Further Testimony Of Blaise Ashcomb

(My retelling of The Burnings continues. All episodes of the retelling appear under the “Burnings” tag.)

(Blaise Ashcomb, having sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, testifies as follows:)

PROSECUTION: Let us now move to the Village Booksmith fire. Can you briefly describe your investigation of that fire?

ASHCOMB: The fire was put out before I got there, and no one was injured. So my first task was to identify and interview witnesses. But when I got there, everybody was already in a huge conversation about book burning. I thought this was very strange. 

PROSECUTION: Why was this strange?

ASHCOMB: When I was walking up to the scene, it looked like a minor cigarette butt fire or something like that. It was way too early to establish if the fire was even intentional, much less a specific motive for it. But they were right in the middle of it. I thought maybe they saw something, or knew more than the newspaper did about this supposed protest. But they didn’t.

PROSECUTION: Who was there? 

ASHCOMB: The neighbors, their adult daughter, the grandfather Ed Crankshaft, and a darker-skinned couple.

PROSECUTION: What did they tell you?

ASHCOMB: Well, the dark-skinned couple didn’t say anything relevant, and didn’t stay long. But the rest of them all bought that newspaper story about the Booksmellers fire. This fire was lit on the 16th, and the Booksmellers fire was on the 5th. And I just said we had ruled the Booksmellers fire accidental by then.

PROSECUTION: Did the witnesses say anything else?

ASHCOMB: Ed Crankshaft started telling me this absurd story about how being unable to read cost him a shot at the major leagues. I remember thinking “yeah, buddy, I’d be quarterback of the Browns if I didn’t tweak my knee in high school.”

PROSECUTION: To be fair, you’d probably be better than DeShaun Watson.

ASHCOMB: Heh. That’s probably true.

PROSECUTION: Anything else?

ASHCOMB: Ed Crankshaft vehemently denied having anything to do with the fire.

PROSECUTION: Did you believe him?

ASHCOMB: Yes, because it quickly became apparent that he had no involvement.

PROSECUTION: Why did you believe Mr. Crankshaft had no involvement in this fire when his, uh, propensity for starting fires is well-known?

ASHCOMB: This fire was clearly the work of an amateur, and Ed Crankshaft is no amateur. He’s actually kind of a genius. Do you know how much energy it takes to launch a 35-pound backyard grill into orbit? Escape velocity is 25,000 miles an hour. And that’s at the equator. Imagine being almost halfway up the globe, and getting a non-aerodynamic object moving that fast, using only store brand lighter fluid. And he’s done this many, many, many times. The laws of thermodynamics don’t seem to exist around Ed Crankshaft. NASA should hire him to build rocket engines. It’s crazy.

PROSECUTION: Why did you think this fire was the work of an amateur?

ASHCOMB: The huge puddles of unignited accelerant at the scene, for starters. That’s a smoking gun for arson. Also, the failure to ignite all the accelerants kept the fire small, almost as if the firestarter didn’t want to do too much damage. They also used a particular accelerant, one that was very easy to track down.

PROSECUTION: And what was that?

ASHCOMB: Creosote oil. It’s a yellowish-brown liquid. There were also traces of gasoline, maybe because they stored it in a container that previously held gasoline. Or maybe they thought it would fool someone. Like I said, amateur. By the way, creosote oil can cause cancer.

PROSECUTION: So this was definitely an arson attack?

ASHCOMB: 100 percent.

PROSECUTION: Did you rule out any other possibilities?

ASHCOMB: It was also quickly apparent that Lillian McKenzie did not start the fire.

PROSECUTION: Why is that?

ASHCOMB: She was inside her house when the fire started, and when I interviewed her, she was pretty shaken up by the attack. But mainly, she had no motive.

PROSECUTION: Why not?

ASHCOMB: Insurance fraud is a major motive for arson, so it’s something I always have to consider. But Lillian’s business was completely uninsurable. She basically hung a plank outside her house and declared her attic “The Village Booksmith.” It doesn’t have any kind of business licensing, much less business insurance. And the fire was so small she wouldn’t have met her deductible anyway. It made no sense from an insurance fraud perspective. And she wouldn’t start an insurance fire at the most fire-resistant point of the house.

PROSECUTION: Can you explain what you mean by that?

