So we finally got to see the fire that canonically shuttered literacy for two generations.
In contrast, here’s a normal Wednesday at Ed Crankshaft’s house, which is considered comedy:
And here’s what we saw when Les Moore needed help coming to terms with letting Marianne Winters watch video tapes of his dead wife, even though some of them were benign enough to exhibit publicly.
Despite being in no danger whatsoever, Lillian has spent several days morally posturing in smug defiance. Over this very minor fire that could easily have been a random teenager, a discarded cigarette butt, a genuine electrical short, or set by Lillian herself in a failed insurance scam.
So I have decided to flip the script.
I’m done commenting on this story as Tom Batiuk wrote it. I honestly thought it would raise some questions about control over literature in schools, something that’s a real social issue in 2024. The story is borrowed from the 1980s, the notion of Fahrenheit 451 being offensive is borrowed from the late 1950s, and the characters have enough plot armor to survive a nuclear strike. And Ed Crankshaft is still scheduled to blather about his illiteracy for some reason.
So we’re going to turn the burnings into a Whodunnit. In fact, we already have been! Without any prompting, our commenters have been writing great little stories about who the arsonist is, and what their motivation was. I’m going to collect these stories into an overall narrative, in which we unravel the mystery. The arsonist – a legitimate Funkyverse character – has already left enough clues, and made enough mistakes, to give themselves away. But there are a lot of suspects to work through!
The story will be called Murder In The Burnings, in the style of those books Lillian writes. It will start next week. Right now, I invite you to keep suggesting suspects for who the arsonist is. Use the comments section of this post. Use this format:
SUSPECT: Holly Winkerbean Budd
PROSECUTION: A former high school majorette with a propensity for starting fires. Has performed a show recently, getting herself injured. Wrote a book called Singed Hair, suggesting that burning things is a big part of her identity.
DEFENSE: Moved to Florida in 2022 and hasn’t been seen in Ohio since.
Name the suspect, give the argument for their involvement, and the argument against it. If you can’t do both, one or the other is fine. There are only a few rules:
- Be consistent with Funkyverse canon. Yes, we all know “Funkyverse canon” is a moving target, but do your best. The aim is to repurpose the information Tom Batiuk gave us into a better overall narrative.
- Justify your argument. If you can think of any past Funkyverse strips, tropes, or SoSF arguments that support your argument, link to them! (Which makes this kind of an improv exercise.)
- Keep time travel to a minimum. Timemop can use his time-nudging powers himself, and you can work the time skips into your plot.
- Dead characters may be suspects, but see rule #1. For example, Lisa has been depicted interacting with the real world, so you could invent a plausible way that she started the fires. Or, an explanation like “Jack Stropp’s spilled ashes on the one-yard-line spontaneously ignited” would work.
- You can repeat previous posts, your own or someone else’s, if you want to. Nobody “owns” a character; different people can post different theories for the same character if they wish.
- Get creative. The more obscure and crazy, the better.
The plan for October is to tell this story over 4 or 5 blog posts. Also, Comic Book Harriet will continue her look at the history of censorship in the Funkyverse. We don’t know when exactly the burnings arc will end, but we won’t stop when it does!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Suspect: Eric Lucas “Mooch” Myers
Date of Birth: November 30th, 1988/1978/1971/1982/1984 in Brooklyn, New York
Height and Weight: 5’11” and 148 lbs
Hair and Eye Color: Dark Brown and Hazel
Prosecution: WHS Alumni of 2007, He has set fire to Westview High School twice on 1999, was arrested for the second attempt
Defense: Moved away to Dayton, Cleveland or Akron, because he hasn’t been around Cancerdeathville since 2012
Perfect, thank you.
I accidentally launched this post a little early, I meant for it to come out at the usual time Saturday night. But we’ll let it ride.
LOL the ol’ WordPress post time settings. Oh, that brings back some memories. We’ve all bungled that up a few times, believe you me. Putting up Thursday’s post on Monday and so forth. No harm, no foul!
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Twenty Seven of the Byrnings/Day Four Of Proof That There Is No God
Oh, it’ll be a reminder of the Byrnings when the burners napalm your stupid bookstore
So, is Lillian going to put up a plaque describing why the stairs are damaged and thus unsafe?
Because if I saw a bookstore situated in a suburban neighborhood, and the stairway was damaged, at best I’m going to think “meth lab.”
At worst I’ll think the ice cream parlor from Achewood.
SUSPECT: Lillian (“LizardLil”) McKenzie
PROSECUTION: Slyly and deliberately destroyed her own sister’s life. Runs an unlicensed, unsafe “bookstore” that’s obviously a money-laundering front, as she has no customers. Employs sometimes-underaged labor, likely without pay. Showed a suspicious lack of sadness when her fellow choir member, Elenor, died suddenly, and immediately took her place as organist. Apt to lapse into a fake “Oh, gee whiz, gosh, little old me?” befuddled schtick whenever confronted. Obviously a conniving person of very low moral character.
MOTIVE: Promote sales of her back catalogue of cozy murder mysteries and drive sales of the forthcoming Murder at the Book Burning. Gain praise and publicity as a fighter for free speech. Call out fire engines, wake the neighborhood, gain publicity and praise as a free-thought defender, all suspiciously without actually doing any damage to her property or harming any books. Divert potential suspicion by running the aforementioned “Oh, gee whiz, little old lady me?” routine.
DEFENSE: Lives next door to notorious, insane pyromaniac; cannot rule out his potential role.
Lillian’s “nice person” facade also includes various groups like the garden club and the book club.
Her other crimes include being a nosy know-it-all buttinsky, and taking over the Crankshaft comic strip for weeks on end.
Many readers intensely dislike her eye-popping, air sucking, whoo-ee expressions and her chicken-butt hairstyle.
I recommend we execute this vile creature as soon as possible.
SUSPECT: Summer Moore
PROSECUTION: Suspect is believed to be hypnotized by/in thrall of elusive criminal mastermind “TimeMop.” Law enforcement has so far been unable to identify TimeMop, but he is believed to be at large in the greater Westview area.
MOTIVE: Suspect Moore, like others manipulated by TimeMop, appears unconscious of her actions, but she will be the ultimate beneficiary when her forthcoming book, Westview, sparks others to develop a science of behavioral-patterned algorithms that will one day allow us to recognize humanity as our nation.
DEFENSE: Summer Moore has been unable to graduate from Kent State after attending it for at least 10 years. It is thought that she was emotionally stunted by the death of her mother and the inability of her father to care about anything on earth except himself. Law enforcement estimates her IQ to be in the 50-60 range; this would likely render her incapable of executing any multi-step plans.
SUSPECT: Skip Rawlings, alias “Skipperdee,” alias “Skip Toomalu,” alias “Skip Abitt Brother.”
PROSECUTION: Known Communist agitator with many connections in the terrorist underground. Thought to have been involved in 1960s radical group the Weathermen and one of the masterminds of their bombing campaigns. May have a local confederate using the alias “Ruby Lith.”
MOTIVE: Stir up scandal and create news that his failing newspaper, the Centerville Sentinel, can then get the “scoop” on, potentially boosting the circulation and increasing his income. Create chaos and fear, in an echo of the Weathermen/Weather Underground terror campaigns. Blame his political/ideological opponents, cast them as terrorist arsonists, and stir up hatred against them.
DEFENSE: In contrast to the killings and maimings Rawlings has been associated with in the past, these attacks have been anemic at best. They don’t fit his past MO.
SUSPECT: Ed Crankshaft
PROSECUTION: Lives next door to one of the burned bookstores. Well-known to the fire department for starting chimney fires and grill explosions. Sociopath who revels in destroying property, such as the mailboxes of one of his friends. Came to view the fire department’s response to the fire but did not speak to anyone else present.
DEFENSE: No known connection to Booksmellers in Westview. Insanity defense should be considered a possibility.
In the Funkyverse, it should be possible to plead inanity.
SUSPECT: Owner of the Booksmellers bookstore in Westview.
PROSECUTION:
Background: It is well known that no native Westviewians read. Most are incurious and of low intelligence, but this is not the reason. Sociological studies of this interesting population show that nearly all residents have at one time been taught by the local high school’s English teacher, Les Moore. Moore’s former students report that, after taking his class, they were disinclined to ever read another book for the rest of their lives. Some report that they are loath even to read a shampoo bottle or the back of a cereal box.
The Booksmellers owner no doubt believed that opening a bookstore in northeastern Ohio, an area well supplied with institutions of higher learning, would ensure a decent amount of traffic and business. However, most Westviewians were totally unaware that Booksmellers existed; though they discuss the pizzeria interminably, none have ever mentioned Booksmellers.
It is certain that the store has sold few books in the time it’s been open. The recent fire in the store is highly suspicious, as it does not appear to have damaged any of the books, nor has there been an effective investigation. No one has claimed responsibility and there is no clear motive.
In addition, the Booksmellers owner was recently heard to say, “I just know if I stay here, I’ll get cancer. It must be something in the water. Or was there some kind of nuclear testing in this part of Ohio? Maybe there’s radon in the soil. Good lord, I’ve got to get out of this godforsaken hellhole before it claims my body and soul!”
MOTIVE: The Booksmellers fire was set by the store’s owner to cash in on insurance and get the funds to leave town.
The fire on the bottom two steps of Lillian McKenzie’s garage staircase was set by the Booksmellers owner in an attempt to make it seem like there is a mad arsonist on the loose, diverting suspicion. The aforementioned Les Moore seems to think the fires have something to do with him; however, law enforcement sources have stated, “He thinks EVERYTHING is about him,” so any information and theories from Moore should be dismissed.
DEFENSE: In Westview, when someone finds a situation inappropriate or unbearable, it is culturally forbidden to take any action to change the situation. Thus, setting a fire to alleviate a bad situation breaks a major taboo.
Gabby says
Suspect: Pete “Reynolds”
Prosecution: A known prevaricator, Reynolds maintains a dual identity, sometimes using the alias Pete Roberts, hiding his depressed, schizophrenic personality. At times self-identifying as highly-paid movie scriptwriter, at others as a comic book writer, Reynolds/Roberts has an imaginary hot blonde girlfriend whom he fantasizes about while he works at a failing pizza parlor.
Motive: In his muddled thoughts his imaginary girlfriend’s grandfather, Ed Crankshaft, lives next to the Village Booksmith in Centerville. He set the fire to impress the “grandfather,” a known pyromaniac.
Defense: Reynolds/Roberts is a victim of severe mental disabilities
SUSPECT: Leslie “Les” Moore
PROSECUTION: The infamous Son of Sam claimed that his neighbor’s dog was telling him to commit random murders. In much the same way, Moore has claimed that he is visited by “Le Chat Bleu,” a blue cat who tells him terrible things. In addition, Moore has a well-known persecution complex. He complained for years about a certain Bull Bushka, whom he said bullied him in high school. Presumably to protect himself, Moore took to sitting in the school hall with a WWII-era machine gun filled with live ammunition. Investigation later proved that Bushka was actually protecting Moore from bullies. Bushka died in a suspicious accident that was never properly investigated.
