appeared. So much for my guess that his story was over. I’m waiting to see how this story plays out, but get ready everyone. The comments on this site are going to be fun!
For the record, Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books of all time. The obsession with video screens, mind numbing programming, punishment for dissention, and murder in the name of entertainment and control were relevant warnings then. And that was all decades before the internet! I encouraged my young adult daughter to read it recently because she’s into dystopian novels and she said, “yeah, that was scary & accurate.”
And I apologize for the belated comments, but here are a few random thoughts from the recent Crankshaft Chad & Jeremy arc. We had illness going through our house that week, so forgive me for playing catch up:
-I didn’t mind the nostalgia trip, although a week of it was too much. One Sunday strip would have been sufficient.
-Both Chad & Jeremy and Peter & Gordon are my mom’s music. I listened to a bit of both while growing up. And I have no idea if Peter Asher and Jeremy Clyde ever really toured together, but at least TB put the two together who are still alive. I’m OK with that.
-I don’t think anyone mentioned the Batman TV episode where Catwoman steals Chad and Jeremy’s voices. It’s very silly, of course but it’s kind of ironic considering how much disdain TB has for the show.
-I also enjoyed the Beach Boys discussion. I’m fairly well-versed in Beach Boys music as that’s my Dad’s music. According to him, they’re the best band of all time. Well, them and Fleetwood Mac.
Yes, Peter Asher and Jeremy Clyde have indeed toured together on and off since 2018.
Fleetwood Mac isn’t my favorite band, but they’re the band I most want to read a tell-all book about. They had two couples in the band, all four of whom were magnificent songwriters, and made one of the greatest records in history while doing more cocaine than Motley Crue. Now that’s a recipe for drama.
And of course, today’s Winkershaft has Les in classic form: smarmily cowering behind his refusal to understand legalese.
And Batty, er Les, telling people they need to write with more clarity!?!
I have a clear response that Nate won’t deliver: “Hit the bricks, Pal….you’re done!”