ASHCOMB: Much of the McKenzie house, including the stairs, was made out of fire-resistant wood. Clearly Lillian took some extra precautions after a few Crankshaft grill incidents. She wouldn’t have started the fire on the bottom steps, unless she wanted it to fail right away. Which makes no sense in an insurance fraud scenario, or other rational motives like concealment of something. But it does make sense in terms of what we later learned about the firestarter.

Unknown's avatar

Author: Banana Jr. 6000

Yuck. The fritos are antiquated.

60 thoughts on “Further Testimony Of Blaise Ashcomb”

    1. Since Ed and Lizard have been ruled out, Les is the only logical culprit. Everything has to be about TOM! Er, about LES! Or Batsin Belfry, by whom I mean TOM.

      1. I noticed that we never see the refugee from Masked Singer and Les in the same place. Hmmmmmm…….

  4. I like how Ed caused significantly more damage to Lillian’s property in yesterday’s strip than an arsonist and a mob did during the entire duration of The Burnings.

    1. And yet only one of them is supposed to lead to massive societal changes on a global level. Go figure.

    2. Which sets up a perfect ending to The Burnings, and to Pizza Box Monster week. Which is: PBM absolutely terrorizes Lillian. Hear me out:

      “The Burnings”, which canonically stifled literacy for two generations, turned out to be a small brush fire and an easily dispersed crowd. Then Ed Crankshaft’s day-to-day behavior actually caused more damage to Lillian’s home than The Burnings did, but Lillian laughs it off as irrelevant because he’s just that wacky bus driver. What this shitshow needs now is a threat Lillian *should* laugh off, but takes deadly seriously even though PBM is physically unable to harm anyone. Like how he legitimately terrorized Funky, somehow.

      After the last two weeks had different and contradictory tones, this would be a third tone that doesn’t match either of the first two. Which would be a perfectly Batiukian ending.

  5. Pretty sure someone called the earlier-than-expected return appearance of Pizza Monster. Step forward and a take a bow! (But wasn’t it formerly Pizza BOX Monster? Isn’t that a somewhat more accurate name?)

    1. Batiuk has always only called him Pizza Monster. (Yeah, Pizza Box Monster might make more sense, but that really only proves that it’s Pizza Monster. Batiukian logic and all that…)

      1. “Pizza Box Monster” is a much better description of what he actually is. Batiuk never uses an extra word when it would actually help.

    2. I prefer “Pizza Box Monster” because it abbreviates to “Pizza BM,” which somehow fits Batty’s writing.

  6. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    Looks like the Pizza Box Monster is back after almost a year

    Related to the Batiukverse: I have a feeling that if Wally never married Rachel and got Buddy The Wonder Dog, he would’ve become The Joker (or something like the Joker)

    Wally: (In Joker-like facepaint) HEY FUNKY! YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE! (shoots Funky multiple times in the head)

  7. Sorry, but who wants to hear a story FAR SCARIER than the Pizza Monster?

    Not you, trust me.

    My cat was standing by his water bowl just now. He’s the “copycat.” I had 2 older ones, and what they did, he did. My oldest got cranky about 18 years on, always wanting fresh water. He’s 15, and though I changed his water twice today, he demanded it, so I did it again. I went to dump it in the toilet before refilling, and there was something floating on top.

    WHAT THE FUCK

    There was some weird grey fur-looking stuff on top. And like TWENTY MAGGOT CASINGS. Just a-floating there.

    I sure as hell dumped THAT in the toilet, but didn’t flush because–Will I wake up and think I was hallucinating this?! Keep the evidence for Amicus Breef!

    I could not come up with any possible reason how this could’ve happened. And I ran down a LOT of reasons. Then I thought…From the faucet?

    Yes! No maggots, but some weird grey fur-like stuff. I had years ago some evil neighbors who would flush food grease down the bathtub. The full group of kitchen/laundry machines they kept in the garage, and a very large illuminated sign that said “LAOS,” indicated they’d left a restaurant business behind, and likely very quickly. Two adults and a kid to live in a 700sf 1BR?

    One happy day, my TUB was filled shin-deep with brown grease. The plumbing has never worked right since. I’ve spent A DECADE flushing it out. Maybe it just decided to unclog now? (I warned the condo association back then about this, saying “They know they’re not getting their deposit back, so they’re going to leave in a day with no notice or return address”–which they did)

    I’ve checked all the water I got from that faucet today, and there’s no other contamination. But there is the possibility I showered in MAGGOT MUMMIES this morning.