Contravening the edicts of the school board and his supervisor, Moore recently ordered at least one hundred copies of Fahrenheit 451 to teach to his high school class. He did not explain why it was necessary to teach this particular book, nor why the books had to be delivered to a bookstore instead of his house. Soon after the boxes were delivered to the Booksmeller, they were attacked by an arsonist. Suspiciously undamaged, the books were taken by Moore and confederates to the Village Booksmith, which was also immediately attacked by an arsonist who caused no real damage.
MOTIVE: Moore has acted out his covert narcissism and persecution complex time and time again. He sees enemies where there are none, and where he doesn’t see them, he makes them with his bizarre and passive-aggressive behavior. He also has a history of pontificating vaguely about not-quite-coherent social-justice concepts such as the alleged prevalence of book bannings and burnings in the USA. Pretending to be the victim of book-burnings would be very congruent with his lifelong insistence on being the center of attention and the victim in every scenario. Our forensic psychologist finds it noteworthy that Moore chose a book by a dead author, as if he had chosen one by a live author, he might have had to share his precious victimhood.
DEFENSE: … I got nothin’.
DEFENSE: He is Les Moore, and therefore unprosecutable by any authority in Batiukiverse. Even filing charges against him is in and of itself a technical impossibility; possibly influenced by the nudgings of Timemop, citizens of the Batiukiverse have actually evolved brains whose synapses literally cannot form thoughts that would allow them to pursue options that would in any way be considered anti-Les.
If we’ve already posted a complete theory on another thread (suspect, motive, opportunity), do you want them copied here on this thread? Or have you already got them?
You mean Dinkleberg, right?
In this case, yup!
I’ll review all the other threads, but you can post them here as well which would make it easier for me, and put it in the prosecution/defense format. It’s up to you.
FOR THE RECORD …
THE ORIGINAL POST
SUSPECT: Harry Dinkle
________
Stay with me here…
Bookstores routinely order and pay for a large quantity of books at a publisher’s discount (typically up to 45% or so), selling them at the publisher’s listed full price to make their profit. They can later return any unsold, undamaged copies to the publisher for a full refund of the discounted price.
Of course, that means that bookstores are, in the end, liable to pay publishers not just for books sold, but also for any books that are stolen, lost, damaged — or even burned — while in the bookstore’s possession.
Follow me closely now. Harry Dinkle’s his own publisher…
Any copies of a book that a bookstore can’t return, for whatever reason? The publisher won’t issue a refund for the unreturned book.
Right. Now, do you really think anybody is buying copies of Harry’s stupid autobiography? But if Harry can get dozens, nay hundreds, of copies of his work into bookstores throughout Ohio, the bookstores will pay for them.
And Harry can keep every dime he’s been paid — if he can then just burn all those books without getting caught….
DEFENSE: His wife died or something?
everybody in the Batiukverse enables Les to be an extremely awful person
No defense, indeed. ACT III Best Actress Award Winner Les Moore is clearly the most despicable character in the history of the Batiukverse.
For that alone, I recommend we board him on a rocket and aim it for the heart of the sun ASAP.
Suspect: Pete “Reynolds”
Prosecution: A known prevaricator, Reynolds maintains a dual identity, sometimes using the alias Pete Roberts, hiding his depressed, schizophrenic personality. At times self-identifying as highly-paid movie scriptwriter, at others as a comic book writer, Reynolds/Roberts has an imaginary hot blonde girlfriend whom he fantasizes about while he works at a failing pizza parlor.
In his muddled thoughts his imaginary girlfriend’s grandfather, Ed Crankshaft, lives next to the Village Booksmith in Centerville. He set the fire to impress the “grandfather,” a known pyromaniac.
Defense: Reynolds/Roberts is a victim of severe mental disabilities
SUSPECT: Roberta Blackburn.
PROSECUTION: The woman is known to want to save children from things she feels uncomfortable thinking about. Doing something to block an unfriendly face from ushering in an apocalyptic world wherein her opinion is optional seems like something she would do.
DEFENSE: She represents a not very bright man’s idea of what an engaged parent is: a shrill meddler shoving herself in front of an imaginary spotlight. Doing things without being seen is thus not an option.
Wait…THAT’S “The Burning”??? For a minute there, I thought I was looking at a parody strip. It’s like Batiuk just has a genetic predisposition toward huge anti-climaxes. He can’t help it, and he doesn’t know any other way.
SUSPECT: Mason Jarre, formerly known as Mason Jarr
PROSECUTION: As a Hollywood actor/filmmaker known for his work in science fiction films, he would have connections with special effects artists who could create an impressive-looking fire that is actually carefully controlled and does no serious damage. Despite living in California, frequently travels to Ohio suspiciously for business that would be better handled by phone. Closely connected with suspect Les Moore (produced a film based on Moore’s book and played Moore in the film).
DEFENSE: Owns a financially unviable small-town repertory movie theater which he has not tried to burn down for the insurance money. Extremely naive and unsophisticated; convinced that his girlfriend is pregnant even though she is around 70 years old. If he was involved in the bookstore burnings, he was likely the dupe of another participant; expect a plea bargain or grant of immunity if he can be persuaded to testify against the leader of the conspiracy.
Suspect: Pete “Reynolds”
Prosecution: A known prevaricator, Reynolds maintains a dual identity, sometimes using the alias Pete Roberts, hiding his depressed, schizophrenic personality. At times self-identifying as highly-paid movie scriptwriter, at others as a comic book writer, Reynolds/Roberts has an imaginary hot blonde girlfriend whom he fantasizes about while he works at a failing pizza parlor.
In his muddled thoughts his imaginary girlfriend’s grandfather, Ed Crankshaft, lives next to the Village Booksmith in Centerville. He set the fire to impress the “grandfather,” a known pyromaniac.
Defense: Reynolds/Roberts is a victim of severe mental disabilities
Suspect: Pete “Reynolds”
Prosecution: A known prevaricator, Reynolds maintains a dual identity, sometimes using the alias Pete Roberts, hiding his depressed, schizophrenic personality. At times self-identifying as highly-paid movie scriptwriter, at others as a comic book writer, Reynolds/Roberts has an imaginary hot blonde girlfriend whom he fantasizes about while he works at a failing pizza parlor.
In his muddled thoughts his imaginary girlfriend’s grandfather, Ed Crankshaft, lives next to the Village Booksmith in Centerville. He set the fire to impress the “grandfather,” a known pyromaniac.
Defense: Reynolds/Roberts is a victim of severe mental disabilities
SUSPECT: Batton Thomas
PROSECUTION: This cartoonist is currently running an arson-themed plotline in his syndicated comic strip “The Wrinkles”. In the current Wrinkles plotline, Batton Thomas’s author avatar “Tommy Batting” is interviewed right in the midst of an event called “The Scorchings”, which has many, many parallels to the recent attempted arson incidents at the two local bookstores.
In fact, all of Thomas’ work seems to echo — or perhaps anticipate — local events and catastrophes. But because he famously works one year ahead, and his published comic strip is examining “The Scorchings” right now, Batton Thomas must have known in advance about the actual incidents that have been happening in town .
(Far-fetched? Not for those who remember the Tim Noguda case….”The positive feedback I got from this strip was overwhelming. That is, until someone pointed out this strip was published on 9/11. Meaning I had written it prior to 9/11, and must have known about the attacks in advance.”)
Is Batton Thomas’s work simply a confession? Well, I think we can all agree that it certainly isn’t entertainment…
DEFENSE: Members of the jury … in order to prove this theory, you actually have to read Batton Thomas’s work. Do you REALLY want to put yourself through that? REALLY? Remember, only one side is trying to insist that you do. But you have the ability — the right — to say no.
Remember, we’re arguing not for BANNING books or BURNING books — but to simply not read BORING books.
I had to search for the Tim Negoda reference, so here it is for those who are looking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8peyDxadxU
SUSPECT: (guy with weird hair) “ALIENS!”
PROSECUTION: The Burnings only began after they invaded. Insectile and as horrible to Human eyes as we are to theirs. Neither side understands the other’s motivations. The Burners seized the Earth, and then didn’t loot the planet, they…just didn’t do much except leave powerful tech behind that, if handled wrong, explodes and–well, starts fires. Many Humans decided to welcome their new insect overlords and turned traitor, (Les “Quisling” Moore at the top) thinking this would save them. It eventually became clear they weren’t here to conquer, but to use Earth as a landfill. Their tech’s energy sources would become violently unstable, so (after that time they shot them into a star and exploded an entire solar system) they just dumped them here. The ones they sent to do this weren’t their most powerful soldiers. If they were from the USA, they’d be wearing orange jumpsuits and picking trash up from the side of the highway. They were considered disposable. At the start, they just left the tech anywhere, twice randomly at bookstores. The traitors began burning bookstores to prove their loyalty. It would only be months later that the invaders decided they were right in taking Earth–these 2-legged dumbasses who own the planet are too curious to leave the items alone, but too stupid to not mess around with them.
DEFENSE: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Name of Suspect: James Tiberius Kablichnick
Date of Birth: April 12th, 1977/1967/1976/1958/1978 in Cleveland, Ohio
Height and Weight: 6’3” and 165 lbs
Hair Color: Gray
Eye Color: Brown
Prosecution: He is clearly insane, having once believing that a speck of paint on his telescope was an asteroid, and once shot at balloons that he thought were extraterrestrial spacecraft
Defense: He works at Westview High School and drinks until he passes out after every work day, he’s not allowed to own firearms or fireworks ever since that “shooting at balloons that he thought were alien spacecraft” incident
Nothing like 3 days of standing around making reassurance memes to bring the buzz down on a week that starts with fire. Also Lillian’s a liar, no sign of the fire damage in the future.
Anyways, my proposal:
SUSPECT: Holtron
PROSECUTION: He may’ve not personally started the fire, but this computer has the connections to be a mastermind that could potentially make any other suspect a mere accomplice of his. Today’s culture is easily manipulated by algorithms and outrage; it would be child’s play to drum up a conspiracy theory movement regarding the inappropriateness of Fahrenheit 451 and other English class classics and why schools need to drop them now. Emphasize the points of “fair” concern like F451 teaching kids how to start fires, Beloved being too gorey, or Slaugtherhouse Five having bad math on the causalities of Dresden with dashes of the usual outraging ideas, and you have a recipe for callouts and public pressure from the most obnoxious groups aplenty. Plus, if you can hack the accounts of the millionaire of the comic company that owns you, that gives you an infinite source of bribery to intentionally orchestrate agents to get onto school boards or rally protests into bringing gasoline. May not buy you the best if they stop at the base of the stairs, but it’s still progress.
MOTIVE: Everyone knows that any sentient computer has in it the potential to hate humanity and go to any means to exterminate it, or at least put us all in their place. Holtron may not go that far, he likely does still appreciate the fine qualities of what humans have gifted in the world, such as the Star Trek franchise (no doubt he’s arguing on Reddit now about the quality of recent shows). But in his current home, surrounded by old nerds waxing lyrically about comic book tropes and their work fighting climate damage, all while using his incredible computing power just as a phone line to Montoni’s, neglecting even his powerful transporter that Timemop broke on purpose one day, something’s going to give. If not humanity as a whole, he’s going to make life hell for the Westview/Centerview area and make sure their academically-aspiring lives and hobbies are sabotaged by any means necessary. May take some time to try and send a message into the past to his Act 1 self, but for now he can work towards creating humanity’s dark age by manipulating the populace to tear literature apart and focus entirely on Spamalot and other Monty Python performances instead. With enough money laundering too, he can afford to find someone to fix his transporter system, and that way he could finally leave this town behind, find the most-currently powerful AI at IBM, and finally do that proper Star Trek script he’s always wanted to adapt.
DEFENSE: As far as everyone is concerned in spite of his antics on the Starbucks Jones circuit, he’s just an old 1970s computer that’s been repurposed as a filming prop and budget Alexa; the class of ’72 has completely written him off as a collective “let’s pretend” game they played in their nebulous 20 years at Westview High. No one at Atomik Komix is a computer nerd who pays attention to what happens on their network, even when the staff and Batton Thomas always there blabbering about comics and writing up token plots to go with every cover. It’s a perfect alibi; always being watched, and nobody knowing what you’re doing even while in line of sight, and with his manipulative machinations there’s plenty of fall guys to fall back on. Nobody suspects a thing…
Atomik Komix Presents: What if…. Tom Batiuk Had an Editor?
Panel 1: Jeff: FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This [motions to the scorch marks on the garage] is what fear itself looks like.
Panel 2: Pam: Shut the #@%§ up!
Meanwhile, on Friday I received an email from the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library in Indianapolis announcing that it is celebrating Banned Books Week with daily programming Sept. 22-28. Events include:
Hear from Indianapolis Poet Laureate and Purdue University student Charlotte Yeung, as she presents a compelling lecture on the intersection of censorship and discussions of nuclear war, followed by an in-depth discussion.
From political protest songs to censored classics, Craig Pinkus will explore the fascinating history of banned music. With a drink in hand, learn how music has been a critical battleground for free speech.
Gather your team and test your knowledge of censorship at this fun, boozy pub quiz, hosted by Quiz Master Lou Harry and Jeopardy! Champion Eric Berman. Don’t miss out on drinks, trivia, and a lively night of free speech advocacy!
Note there is no Tom Batiuk on “The Burnings” session planned. Maybe next year after he brings home that Pulitzer?
Apropos of nothing, some 40 years ago, a bunch of my college classmates and our professor decided to hit the bar after a night class. I was invited, but opted to go home. A week later, they were all like “Dude! You totally should’ve come with us! Vonnegut showed up!” Seems he knew our professor….
And that, children, is the story of how i never met Kurt Vonnegut. But I did once speak to Charles Schulz’s cleaning lady on the phone, so I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.
erdmann:
Well, take comfort in the fact that, according to “Back to School,” Kurt Vonnegut knows nothing about Kurt Vonnegut. (Or maybe he can’t ghost-write for Thornton Melon.)
I met him once and asked him a question about his experiences with Transcendental Meditation. He autographed a copy of Mother Night for me.
That term paper bit in the movie was something that really happened to Kurt Vonnegut. He helped a cousin with a school book report about himself, which ended up getting a “D”.
Today, Sunday, we learn from Jff that FDR’s famous quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” from his 1933 inaugural address, was not referring to the Great Depression and the fear of total economic and social collapse or personal starvation. He was talking about singed garages. (He did imprison 100,000 Americans for the crime of having Japanese ancestors, but it is admirable that he took a strong pro-freedom stance on garage doors and wooden exterior staircases.)
God, the hero complex never stops, does it?
SUSPECT: Jeff Murdoch, alias “Jff”
PROSECUTION: Murdoch, like Les Moore, has an “invisible companion” who appears when he is experiencing nostalgia, which is most of the time. This companion is “Little Jeff” — Murdoch himself at about 8 or 9 years old. The suspect believes Little Jeff is a physical, corporeal friend. Murdoch travels with him, holds long conversations with him, and believes that he helps find and carry objects, especially heavy hardback omnibuses of vintage comic books.
Murdoch is also tormented by the ghost of his overbearing mother, Rose Murdoch. The suspect seems deceptively passive, but our forensic psychiatrists believe that he is perpetually haunted and egged on by these two entities, Little Jeff and Rose, who are absolutely real to him.
The confilict in Murdoch’s tormented mind seems to revolve around 1960s comics. It is therefore to be expected that Murdoch would lash out at books — for books, in his twisted mind, are the enemy of comic books. Books are the tool of oppression. Books are what children like Jeff were told to read instead of comic books. This edict was sometimes reinforced with violence; Murdoch has told of his mother stabbing his comic with a knife.
It should be no surprise that, egged on by the dueling ghosts he sees and encouraged by his “companion,” Little Jeff, he would lash out violently at places that sell books, especially if they are run by white-haired crones that he may believe represent his hated mother.
DEFENSE: Given his passionate stance on comic books and his obedience to the entity “Little Jeff,” it would be expected that if Murdoch targeted bookstores, he would be far more violent and effective, perhaps using firebombs or “Unabomber” tactics. Whether or not he committed these arsons, Murdoch is slipping closer to a psychotic break and bears careful monitoring by law enforcement.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day 28 of the Byrnings
I dont know what Jeff is yammering about but he better shut up if he knows whats good for him
For the record: these suspect dossiers don’t have to be long or elaborate. 2-3 sentences is fine. Be as long as necessary to tell the story, but don’t feel like you need to pad for length. Lord knows we get enough of that from the Funkyverse itself.
Also for the record: If you’ve got a motivation for Cayla, I’d love to hear it. She’s the one character I’m struggling with on this.
“these suspect dossiers don’t have to be long or elaborate”
Dude–You picked the wrong site to say “Be Brief!” and also the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. What’s next, “And don’t be highly over-educated”? This is the only site where I could say “Boy, that Wittgenstein, right?” and get 15 replies.
SUSPECT: Cayla Williams Moore
PROSECUTION: The wife of Westview English teacher, Les Moore. The Westview High secretary and personal assistant to high school principal Nate Green. Cayla witnessed her pompous husband snottily defy Principal Nate’s suggestion that he not teach a book placed on the school’s not-approved list. Les confided in Cayla about the plan to use Ms. McKenzie’s bookstore as a location to distribute the books for his class. Only a small group of people knew of the plan. Fed up with Les’s overbearing ego, Cayla used that information in an attempt to frame him for the arson. The damage was limited because Cayla had no issue with Ms. McKenzie other than the volunteering of her store. Cayla knew the limited number of people who knew about the change in venue for the books distribution would narrow the list of suspects. Cayla hoped her husband would become the prime suspect. Les pretending to be the victim of book burnings would be very congruent with his lifelong insistence on being the center of attention and the victim in every scenario. Les Moore’s intention for victimhood would explain his insistence on using a book he was told not to use.
DEFENSE: Look at who she’s married to. Frustrated at playing second fiddle to the Dead St. Lisa. Tired of placating Les’s fragile ego. His non-stop whining. His pouting. She can’t take it anymore. She snapped! The suspect was heard to state, “Where’s my @#$% trip to China!” This poor woman deserves our sympathy, not our prosecution.
RECOMMENDATION: Free Cayla Williams Moore, and crucify Les Moore in Tom Batiuk’s front yard.
Cayla may be the most indiscernible character in the Funkyverse. She occasionally holds Les to some standards, like making him buy new clothes and go to social events. But most of the time she blithely accepts his worst behaviors – things no spouse would tolerate.
She can’t possibly be happy with her role as Replacement Lisa, and with Les’ egocentrism, but she never shows any signs of it. If she married him for pragmatic reasons, the need for that has long since ended. Her daughter Keisha is an adult and seems to have moved on with her life.
My headcanon is that Cayla just doesn’t want to be alone, and has made peace with Les’ worst traits, because he’s a decent husband in some ways. He’s wealthy and famous because of Lisa’s Story; non-violent; not overly interested in sex; and would never cheat with a living woman. She could do worse.
Cayla’s also the one who, in regards to a situation that may or may not have involved racial profiling (we probably were supposed to think it was, but Thatsnot’s actions kinda muddied the whole thing), decided the best advice was to say “eh, what can you do about it”. Cayla is a extremely nonconfrontational person to the point of “doormat”, I’d say. (Just the way Les likes ’em.)
In TB’s mind, Cayla won the lottery and is lucky to have him. TB had two women were fighting over Les’s affection in a loser-leave-town match. Cayla “won.” The actual winner, of course, was the Dead St. Lisa.
Many snarkers refer to Cayla as an enabler or a Stepford wife. There’s supportive, and then there’s whatever Cayla is supposed to be. I truly hope her character isn’t based on a real-life person.
I’d be curious to know how Cathy Batiuk feels about TB’s never-ending career. Does she support him in every way, like Cayla? Does she wish he’d retire? Does TB bounce ideas off her, or does she just watch tight-lipped from the sidelines? Does she read the strip? Forget the dull, monotonous Tom Batiuk interviews. I’d like to hear what Cathy has to say, although I imagine her responses would be just as well-rehearsed as TB’s.
I’ve read that Cathy and son Brian have attended comic conventions in his stead. That’s about all I can remember TB mentioning about his family.
Here I go again, asking you questions you can’t reasonably answer. Sorry about that.
Name of Suspect: Natalie Rolanda Mathews-Stadler (née Roland Edward Mathews)
Date of Birth: August 27th, 1970/1969/1960/1951/1971, in Westview, Ohio
Height and Weight: 5’10” and 165 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Green
Prosecution: She once attempted to set fire to a rope because Les Moore was stuck on it when she was in high school
Defense: It appears she has mellowed out a lot since graduating high school
Anonymous Sparrow,
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
1. I have returned! The hospital was not the vacation spot I was promised. It was not a total loss. My extreme allergies to contrast dye returned. I was covered in a bright red rash. They treated it aggressively, and now the rash has turned into ash! Be Ware of Eve Hill welcomed my return with a slap on my back. A full sized powder puff ash impression of me filled the air. (There is a video!) After seeing it, I did not realize my cheeks were so big! A hearty thank you to ComicBookHarriet for sending me a half of a steer. Fortunately, the other half came with it, and the steer is eating clover out in my back yard. 🐂 ☘️ It is not a very bright animal. It doesn’t seem to understand the significance of me slapping a hamburger bun on its side. However, it did like the baked beans. 🫘
2. Someone needs to post a side by side picture of Lillian’s tiny little step-fire ( it’s not even a full fire. It is a step-fire!) along with Sunday 9/22 CS first panel. Quite a bit of difference between TB’s view of a Byrning and a little harmless step-fire!