    No, this is not a “Scary Season” story. Want me to send photos of my MAGGOTY TOILET? My GRAVY-FILLED BATHTUB? No. No, you don’t.

  8. Alright, with the Burnings definitely in rearview now, my collected thoughts. Let’s start with the Bingo board: In my set order I didn’t win, but I could’ve if I used my authorship powers to rearrange the board. Do have honorable mentions for the “not close enough” squares though:

    In review, what did these seven weeks give us? Basically, it was another attempt to be roughly topical and connected to “intrinsic” parts of the Funkyverse in the same way the Gay Prom and the CTE stories aimed to, but this time it was talked up with the notion that there was connecting tissue with the events of the future mentioned in Funky’s final week. That got a bit more intrigue than usual, but ultimately that connection was downplayed heavily to the point where it’s hard to see this as a scene from a “Burnings” phenomenon without any further context. Which leaves us with just a generic story about the dangers of banning the classics.

    Despite our own criticisms, our experiences with the strip’s official uploads do tell us that the arc has its earnest fans who applauded the message and “bravery” of the characters. A few had responses to the “nitpickers” that the choice of F451 was merely allegorical and a sufficient stand-in for any actual books being subjected to banning attempts today. They seem to align with the authorial intent to call any book ban over vague notions of “too adult”, “sending the wrong messages” or “don’t want our kids reading that” equivalent and that safe poetic irony was best for the conflict. That this left things vague and simply said the current status quo would be bad enough to go after English classics in the not-too-distant-future, while also not actually challenging any beefing commenters arguing about 4th graders ending up with queer sex graphic novels didn’t seem to matter; this was a quaint work-safe argument.

    Maybe it’s time I mention this anecdote I discovered while the arc was in progress: Last year the Garnett Corp that manages a sizable majority of American newspapers via the USA TODAY Network, “standardized” their comic pages, limited the papers to only be able to run a certain few sets of strips. Crankshaft was one of those that made this cut, alongside a good chunk of long-running and “legacy” strips, but the choices got online attention for its snubs, which seemed to aim to cut out outspoke political strips like Doonesbury and dramatically reduce the creative diversity of strip creators. Severely hit by this shift, Breaking Cat News creator Georgia Dunn denounced the act in her own strip for a week, forgoing funny news reporting cat antics to report on issue for all her remaining readers to learn about. And despite letting that run, apparently she still has trouble with the syndicate trying to hold back controversial strips. About woman daydreaming of centaurs.

    Could this be argued as censorship of the funny pages? Possibly. Was Dunn’s actions an outspoken way of confronting an issue that attacked the creative industry? Definitely. How does this compare to Tom Batiuk, who was judged by Garnett as established enough to keep and not outspoken enough to react to, and took his opportunity to cover a current topic to denounce the specter of haters who would want to unironically ban or burn a book about banning and burning books? I’ll leave that without comment.

    But as far as I’m concerned, I was expecting more fire. And robots.

    1. Have you ever seen a reality show contestant who didn’t even try? I don’t mean they failed, or quit, or lacked the necessary skills, or got disqualified, or made a strategic decision not to play the challenge. They just wandered off and did whatever they wanted, figuring everything else would take care of itself, and then acted surprised when they lost.

      This story is exactly like that. The Burnings contained no antagonist, no conflict, and barely any fire. Just some gumf about Fahrenheit 451 “teaching things they don’t want their children to learn”, even though the book contains no such content. And we don’t know who those children even were. The story is so devoid of content, it’s impossible to form an opinion about.

      1. I’ve said it before: Tom Batiuk thinks that “mentioning” an issue is the exact same thing as “solving” an issue. And he expects to be praised for solving said issue.

        1. Even when the characters say “eh, what can you do” and thus do absolutely nothing. (Like, say, Cayla on racial profiling. Assuming the story was supposed to be about racial profiling.)

    2. I wonder how much longer Crankshaft will make the cut, considering that it has completely abandoned its central premise to become Funky Winkerbean Act IV.

      2. As long as newspapers keep subscribing to it, the content of the strip is irrelevant to its continuation. Crankshaft will continue until the death of Tom Batiuk, the death of newspapers, or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first.