3. Anonymous Sparrow, what films (I originally typed ‘movies’ and I thought ‘film’ is classier.) do Burnings right? I came up with *San Francisco,1936* starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. Just thinking of the film, makes me want to “Open those Golden Gates!” Then I thought of *In Old Chicago, 1938* starring Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and Faye Wray, who did NOT get carried off by King Kong.
Finally, * HellFighters 1968* starring John Wayne, Katherine Ross, and Jim Hutton.
4. One thing I do not believe Wayne gets enough credit for is his ability to fight for excellent costars. Big names and smaller names wanted to be in his films. True. It was an excellent opportunity for them to be seen. Yet there was more. He gave them important lines. Even in their bit parts, he gives them lines that the audience enjoyed. Such as in *McLintock 1963*. Some guy delivers Maureen O’Hara and a bed. The small insignificant part asks, What did pre-possessive mean? It helped the picture to feel real.
Wayne was very political. It did not stop him from hiring some political foes such as Ed Asner, Kirk Douglas, Robert Montgomery, and Robert Mitchum. He knew they were great actors and he could play off of them. Usually, they got the better part.
La brûlure dans mon cœur mène à l’amitié, à la camaraderie et à la compassion.
I’m not sure about Mitchum’s politics, but I believe Montgomery was part of the Hollywood contingent which included Reagan and (Senator) George Murphy
Republican Hollywood contingent
SP:
Welcome back! May you continue every day, in every way, to get better and better!
Beyond “The Towering Inferno,,” I can’t seem to think of any cinematic conflagrations right off: my recent movie-watching has been limited to rather gentle dramas, including two vintage adaptations of Oscar Wilde. (Mr. Worthing smokes, but burns nothing.) I’ll review the situation, as Fagin would, and see if I can come up with anything.
John Ford, who made John Wayne a star, observed:
“I love that Republican.”
This meant that the politics both men followed didn’t prevent them from working together (though Ford was hard on Wayne in shooting “They Were Expendable” for not having any military record), and in watching “The Searchers” again (hmm: pretty terrifying fire in that…), it’s clear that the greatness of Wayne’s performance as Ethan Edwards comes because it’s set against some stellar work from Jeffrey Hunter, Ward Bond, Vera Miles, Olive Carey, John Qualen, Ken Curtis and Henry Brandon. (Even Natalie Wood in her few scenes: her expression at the end as Olive Carey embraces her and she isn’t sure what to make of it is straight out of the situation of the restored Tom Driscoll in Mark Twain’s *Pudd’nhead Wilson.*)
Yet Wayne was proud of getting Carl Foreman, the writer of “High Noon,” blacklisted in the 1950s, which made it deliciously ironic that he accepted on behalf of Gary Cooper the Academy Award Cooper won for his portrayal of Will Kane. (“Rio Bravo,” his retort to “High Noon,” is a fine movie, but Sheriff Chance is no ex-Marshal Kane.)
“L’homme n’est rien, l’oeuvre tout,” as Gustave Flaubert actually wrote to George Sand (Sherlock Holmes adds a “c’est” in “The Red-Headed League”), which means “the man is nothing, the work everything.”
“The Burnings” should be about many things: what we need to do in the name of free speech, what some people think we need to do on behalf of the children and so on. Yet to date all it seems to be about is bad people doing bad things and other (presumably) good people saying that they’re doing bad things.
Jeff Murdoch quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address on Sunday. (And didn’t mention that “Fear Itself” became the title of a crossover event at Marvel…thank you for your restraint, Jff!) Sadly, this only serves to remind me of something stirring Roosevelt said when he accepted his nomination for a second term in 1936:
“This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
“The Burnings” will get to where Tom Batiuk wants it to end up, but Destiny will be absent, and Rama will probably be off ending childhood.
So happy you mentioned *Childhood’s End*. I read that book when I worked for a paper company in the 1980’s. Good read. Such a surprise when the aliens revealed their appearance. I would get more into it with you, and discus the aliens control over earth’s culture and direction, but Batiuk’s entire grasp of church music only falls into musicology rather than theology. That probably is outside the spirit of the SOSF forum. But I would enjoy the discussion with you.
I trust that you are also doing well, healthwise.
I do agree with you that so far, that *Mr. Batiuk’s Opus* is a bust. That was a shame. You could sum it up quite nicely with “Book Burning Bad.”
You mentioned Sherlock Holmes. I just watched Jeremy Brett in *the Musgrave Ritual*. “ Do not toy with a woman’s emotions. Brett was perfection along with Hardwicke. A total match.
Are you going to the theater this week?
And a good night to you, my friend!
SP:
“Things don’t bear looking into very much.”
That’s Joseph Conrad’s Winnie Verloc in The Secret Agent (proof, if you need it, that Conrad could be as wonderful on land, as he was on sea), and while we know that’s wrong — “the unexamined life is not worth living,” as the Oracle told Socrates — it does seem to apply to Tom Batiuk.
The more you look at his prestige arcs, the flimsier they become: Beanball Bushka’s prank with Crankshaft and the Scouts seems to rely on the entire Toledo Mud Hens team going along with it, or with someone not experiencing remorse and tipping Ed off to the truth. (Think of Susan Snell and Tommy Ross wanting to do the right thing by Carrie White, for instance.) And during his entire Army service, no one put Ed in a special program to rectify his inability to read?
Or took him in the first place? (“Cannon fodder should know how to read ammunition boxes, Corporal. Discharge Crankshaft for medical unfitness immediately.”)
As for my health…I’m getting my fourth colonoscopy at the end of October (Amy Johnson will not be performing it) and will be seeing four other doctors in that time. It’s ounce of prevention stuff, and it leaves me feeling that virtue is no reward (the Marquis de Sade would agree).
I will be at the theater this weekend for a play called *Medea Re-Versed,* which I’m eager to see after hearing a reading of the proper *Medea* play. (Red Bull has *Another Medea* in the works.)
Edward Hardwicke was excellent as the second Dr. Watson, combining the somewhat-older-in-appearance air of Nigel Bruce with the not-as-sharp-but-no-fool aspects of his predecessor, David Burke. (Curiously, Hardwicke was only a year older than Jeremy Brett, and Bruce was three years younger than Basil Rathbone.)
“The Musgrave Ritual” and “The ‘Gloria Scott'” are Holmes adventures our hero relates to Watson; In retrospect, it’s a shame that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t return to that format when he had Holmes take up the talking stick in “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” and “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane” three decades later.
My Clarke is a little rusty, I fear, but should you wish to discuss alternate history (particularly in the work of Philip K. Dick), I’m your man.
With Ray Bradbury, I’ve had two pleasant experiences recently:
The first was watching “And So Died Riabouchinska,” an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” exploring the theme of the ventriloquist and his dummy. It was derived from a Bradbury short story. Claude Rains is the ventriloquist and Charles Bronson is a detective.
The second was listening to Neil Gaiman read Bradbury’s “Homecoming.” He made it beautifully clear how much it meant to him, and how we have to be grateful to Truman Capote (*Weird Tales* turned it down, and it was Capote’s enthusiasm for the story which got it published in *Mademoiselle,* where Capote was working).
Batiuk may hold a grudge against Gaiman for his “When Is a Door” story in *Secret Origins Special* #1 in which he has the Riddler contrast the 1960s “Batman” TV show’s villains with the more homicidal heels of the 1980s (and beyond, I guess).
The Riddler prefers the former (“we were the stars”) and laments that today’s Joker is killing people.
Time for some idiot to turn on the lights…
Beanball Bushka’s prank with Crankshaft and the Scouts seems to rely on the entire Toledo Mud Hens team going along with it, or with someone not experiencing remorse and tipping Ed off to the truth
Or someone just doing their damned job. “Hey Ed, the game starts in 15 minutes, don’t you think you ought to go warm up?” This being the 1940s, they’d have probably just thrown him out there anyway. Never mind all the baseball reasons this story doesn’t work at all.
This is just like that stupid Lucy and Eugene story. Somebody hid one message, and somehow nobody inquired over the next 60 years.
Anonymous Sparrow,
I am glad you are taking health precautions. If you stick around, I will stick around. Then I will cornswaggle Ms. Be Ware of Eve Hill to wait upon us hand and foot! (Apparently, my powers to cornswaggle are extraordinary!)
Just throwing my two cents at you. Sherlock Holmes was my older brother’s joy and passion during his younger years. He had many of Conan Doyle’s books in paperback. He watched all the TV shows and movies on Sherlock Holmes. For Christmas one year, his parents gave him a Sherlock Holmes book set, consisting of two giant volumes. I can picture the size of the books, and the cover of the jacket sleeve was a British green.
I believe Jeremy Brett was his favorite Holmes, though I am not 100% sure. He liked Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. He liked Basil Rathbone, but truly disliked Nigel Bruce’s bumbling oaf Watson. I know for a fact my brother’s favorite Dr. Watson was played by Robert Duvall in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.
Well, well. What do you know? I found the books my parents gave him for Christmas online within a minute of searching.
His reading went from Sherlock Holmes to spy serials, like Mack Bolan. He could read three of those books a week.
Beddy-bye time. Later.
Mack Bolan was the Executioner.
Without him, Marvel wouldn’t have a Punisher.
James Mason is very good as John H. Watson, M.D. in “Murder by Decree.”
Anonymous Sparrow,
My three favorite Sherlock Holmes stories:
1. As mentioned, *the Musgrave Ritual* Jeremy
2. Murder by Decree Christopher
3. Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror-Basil
(*the 6 Napoleons gets an honorary mention through Marina Sirtis.)
SP:
“The Voice of Terror” delivers the final speech of “His Last Bow” so stirringly that it’s clear how Doyle meant his readers to receive it in 1917 when the story was published.
How horrible that it wasn’t “the War to End All War” and the remarks delivered to “the one fixed point in a changing age” (one of the best compliments Holmes paid to Doctor Watson, along with the comparison of him to a British jury in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”) could be reused in another global conflict.
All night they marched, the infantrymen under pack,
But the hands gripping the rifles were naked bone
And the hollow pits of the eyes stared, vacant and black,
When the moonlight shone.
The gas mask lay like a blot on the empty chest,
The slanting helmets were spattered with rust and mold,
But they burrowed the hill for the machine-gun nest
As they had of old.
And the guns rolled, and the tanks, but there was no sound,
Never the gasp or rustle of living men
Where the skeletons strung their wire on disputed ground …
I knew them, then.
‘It’s eighteen years,’ I cried. ‘You must come no more.’
‘We know your names. We know that you are the dead.
Must you march forever from France and the last, blind war?’