        1. Newspapers are forced to subscribe to it. As I understand it (and from Andrew’s links above) Crankshaft is part of the “basic package” a newspaper must commit to if it wants to run any comic strips at all. Almost all of which are “the 1980s reminisicing about the 1950s” dreck like Hi and Lois, Dennis The Menace, and Marmaduke. The Funkyverse fits well into that aesthetic, with its indifference to abuse, and its ethos of never doing anything about it.

  9. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    Pete and Mindy are the only ones working at Montoni’s, why aren’t Rachel and Wally working there? it’s called “writing”

    1. Why does Montoni’s need employees when Pete and Mindy have never done any work there? They bought Montoni’s over a year ago, and the only thing we’ve ever seen them do is put out holiday decorations. But they have plenty of spare time to be part of the midnight anti-Ray Bradbury anti-protest! And Pete hasn’t stopped hanging around at comic book places! It hasn’t even been used as a location for anything. What was the point of closing Montoni’s OR bringing it back?

        1. It’s not like the pizza doesn’t taste like it came out of someone’s backside already.

          1. I’ve heard of Cicis Pizza. “Feces pizza” is a new one on me. Ewwwww.😝 Yuk!

        2. Darin can write an app that makes the pizza for you! And order supplies, bus tables, pass health inspections, and every other aspect of restaurant management! Leaving Pete free to hang out at the comic book store all day, and Mindy to do whatever the hell she does. It’s another elegant solution!

          1. Good one. 😂

            Darin must have created a similar app for Atomik Komix. One that handled printing, marketing, sales, distribution and accounting. Leaving the gang plenty of time to blow off work and hang around in the Komix Korner, art galleries, coffee shops, and chatting away in the “bullpen” for hours on end.

            The Tom Batiuk business plan, magic and wishful thinking.

          2. >The Tom Batiuk business plan, magic and wishful thinking.

            It’s like he’s still nine. Even a middle schooler would have some concept that comic book publishers ultimately have to make money, and a pizza restaurant needs to make and serve actual pizzas. Not Tom Batiuk. All of that is swept under the rug as unnecessary to proper operations. Then the strip tries to depict characters having job and financial pressures.

            Jobs in Westview are more like hereditary titles of nobility. The comic strip portrayed Pete and Mindy buying the restaurant, despite how little sense that made. But it feels more like they inherited it. Pete became the 3rd Viscount Of Montoni’s, after Funky The 2nd died (or retired to Florida, which is basically the same thing). Pete and Mindy never do any actual work; they just inherited the title, and are now enjoying the lifestyle it affords.

    2. …there is such an animal as a nonstylist. Only they’re not writers. They’re typists. Sweaty typists blacking up pounds of Bond with formless, eyeless, earless messages.

      — Truman Capote, in 1957, about the Beat writers.

      But TB isn’t even sweaty. Sweat implies effort.

      It’s called writing.

      In much the same way WWI was called “The War to End All Wars” and Liberace was called “a real ladies’ man.”

  10. Apologies for remarking on Duh-ruin’s absence during the (non)confrontation at The Village Booksmith a couple of weeks ago. As my Mother in Law likes to say, “Speak of the devil, you’ll smell brimstone every time.”

    I know I’m not that powerful, but what the hell? Darrin hasn’t been in the strip for over a year. I mention his name and there he is. The wicked beastie. Let’s chalk it up to another one of life’s coincidences.

    Du-ruin wasn’t there for the “protest”, but apparently he’ll make time if there’s food involved. Learned that from Best Actress Award Winner Les Moore, I’m sure.

    Need I ask, who’s watching Skyler?

    1. Need I ask, who’s watching Skyler?

      His therapist. They told him about the spaceship toy.

      1. I can’t believe TB didn’t realize how messed up that toy spaceship was.

        TB: Most people don’t realize how poetically ironic it was for Jessica to turn the item that killed her father into a toy spaceship.

        Typical Funky Winkerbean Reader: What the hell is wrong with you?

        ———–

        I assumed the Wonder Twins (Darin and Jess) dumped Skyler on Ann Fairgood. As usual.

        I could be wrong. Skyler and Ed could be on a gangster-like crime spree, rampaging throughout the American Midwest.

        1. AHEM.

          This was no “toy spaceship.” This was the prototype for the Skylær Flying Machine that replaced the car in the glorious future that was sparked by Summer Zeeve’s book.