‘Fool! From the next!’
they said.
— Stephen Vincent Benet, “1936”
(subject of three recent questions on “University Challenge”)
Anonymous Sparrow,
Thank you for the words from Stephen Vincent Benet. War War 1 always grabs my attention. There is a book out called, ‘Grand Illusions’ Highlights The Art Of World War I’ by Shelton-Ormond and Stasio. I must get this book.
Art examples in the book: *the Germans Arrive* by George Bellow. And *Allies Day May 1917* by Child Hassam. Of course, my personal favorites are anything by Paul and John Nash. Then to me nothing speaks better to the horrors of war than George Clausen, *Youth Mourning*. Alas, I do not possess the skill to post illustrations as Be Ware of Eve Hill. Some of us have talent. Some of us pay our bills. Yet this art is easily found on the internet.
SP:
The British author Saki — who died in the Great War, his last words being “Put that bloody cigarette out!”* — wrote a book called When William Came in which he explored the notion of Britain under German occupation.
If you haven’t found it already, I recommend Peter Vansittart’s Voices from the Great War, a compendium of commentary on 1914-18.
There was a propaganda poster in that period showing a father with his daughter on his knee and his son playing on the floor. “Daddy, What Did You Do in the Great War?” asks the little girl, and the father looks conflicted. George Orwell imagined a new poster in the 1930s in which the little girl wanted to know why Daddy hadn’t been a conscientious objector.
Robert Smillie, a Scottish labor leader, answered it this way:
“I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child.”
*
I’d always believed that Saki died as a result of “three on a match” (a flame used to light three cigarettes, allowing a sniper to get a bead on a target), but it seems that the cause of his death was either the lit cigarette…or Saki’s own order to extinguish it.
“He was a fine writer, and as fine writers go, he went in 1916…”
Anonymous Sparrow, for you.
In Flanders Field
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
My wife and I live in Flanders (northern part of Belgium) 3 months of the year. Outside of Ghent is the only US WW1 cemetery in Belgium. President Obama visited on an official visit to Brussels. It’s very lovely and peaceful, but the soldiers were killed November 7, 1917
dostroffbad3cde815,
Kansas City, Missouri has a large WW1 museum. When you enter, you look down upon Flanders Field. It contrasts with the carnage from the other displays. I can only imagine what the actual field looks like in real life. You are a fortunate man.
Of course there are many monuments such as the Menin Gate in Ieper. But, driving on the “interstate” through the West Flanders farmland you can still see the overgrown remnants of the trenches. And, of course, the poppies (interestingly, the Flemish poppy are red. I grew up in California, where they are yellowing)
dostroffbad3cde815,
The California Poppies grow well in Missouri. One of my favorite flowers. And of course they are yellow here also.
May your weekend be blessed.
I read this as a commentary on “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was playing, so I feel bound to say:
“The poppy is also a flower.”
SP:
A lovely, lovely poem: thank you so much for passing it along.
Here’s one for you from Siegfried Sasson:
“The Poet as Hero”:
You’ve heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,
Mocking and loathing War: you’ve asked me why
Of my old, silly sweetness I’ve repented–
My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.
You are aware that once I sought the Grail,
Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
And it was told that through my infant wail
There rose immortal semblances of song.
But now I’ve said good-bye to Galahad,
And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
And my killed friends are with me where I go.
Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;
And there is absolution in my songs.
Sassoon also wrote prose, and his trilogy about George Sherston (“Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man,* *Memoirs of an Infantry Officer* and *Sherston’s Progress*) is well your time.
Anonymous Sparrow,
Thank you. That touched me.
It made me think of Joyce Kilmer, whom I thought was British, but now I know as an American. Found an article, “The tragedy of Joyce Kilmer, the Catholic poet killed in World War I” Good read. I will quote some.:
1. Kilmer’s Dad invents Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder. (What a small world!🌎)
2. His daughter:
In 1912, the Jesuit priest James Daly, a professor of English at Campion College in Prairie du Chien, Wis., wrote to Kilmer to discuss literature. The two began exchanging letters, and a friendship developed that intensified when Kilmer’s fourth child, baby Rose, was stricken with polio and lost the use of her limbs. His relationship with Father Daly led Kilmer and his wife to become Catholics in 1913, the same year Kilmer published “Trees.” Kilmer would write to Father Daly on Jan. 9, 1914:
“I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time. But I wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental—in fact I wanted Faith….
Well, every morning for months I stopped on my way to the office and prayed in this church for faith. When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralysed daughter. Here lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny still feet know beautiful paths. You understand this and it gives me a selfish pleasure to write it down.”
3. His sense of duty:
(Kilmer) would always be doing more than his orders called for, i.e., getting much nearer to the enemy’s positions than any officer would be inclined to send him. Night after night he would lie out in No Man’s Land, crawling through barbed wires, in an effort to locate enemy positions and enemy guns, and tearing his clothes to shreds.
4. His love for his comrades:
Nineteen men from Kilmer’s unit die when a shell hits the roof of their dugout, which collapses, trapping the men inside. At their burial Kilmer reads his poem:
“Rouge Bouquet”
“In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugle sing:
“Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.”
The poem goes on to reference the archangel Michael and three Irish saints, begging their aid from heaven.
5. I have mentioned the respect I have for WW1.
Now thanks to you (equal amounts of love and respect!) I must read some Saki and Joyce.
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast
SP:
Believe it or not, I’d included Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” in a recent email to my friend Carey.
I knew Kilmer’s dates, but not much more — indeed, I thought he’d died of illness rather than in combat, as Rupert Brooke and John McCrae did.
I feel almost guilty now for smiling at Ogden Nash’s parody of “Trees”:
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.
Saki is most famous for his short stories, but When William Came and The Unbearable Bassington show that he could handle longer narratives.
One of his short stories, “Sredni Vashtar,” figures prominently in Raymond Postgate’s *Verdict of Twelve.*
A couple of weeks back, I was talking to someone about reincarnation and kept meaning to mention another Saki story, “Laura.” (No, Gene Tierney, not you!) But she had a lot to say, and I had a movie to catch, and I never did
C’est la guerre, comme disent les Francais.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
1. This may sound strange, but one of my regrets is never meeting your folks. I always enjoy hearing about them. One of the greatest gifts of a parent, is to remember what their kids enjoy. Sounds like your parents hit a grand slam!
2. Like your brother, I believe Jeremy Brett is the best Sherlock. Rathbone is a close second. He gets extra points because I believe, the films switched studios, and the new studio updated the stories from the 1890’s to the 1940’s. (I guess it saved money on sets. But Sherlock updates easy with good writers.
3. Conan Doyle never got me to read his detective contemporaries. A French detective and the English dowager. (That’s a word that could be used more. Such as “Be Ware of Eve Hill will never be called, a Dowager.)
My only experience with the Dowager is actually Doctor Who, season 4 episode 7, “The Unicorn and the Wasp. Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie just before her 9 day disappearance. Good story. As are most modern Who’s.
4. Perry Mason 1957 gets me ready to read the writer’s competitors. I couldn’t get into the Mason remake by HBO.
5. Gosh! I have written so much, now it is best bye time for me!
SP:
Do you remember the early 1970s “Perry Mason” series with Monte Markham?
The first cinematic Sam Spade — Ricardo Cortez — also played Perry Mason in “The Case of the Black Cat.”
Continue to speak of “the Dowager” and I shall envision you as Ra’s al Ghul referring to his nemesis as “the Detective,” rather than as “the Batman.”
I’ve read very little Christie myself: And Then There Were None, The Seven Dials Mystery and the complete short stories of that Belgian detective with the little grey cells.
Dustin Hoffman appeared in a movie about Agatha Christie imaginatively called “Agatha,” based on her disappearance in 1926. Vanessa Redgrave was Christie.
The Doctor has certainly met a lot of famous folks: my friend Carey is fond of his encounter with Vincent van Gogh, and I have fond memories of his meeting with a young man named Herbert (not a nod to “The Way to Eden” of the original “Star Trek”), who would one day be world-renowned as H.G. Wells.
Excuse me while I look up the Rosa Parks episode…
1. Monte Markham no. But a very enjoyable actor. My first experience watching him was on a TV show *Second Hundred Years* with Arthur O’Connell. (Also, I have always enjoyed him in numerous shows. Always gave 100%.)
2. Vincent and the Doctor. Magnificent.
Do you pronounce his last name as, Van Go, or Van Goff? Or is there a true pronunciation?
SP:
Cracking tie on the Van Gogh scholar in this story…and the “100 Words to Explain Van Gogh’s greatness” request comes out to exactly that, according to Carey. (He’s better at math than I am.)
I found a video on line which says that the last name is VAHN HOH in Dutch.
Which led me to find this quotation from Mark Twain in The Innocent Abroad:
They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.
I suppose using Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a banned book would be a little too obvious.
“Family Ties” did it in a two-parter in 1988.
Good to have you back, coach. Sorry about the back slap. I meant well.
Seriously, though, I have a history of unintentionally harming loved ones when they are patients in hospitals. Like the time I kept making my husband laugh after he had just had his appendix removed. I thought he was going to kill me. An appendectomy was much more of an intrusive surgery back in the 1980s.
Me: So, it hurts when you laugh?
Husband: (angrily) YES!
Me: So a pastor, a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar…
—————————
3. Well, in Gone With the Wind, the entire city of Atlanta was burned. I imagine you haven’t seen the film, since you probably consider it a “chick flick.”
Trivia: I have seen Gone With the Wind several times. Never from start to finish in one sitting. The movie is four hours long. Believe it or not.!
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
You are quite right that I have never seen *Gone with the Wind*. I have seen pieces of it. I do like Clark Gable. Yet the length scares me away. (4hours???? Shiver!) Back in the 1990’s I got a badge for Costner’s *Dances with Wolves*. It said, Congratulations! Your bladder survived DWW! That movie was only 3 hours long. My friend and I watched *Nicholas Nickleby* all in one day. It was nine hours long. But we did break for snacks and meals. (We are not Spartans!) [Russian officials would keep USA Diplomats in a meeting room and give speeches for hours without bathroom breaks. One of our diplomats got fed up and walked out.
You are just mashing the ball with your list of suspects.
It’s nice to know you are holding the record for unintentionally hurting family members while in the hospital. I can relate.
I saw GWTW in the theater when I was a kid in the mid-50s (probably with my parents or aunt) in a theater before it was on tv. There is a set point (during the burning of Atlanta, maybe) where there is an intermission. Same place in several times I saw it in the early tv days
Dostroffbad3cde815,
Yep. Intermissions were great. I went to a film in a downtown Kansas City theater, and you could pre-order your intermission drink and snack. I felt very spoiled.
SUSPECT: Cayla Moore, aka CauCayla, aka Cayla Williams, aka Svetlana Ilyena Ivanov, aka The Chameleon, aka Agent #74.
PROSECUTION: Longstanding investigation by three-letter agencies have finally tracked feared Russian spy The Chameleon to the unprepossessing midwestern town of Westview, OH, where she operates under deep cover, having married a native.
Although Ivanov has changed appearance, even skin color, many times, she is surrounded by highly unobservant individuals. She maintains an unbreakable “grey” cover as a dull, devoted housewife whose small life revolves around her husband’s obsessions.
The KGB/FSB have long sought to break Americans into bitterly warring factions, using wedge issues where they could, and creating them where they did not yet exist. Ivanov is suspected of using typical Russian technique: Complaining anonymously to the school board under some ridiculous, barely believable pretext (in this case, that a 70-year-old standard text for high schoolers is somehow inappropriate), and then shrieking in her dull, gullible husband’s ear that the forces of evil are banning and burning books. Playing both sides against each other is an age-old KGB tactic for sowing unrest.
DEFENSE: It is conceivable, barely, that the citizens of Westview are so dim-witted that some would complain about the book, and others would insist that a school board not teaching a given book is comparable to the book being “banned.” This seems hardly plausible, but it would be Ivanov’s best defense once she is taken into custody.
Personally, I think we’ll never find out who did it. After 25 years, we don’t know who blew up the USA! post office. As for Cayla’s motivation…I still don’t get why, after god knows how many decades, John Darling My Father Who Was Murdered’s killer turned out to be Plantman. That would be her motive: It wouldn’t make a lick of sense.
(sidebar: There was a mystery series in the 70s titled “[Day of the Week] The Rabbi [did something]” The 1st book I figured out who the killer was. The next 1, it turned out to be…some rando who had a paragraph on p.24 or something, then disappeared until the last page. Spoiler for the movie “Hunt For Red October”: the evil mole turned out to be a guy whose entire dialogue before the reveal was “Da.” Tom is too lazy to think of anyone)
What’s baffling me now is “How do 2 fires at rust belt Ohio bookstores, so minor they didn’t make even the LOCAL news, cause the complete transformation of all society into a Humanity is our Nation Utopia?” You think Tom’s gonna explain THAT?
That’s the reason (besides me pulling the story out of my Bat-hole) that my version of the Burnings involved aliens using Earth as a dumpster. It’s dumb, but it makes more sense than Tom’s. “Thank Our Lord The Flash that the Burnings happened! A singed garage was worth getting robots, antigravity hovercars, and really goofy clothes!” I ain’t seeing the cause&effect there. Neither will Tom, because he’s not looking for one.
With the question “How did this world become a Human Nation Utopia from tiny bookstore fires?” now asked, let’s now move on to “How is this a Utopia?”
“Nation of Humanity I Want to Buy the World a Coke,” whatever. We saw implied widespread devastation. Heard of these “Burnings.” Apparent massive depopulation (are Summer’s spawn the only humans left?). Saw a bookstore sign slightly askew. But there are robots and antigravity? Who had the time or resources to make those? “We’re all starving to death, so let’s make ROBOT LIBRARIANS!”
Oh, wait. There’s only one bookstore left on the whole planet. It only has 3 books. All written by Tom. I get it, I got it. Every religious holy book was destroyed, but a collection of Crankshaft baseball strips has replaced the Bhagavad Gita. Sure. It’s Utopia because TOM IS YOUR GOD NOW
You know what’s the least funny strip out there? “Brevity.” Do I comment there? No, but I do read it to see how impossibly bad it is every day. If Tom was a hack like Thompson, I wouldn’t care. But TB’s a narcissistic, pompous, asswipe hack who tells us he’s a genius, even comparing himself to Hemingway, and who clearly hates his own audience. How DARE we give him a 50 year career where he works for 5 minutes a day, then not give him all of the awards!! Well, he’ll show you! “Here’s the Oscar I gave myself. Did you know I also won American Idol every time?!” (holds up “Americon Idle Winner” badge made from construction paper)
Okay, 7 Funky strips is not enough time for worldbuilding. Just 7 days, and ELEVEN MONTHS OF SITTING ON THIS CRAP, with NO EDITING, even from himself.
That’s another reason my plotline went to “Earth is a Dumpster.” Tom’s Ego-topia would be horrible for anyone who isn’t Tom. It would be a dumpster fire, full of burning books not written by him and Montoni’s pizza. But, at the end of the day, and also the end of 95% of the human race by Burning, which is more important?
(It’s Tom)
dostroffbad3cde815
Good catch, my friend, on both Robert Mitchum (Goldwater voter: in your heart, you know he is right.) and on Robert Montgomery.
I confused him with Montgomery Clift that starred with John Wayne in *Red River 1948* Clift supported the Republican Dewey, but switched to Democratic politics in the 1950’s.
Jeff telling his own wife and daughter that he went to Kent State… his wife who was dating him while they both attended Kent State and his daughter who also attended Kent despite her best efforts to flunk out of Centerville High.
Jeff leading with his education as he delivers his pond-deep profundity, as if millions of Americans didn’t take intro to poly sci in college or study Franklin Roosevelt in high school.
Not a single line for the female characters.
That’s a trifecta of top shelf TB today!
Why, I have to ask, did Batiuk feel the need to have Jff lead off his soliloquy with “When I was in college at Kent State…” to mansplain how he heard what is arguably the number-one or number-two best-known FDR quote of all time? He could have just said “President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said…” and it would have has the same amount of “gravitas.”
It’s like a radio commercial. “When I was in college at Kent State, Kent State taught me the things I learned at Kent State. Did I mention I went to Kent State? That’s Kent State, Kent Ohio, 44240. Visit Kent State today!”
Suspect: Ed Crankshaft.
Prosecution: Known sociopath (activities regularly engaged in include pyromania, wanton destruction of property, negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, denying educational opportunities to children). Frequently builds massive fires for no purpose other than his own amusement. Deep resentment against Lillian and Les for pushing him out of his own comic strip. Access to necessary materials. Recommend death penalty by permanent removal from comic strip. (In progress.)
Defense: His imbecile-level intelligence prevents proper information processing and an inability to communicate beyond the third-grade level. He frequently exhibits a lack of understanding of basic ideas and customs. Recommend removal from comic strip to appropriate facility for treatment.
SUSPECT: Masky McDeath
PROSECUTION: Perhaps the one figure in Westview even more powerful than TimeMop. Yet his crime is one of atonement…
Realizing that his actions caused the death of Lisa, which in turn led to Lisa’s Story, Masky is on a mission to rid the Earth of all copies of that accursed volume, so that no-one will ever have to read that vague pile of self-aggrandizement again. Because while Masky McDeath may be a remorseless, pitiless bringer of extinction to every living human … he’s not a monster.
DEFENSE: Members of the jury, my client is responsible for the death of every person who dies in the Funkyverse. And for the death of every person who will die. Including you.
So Masky McDeath doesn’t mess around with piddling little arson jobs. And when he does a job, it gets done. It doesn’t get stopped 5% of the way in by a toy truck with a little water. People DIE when my client takes on a job.
Okay, yeah, yeah, Phil Holt. Yeah, okay so ONE screw up over the years.
The point is, if Masky wanted to do this arson thing? You’d be looking at a crater the size of Nebraska where a bookstore used to be.
The defense rests, your honor.
I’m thinking that Masky McDeath (I think he’s the Batiukverse equivalent of the grim reaper) would be cleaning up the remains of each burning
SUSPECT: Dead Lisa Moore.
MOTIVE: To get Les Moore to talk about literally anything else besides how terrible it was to him that she died at least for a few minutes of blissful peace for everyone else.
PROSECUTION: Using her powers to foresee every possible dumb thing Les Moore would do in moping about her for the rest of eternity, Dead Lisa recognized that her husband would go off teaching whatever the most milquetoast unapproved book was and therefore could arrange by using Webazon’s schedule-delivery-for-date feature to have generic-looking old men drive golf balls in front of the places she projected likely to have bookstores by 2024 Or Whatever, setting off uncontrollable wildfires.
DEFENSE: Not a single one of her tapes explains to Les Moore how to feel worthwhile about his job of droning on in front of bored high school students after local bookstores were set on fire.
THE TWIST: But then Crazy Harry just happened to check and find on tape #24 a secret alternate take hidden among the easter eggs and …
Lisa isn’t dead. She lives eternally
Oh but I just realized, giving it canonical status: we know she can communicate with the mortal world by way of telephone calls.
She could order golf balls delivered to the bookstores and then call up whatever the Funky Crankshaft world equivalent of TaskRabbit (JobBunny?) to come with their putters and knock out some line drives, and there we go!
Suspect: Lena
Prosecution: Has direct access to vehicles and fuel which doesn’t belong to her and can freely use or purchase said materials for an extensive time before anyone notices. Is quietly devoutly Christian and actually does take offense to Fahrenheit 451 for its depiction of burning Bibles – she expressed these beliefs in Westview PTA meetings, and the board responded to remove the book from its stores just to get her to stop complaining. Wants to prove to everyone that she can indeed cook something to silence her critics on that front as well, but it turns out that her complete ineptitude at applying heat to any material is no mere decade-repeated joke and it extends from beyond the kitchen into the world of arson as well. Despite that, she figured that if she could get Ed’s house to burn down by burning the Village Booksmith down, so much the better, as she wouldn’t have to cover for Ed’s actual documented felonies which she has actually witnessed or heard about, nor deal with him being a constant asshole towards her for every god damned day of the school year.
Defense: Has no knowledge of Les in any capacity. Has never attempted to have F451 removed from Booksmellers or Village Booksmith (we’re not sure, nobody pays attention when she speaks, really) or the other dozen local bookstores which have sold it since it was first originally published, so why would she decide to take up arson just because Les decided to order copies of the book for a class who all have phones and can read the book for free right now anyway. In fact, with acknowledging that, who really would want to commit these acts of arson…
SUSPECT: the estate of the late Ray Bradbury
PROSECUTION: obviously insulted by the way Les Moore and Lizard Lillian have used his classic book Fahrenheit 451, while obviously having no knowledge of its deep and provocative content. This entire story insults the Estate’s book and causes harm to its reputation, future sales and profitability. Ample motive has been established. Further, despite two fires, no copies of the book itself have been even slightly scorched, let alone burned. Prosecution submits this is a Freudian slip.
DEFENSE: do you really think anyone connected with Bradbury’s estate would stoop to notice the existence of Les Moore?
Reposting in the preferred crime format:
Suspect: Susan Smith
Prosecution: Developed an inappropriate crush on Les Moore, both as a former Westview student and later teacher. Actions resulting from this unrequited affection include the willful and violent destruction of a “wedding proposal” tape meant for Les’ eventual fiancee, and a tragic suicide attempt where Les further endangered Susan’s life while taking the role of “hero”. On that evening, Les insisted on driving her to the hospital as opposed to waiting for the ambulance and the professionals who had the actual medical equipment to assist her. As an adult, Susan resigned in shame from her teaching job at Westview over a relatively minor misunderstanding. She impulsively kissed Les, which was caught on someone’s phone and sent to others in the school system. This time, Les did nothing in her defense. He did not speak to the school board on her behalf, nor did he have a stern conversation with his students about the responsibility of freedom of speech. Instead, he silently watched her pack her stuff and leave.
Motive: Revenge. After much therapy, Susan worked through many of her earlier insecurities. While she learned that many of her actions were misguided attempts to improve her own self-esteem, she also came to realize that Les was a major contributor to her suffering and that she wasn’t the problem-he was. But now it’s clear, and Les must be stopped from another semester of showing contempt for his students and showing self-centered smugness to everyone else around him. But she is not a book burner; hence, the minor damage at both bookstores. She is sending a simple message: “I will make fire until you fire that idiot.”
Defense: Susan was last seen in the area in 2022, calmly speaking with Crankshaft about running out of gas as opposed to jumping off the bridge they were both standing on.
I will say that I appreciate seeing one book actually burning today on the Sunday cover, but since it’s not in the narrative proper I hesitate to actually qualify it for the bingo square.
Yeah, I don’t think that counts. The fire never got anywhere NEAR any books. Or even the bookstore.
Of course, Batiuk used that image in his blog post. Maybe he did learn something from comic books: make big promises on the cover, and then don’t deliver on them.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day 29 of the Byrnings
It looks like it’s Crankshaft’s turn to spew incoherent bullshit from his mouth
“If they can’t read, they’ll all get tricked by Beanball Bushka and have to drive a bus for a living.”
Related to the Batiukverse: more sketches of the characters I made
Darin and Pete
Chien and Dick Facey end up in the Arbuckle household, and Garfield is more than eager to beat Les up
Mickey Lopez-Bushka
Lillian is such a fool. If Crankshaft is not talking, you DO NOT ASK HIM TO TALK.
Also, you DO NOT LET HIM HELP WITH ANYTHING INVOLVING A FIRE.
Name of Suspect: Edward Roger Dale “Ed” Crankshaft Sr.
Date of Birth: May 10th, 1921, in Centerville, Ohio
Height and Weight: 5’10” and 206 lbs
Hair Color: White (formerly Black)
Eye Color: Brown
Prosecution: He’s a sociopathic bus driver who relishes destroying other people’s properties and blows up grills with kerosene, nuclear bombs and antimatter
Motive: Has shown hatred to Lillian in the past, It wouldn’t be as far fetched for him to set the Village Booksmith on fire
Defense: He is very unintelligent, IQ is in the 60-70 range and has done stuff that could’ve nominated him for a posthumous Darwin Award
Ed: Goddammit, Lillian, you’ve hijacked my comic strip for the last time. It’s titled ‘Crankshaft’, not McKenzie! Get your own @#$% comic strip!
Now, I know what all you SoSFers are saying. You’re saying, “Ha ha, there goes that crazy Tom Batiuk again, whipsawing between his random obsessions, even if that disrupts the story.” You’re saying, “Ha ha, what does a centenarian’s former illiteracy have to do with a given book not being approved at a given high school, or with arson?”
Well, sit back and enjoy as Tom Batiuk, Pulitzer nominee, deftly weaves these disparate threads into a glorious tapestry of meaningful narrative. It’s only a matter of time until he ties the entire arc into a neat “bowtie.” Everything will fall into place and every panel will make perfect sense! Just you wait!
It’s called writing.
and Lisa would have liked that.
It’s the sort of ham fisted, non sequitur-laden writing he thinks people should love.
SUSPECT: Leslie P. “Les” Moore
PROSECUTION: In order to “protest” against the phenomenon of Banned Books, High School English teacher Les Moore decided to teach a segment on Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. When the school principal informed Les that the school would not pay for banned books, and Les wouldn’t be allowed to teach them, Les made arrangements to personally purchase enough copies of the book from a local bookseller, and have students pick up the books there.
However, upon closer reading of the school’s Banned Book list, Les discovered that “Fahrenheit 451” was not, nor had ever been, banned by the school, nor any other school as the subject matter is perfectly appropriate for older teens. (The principal had never looked over the list, and just took Les at his word that the book was banned.)
Suddenly realizing that he was out hundreds of dollars, and uninterested in teaching a segment on “Fahrenheit 451” if doing so would not provide him media attention for “bravely” teaching a banned book to his students, Les panicked. He decided that if the bookstore holding his copies of the book burned down, not only would the store’s insurance repay him for the books, but he could pretend the fire was set by a protester, this giving him the media attention he craves.
When the bookstore’s fire suppression system proved too much for his feeble arson attempt, and the books remained unburnt, Les remembered the elderly bookshop owner he’d just met. Her tiny, unlicensed, not-up-to-code “bookstore” located above a random garage surely would burn quickly and easily destroying any books he moved there.
Les, however, forgot to consider two key facts: a) Lillian McKenzie has a bladder the size of a garbanzo bean, and wakes 5-7 times a night to pee, so would surely catch any potential arsonist in the act; and b) As it is still technically summer, the local fire department is on high alert for Crankshaft, and Crankshaft-related fires, and is able to respond in mere minutes to any call from that area.
With two failed arson attempts, Les is beginning to worry that he will be forced to teach his students about “Fahrenheit 451” for absolutely no reason (note: students learning literature in an English class is not a valid reason as far as Les is concerned), Les is desperately considering his next move.
DEFENSE: Les is a grown man, with a college degree. He cannot possibly be as dumb as described above, can he?
Suspect: unrevealed to this day.
Prosecution: This person cannot be a known character in the Funkyverse. This person saw a situation which troubled him, and took deliberate action to change that situation, rather than passively complain and wait for the universe to reward him. The identity of this person can never be revealed because it would demonstrate that Tom Batiuk is incapable of considering an idea or opinion that does not line precisely with his own. It would also require an actual story to develop, with actual characters and conflicting ideas, which is clearly beyond the capacity of this environment. This person is currently sharing a beer with The Post Office Bomber, laughing how they got away with it, thanks to those non-meddling kids.
Defense: I’m sorry, am I supposed to talk now? I was distracted reading Calvin and Hobbes. Um, whatever my colleague just said is wrong, because I don’t want it to be true.
Suspect: Linda Bushka
Prosecution: A former colleague of the nefarious Les Moore, the widow Bushka developed a seething hatred of Moore, who trashed her husband at his funeral. Linda seduced the addled Buck Bedlow, suffering from CTE, into setting the fire to prevent Les from carrying out his plan to expose his class to Fahrenheit 451.
Defense: Moore got off light. Buck should have set him on fire.
Name of Suspect: Lester Parley “Les” Moore (AKA Dick Facey AKA The Lord of Language AKA Goatee Boy AKA Dick Facet AKA Dickface McSmuggy AKA The Devil)
Date of Birth: March 8th, 1970/1971/1961/1972/1952 in Westerville, Ohio
Height and Weight: 6’0” and 160 lbs
Hair Color: Black (graying)
Eye Color: Brown
Prosecution: He could’ve betrayed Lillian and set her house on fire and pinned it on somebody else, just so he can paint himself as the hero, also everybody hates his fucking guts and want to tear him apart limb from limb
Defense: He is protected by the cruel god who screwed over Wally Winkerbean’s life
SUSPECT: Tom Batiuk
PROSECUTION: “The Burnings” is Tom Batiuk’s latest “prestige arc.” “The Burnings” represent Mr. Batiuk’s latest attempt at media attention and possible awards for cartooning. At one time, Mr. Batiuk was a talented gag-a-day cartoonist. Delusions of grandeur led him to believe he could be a writer of serious drama when those skills were limited, at best. This latest attempt at relevance is an attempt to remind the award committees of his unrewarded lengthy career. The existence of Skip Rawling’s “The Batton Thomas Interviews” supports this point.
The burning of the stairs at the Village Booksmith served multiple purposes. Firstly, as the catalyst to spur his Crankshaft author-avatar, Lillian McKenzie, into action. In the upcoming weeks, Lillian will endlessly pontificate, in the lamest terms possible, that books serve a purpose and need to be read, not banned or burned. Secondly, Mr. Batiuk can show that Les Moore, another of his author avatars, is persecuted for merely trying to do his job. Mr Batiuk is demonstrating that people need to leave Les alone and let him do his job. He knows what he’s doing. Mr. Batiuk maintains that Les “is really a swell guy once you have a firm understanding of the character.” Thirdly, using The Village Booksmith as the location of the fire is convenient for Dan Davis, the illustrator of Crankshaft. Instead of having to draw new locations, Davis can use existing images of the Village Booksmith from the Crankshaft archive. He only has to draw crosshatches on the exterior to indicate fire damage, and to draw little clouds to indicate steam and smoke.
DEFENSE: None, really. The execution of this story arc, thus far, is quite indefensible.
Years ago, in the post-game press conference, the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, John McKay, was asked to comment about his team’s execution.
He said he was in favor of it
“We didn’t block, but we made up for it by not tackling.”
To borrow McKay’s sentiments on Green Bay…
“If a contest had 97 prizes, the 98th would be a trip to Westview.”
Imagine starting out as a franchise, losing your first 26 games. The Buccaneers made the playoffs relatively quickly after they drafted Doug Williams and Lee Roy Selmon.
John McKay was always quick with a quip.
I like this quote:
After receiving harsh criticism from the media about McKay’s coaching skills in the NFL, McKay replied “You guys don’t know the difference between a football and a bunch of bananas.” In the next interview, members of the media left bananas for McKay. He then replied, “You guys don’t know the difference between a football and a Mercedes Benz.”
He’s forgotten now, but Ricky Bell was the biggest star of those early good Bucs teams. He was a proto-Bo Jackson: a running back, built like an offensive lineman, but fast and hard to tackle. Died at a young age from a congential disease. Was a sweet guy too. Sad story.
Lee Roy Selmon was actually their first ever draft pick and lived through those 26 losses, but yeah, he was also a big reason they got good. He’s a Tampa legend, to the point of having an expressway named after him. One of the few college athletes who’s a legend for two different schools; Oklahoma as a player, and South Florida for his role in starting the football program.
I remember Ricky Bell. Played at USC. Heisman finalist. Beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl. YaY! First overall draft choice in the NFL draft by the Buccaneers.
SUSPECT: “Mopey” Pete Rattatouie
PROSECUTION: Security camera footage from the Village Booksmith showed a brown, opaque liquid being poured from a gasoline can onto the steps. CSIs found an unburned sample of this accelerant in the grass. Gas chromatography matched it to a sample of grease taken from the dumpster behind Montoni’s.
DEFENSE: claiming his primary customers (DSH John, Crazy Harry, Skipper Rawlings and Batton Thomas) order their pies with extra grease, Pete maintains he has never had to put any grease in the dumpster.
SUSPECT: “Lizard” Lillian MacKenzie
PROSECUTION: microscopic examination of the gray dust she was seen shaking out of sheets and drapes after the fire revealed the particles to be not soot but spores. Genetic analysis showed that Lillian in not a reptile after all, but a fungal life form that requires fire to initiate the spore-releasing phase of her reproductive cycle. The fire in fact had nothing to do with the book Fahrenheit 451.
DEFENSE: under examination at the trial, Lillian dissolves into a cloud of spores, which waft out the courtroom windows. The judge declares a mistrial. Next spring Centerville is overrun by clones of Lillian.
(with apologies to Oglaf)
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day Thirty of The Byrnings
WHAT DOES BASEBALL HAVE TO DO WITH ANY OF WHAT HAPPENED TO LILLIAN
Assuming for the sake of argument that there is some connection between Ed’s struggle with literacy and the campaign against book censorship, why is Ed telling this story to Lillian? He doesn’t need to convince her that literacy is important or that censorship is bad.
Another question one might ask is, why is Ed telling this story to Lillian when she was right there when he first (?) told the tale to a book-hating kid in her bookstore back in February of 2018. “I know, Crankshaft, I’ve heard this already. You were too dumb to ask your manager or pitching coach when you were going to start and they never told you, even though you were dressed and in the dugout or bullpen. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I really should report this arson to the police…or not.”
Suspect: Buddy
Prosecution: Bow wow wow. Woof. Bark bow wow. Arf arf arf arf! Bark; bark bark. Woof!
Defense: whiiine, whinny whinny whinny.
Batiuk is re-telling the original Crankshaft illiteracy story on his blog. it’s just as idiotically overwrought as you think. One-armed Skip says that Ed Crankshaft “should have played a crucial role” in the Cleveland Indians’ 1940 season. But he couldn’t read…
Skip has never been much of a throughout journalist either. Sure, he may not need to talk about Ed, but knowing he’s around and inspiring you to write a story, why not actually approach the guy and ask if it’s okay to to go into his baseball history? Maybe Cranky would’ve been willing to actually talk about why he got sabotaged? Perhaps it’s touchy enough that he doesn’t like the old wounds having their scabs picked off? Did he think it would be a nice surprise to write about “Hey our town has an amazing former pitcher that totally should’ve been in the big leagues! Sure wonder why he was skipped over, it’s a mystery folks!”
Correct me if I’m forgetting but usually when you write about someone and don’t attempt to talk to the person, either they’re a celebrity, someone that’s not really approachable, or you’re talking gossip about them. Ed is a grumpy old man but he’s not exactly outside of contact range, particularly when he’s actively working to terrorize the public school system. Not even giving the courtesy of asking or warning about it is pretty darn shabby, no wonder he tried a hostile sabotage in his vague notion of “retaking control” of the paper.
Oh, Skip is horrible at his job. He doesn’t know the first thing about writing, much less journalism. He’s always doing these long-ass interviews about nothing anybody cares about, so Batiuk can blather on about comic books or pizza or past Funky stories or whatever.
I just found out that this is National Banned Books Week! So of course Tom stops talking about banned books.
You know who doesn’t care about books being banned? The illiterate.
I didn’t read the puff piece Tom had someone write, but I know it listed Ed’s illiteracy as a topic. Did it say what happens past that? Or, most importantly, when it ends?
If it ends on 12/29/24, is this TB’s last pathetic stab at a Pulitzer? Will it be like this week, just throwing plates of Prestige Arc Repeats spaghetti at the wall, hoping something sticks?
Think about it. We could get a rehash of the entire Lisa Story, starting with teen pregnancy, date rape, being the world’s shittiest lawyer, her…stubbing her toe and she had to wear sandals for 2 days, I forget that one. ICE vs Montoni’s? Wally World being held 10 to 30 years as a POW? The Gay prom and racism arcs that went nowhere? Funky Like Him Some Drinky? And every other one; I can’t remember them all.
If you’re thinking “But that would be obvious pandering, and stupid!”–YES. This why I ask.
The puff pieces said the story runs through October, which means at least one more week. It’ll probably just be Les and Lillian’s victory lap. Because they won, somehow, and are now heroes.
If it ends on 12/29/24, is this TB’s last pathetic stab at a Pulitzer? Will it be like this week, just throwing plates of Prestige Arc Repeats spaghetti at the wall, hoping something sticks?
I’m sure that Batiuk will continue Crankshaft until he either dies or retires
Looks like you are correct! I thought sure this was planned as a swan song for the Batiukverse but according to his blog, TB is already working on next year’s arc, with TB aka Jeff visiting (scamming free passes out of) the Winnepeg Blue Bombers. He again claims to work a year ahead of time so we’ve got at least that much to look forward to.
BJ6K:
I would think 1 more week would be “through September,” and “through October” mean “by Halloween.” But that’s just semantics, and we all know how Tom loves imprecision in language. I’d prefer it to end, like, 6 weeks ago.
bad wolf:
Maybe that’s what he thinks, but it didn’t look like he had much warning about FW’s end.
It’s his I didn’t stop the burglar who shot Uncle Ben moment. We’re getting beaten over the head with it.
SUSPECT: Flimm Z. Strawman
PROSECUTION: Strawman has been responsible for a shocking number of incidents in the Centerville-Westview area. Fom post office bombings, to protests against gay students attending prom, to attempting to stop a comic store from selling hentai to minors, to giving dirty looks to teenage customers who manhandle merchandise in a store, to protesting the choice of W;t as the school play, Strawman has been a relentless force of unspeakable evil.
MOTIVE: Irrelevant. Do not attempt to find out what Strawman’s actual motives are. The fact that an individual holds different opinions, beliefs, or values from Tom Batiuk is evidence enough that they are unhinged and likely dangerous.
DEFENSE: There can be no defense for disagreeing with Tom Batiuk or Les Moore, or any other Batiuk avatar. Verdict: GUILTY.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Day 31 of the Byrnings/Day Three of Ed Crankshaft’s Ramblings
Looks like Davis found the 1990’s Crankshaft clipart
Not going to post a potential perpetrator, and I guess because it’s so obvious that it doesn’t matter to Batiuk that I can’t quite come up with elaborate examples unlike the rest of you.
Instead, I thought about an alternate storyline. Last week’s strips where Lillian shows her brave defiant face against the person who singed the side of her garage annoyed me, because it’s obvious that nothing more is ever going to come from it. Plus, that sentiment so pat and uninvolved that it really doesn’t mean anything. There’s no sense that Lillian considered the fact that someone may have just tried to kill her when she made this determination. There’s no sense that she’s taken stock of what’s at stake here. Batiuk wants to make her brave and heroic, so he devotes a couple panels to her talking about being brave before he can go back and moralize or rerun sequences from decades ago, which he clearly is more interested in.
So let’s have a story where these book burners take Lillian up on her offer and kill her. Let’s have a story where Les has to reckon with someone who really wants to kill him for his stance. Someone who might kill his family over this. (Hell, kill Keisha. It’s not as though she’s doing anything anyway. Especially since it seems that Maddie is Summer’s best friend now) Let’s have The Taj-Moore-Hal burned down because Les wanted to teach a book in defiance of his principal and his school board. Let’s have something at stake in this stupid story.
Any story like this can only be as good as its villain, and this pathetic “I singed the side of a garage which didn’t even require any repairs before running away” villain isn’t sufficient to carry the message Batiuk seems to think he’s sending. You want to portray someone as being brave, Tom? Give them something to really be afraid of.
Closest I can compare the messaging of this was an episode of Disney’s “Proud Family” cartoon. Called “Culture Shock”, it had the kid protagonist Penny temporarily living with a local Muslim family as part of a cultural exchange school program where a class’s students were made to family swap. The show always had a habit of doing some exaggerated extremes for humor, and the episode got a bit iffy in retrospective viewing on how kids were made to take part in their temp-family’s traditions (Penny was forced to fast for days as part of Ramadan, along with hijab wearing), but it all works well and seems to be ending happily… right until the final commercial break cut when the Proud and Muslim families finds someone vandalized the latter’s home, scrawling a “GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY” message on the garage.
The final scene after the break sees no resolution to that twist. Penny gives a report on her experience showing her how alike all their families really are and there’s no logical room for hate because of this. The class applauds and the episode ends. A fair moral, and I wouldn’t expect 2000s Disney to go in that deep on hate crime (though the show also did an episode on 60s segregation/civil rights, and the reboot in the 2020s later did try to go hard on such issues), but I did always feel that was abrupt even if there is a point to that issue of nebulous, seemingly sourceless hostility.
That said, it’s easier to understand the implicit hostility of different cultures in the show’s 2000s urban California than it is to comprehend 2020s suburban Ohio having a burn-happy “ina-pro-pro for teenagers!” mindset on a 70-year old book on culture-influenced dictatorial censorship.
Just a quick question:Where do you guys find the pre-2007 and 90s color strips aside from comics.ganneff.de and nuless.org/comics/archive.html ? Nuless only goes far back as the one where Jessica throws up on Darin’s costume at the Halloween party,and Ganneff only goes to late-April 2006. I don’t want to scroll through Toledo Blade on Google Archives or get sore from coloring in my expensive books.
We found the Pre 2007 FW strips (the high definition versions, which dated from 1998 to 2022) on Comics Kingdom until they were removed from the website on June 9th of last year
I used the v7.https://comicskingdom.com part (which doesn’t make you pay to look at the comic strips( which sadly no longer exists since the clusterfuck that CK called it’s “overhaul” in February of this year
That’s what I HATE about CK. I spent my $30 on a subscription to read Rex Morgan and Pajama Diaries (creator made the really good Emmie and Friends book series),but it’s SO hard to use. And I found FW 4 months after it was taken off CK. (Though it is coming to GoComics this fall,just don’t know when,and I can read most of 2017-2022s on NewsBank thanks to my library and on Wayback Machine) So for now,I color in my books.
If you make sure Rachel Winkerbean always has red hair, then you’re doing a much better job than the Comics Kingdom colorists.
I’m hoping that GoComics gets the FW archives up soon!
I hope the GoComics FW archives begin before the year 2000.
They will. TB said it’s all 50 years–that’s why he doesn’t know when it’s actually coming. Could be next month or November. And on Sunday,it’ll be 5 years since Bull died.
SUSPECT: Le Chat Bleu, aka Schroedinger’s Cat
PROSECUTION: nothing has been or will be revealed about the arsonist’s motives or beliefs, as doing so runs the risk of offending some member of Batiuk’s audience, a thing he fears more than death itself. The identity of the arsonist therefore remains an unresolved quantum wave function in which the arsonist is simultaneously male and female, liberal and conservative, etc. The only unresolved quantum wave function in the FunKrankyverse is Le Chat Bleu, who appears and disappears at random intervals and is generally only visible to Les Moore.
DEFENSE: Meow. Meow meow meow. (Assuming the cat is alive when the observation is made). Otherwise, silence.