          You know, when what she wrote about sparked others to build on it to create a science of behavioral-patterned algorithms that one day allowed us to recognize humanity as our nation.

          You know, I can never see that block of text without a frisson of horror mixed with delight, awe, and disgust.

          1. For me, reading Timemop’s statement only leads to confusion and utter madness. I have no clue what TB is talking about. What ye be jabberin’ about, Cap’n?

            I ought to contact TB via his website and ask him, “What’s it all about A̵l̵f̵i̵e̵ TB?”

            “What she wrote about sparked others to build on it to create a science of behavioral-patterned algorithms that one day allowed us to recognize humanity as our nation.”

            Mr. Batiuk, what does this mean? Please explain.

            Let’s see if he bullshits me. He probably asked AI to write something that sounded profound.

            TB: I thought it was obvious. What do you think it means?

            be ware of eve hill slaps TB silly.

  11. I wonder if the “darker-skinned couple” at The Village Booksmith fire was supposed to be Morgan and Chase Lambert. Perhaps the GoComics colorists took it upon themselves to include some diversity.

    GoComics Colorist: This comic strip needs more people of color.

    We haven’t seen the Chases for a while. That’s all.

    1. I considered that, but Lillian long ago rebought her house from the Lamberts, so it didn’t make sense for them to be back in town.

      Also, I really hated calling them “darker skinned”, but the art was so vague that I couldn’t confidently label them more specifically.

      1. My understanding has been Lillian lives on one side of the Crankshaft/Murdoch house, and the Lamberts live on the other side. After Lillian reneged on moving to the retirement home, she took her house off the market. Disappointed, the Lamberts “settled” for the other house. The Lamberts used to appear in the strip a few times a year, then their appearances became much less frequent. The yuppie Lamberts were often put in their place by the uncouth Ed Crankshaft. The Lamberts are mentioned on Crankshaft character pages.

        Which reminds me. Why would somebody hack the Internet Archive, A.K.A. “The Wayback Machine?” Pardon my French, but Christ, what an asshole. I missed a day of The Far Side on 10/18 because the archive hasn’t been updated since 10/9/2024. The website seems to be a read-only now consisting of webpages archived prior to 10/9.

        I digress. The last time I definitely remember the Lamberts is when Crankshaft gathered all the neighbors to electrocute the leaves out of a recalcitrant tree with car batteries. The tree caught on fire. The comic strip appeared a year or two before the syndicate swap. It would be nice if GoComics could index the Crankshaft archive.

        There was a guy in the strip last year on 03/15/2023 filling his gas tank and talking to himself about gas prices. Comic Book Harriet tallied this person as Chase Lambert.

        We both know how Batty is on continuity. If he decided to make the Lamberts African-Americans out of the blue, it would be fine by me.

        Perhaps the Lamberts just got back tanned from a sunny vacation.

        1. Also, I thought at least one of the Lamberts was Asian, something that wasn’t apparent in the artwork of that strip.

    1. When did Darrin and Pete get so old? I thought the Krankenverse was on a timeline a few years earlier than the Funkyverse? These guys look like they’re ready for AARP…
    2. Of course Mindy still looks like she’s 24 because women don’t ever age in this dimension…
    3. Speaking of completely generic and indistinguishable young couples, whatever happened to what’s-their-names who were struggling to run the Valentine Theater because they insisted on only showing the same 80-year-old movie on a 24/7 loop?
    4. Maybe someone could set the pizza box Michelin Man on fire for us? Krankenschaaften, I’m looking in your direction…
    5. So Pete and Darrin don’t have their cushy high six-figure dream jobs at Atomikkk Komixxx anymore? What happened? Did Daddy Warbux run out of free money to give away?

    1. Chester will never run out of money. If he’s ever short of cash, he’ll just sell one of his 200 Gem Mint Action Comics #1.

    2. Thanks to Timemop™, the Rather Elegant Solution™, the separation of time between Westview and the rest of the world is… I dunno, somehow realigning everything to one time frame. So I guess everything from Funky is now co-existing with everything from Crankshaft, except the things that contradict each other (like Ed being in the retirement home). Unless it’s the Shining Twins, who apparently are both preteens and high school graduates, depending on Batiuk’s mood.

      Anyhoo, Mopey and Boy Lisa are still, like, 52 years old, while Mindy’s age might be off by 10 years. (Whether she’s now a decade older than her twin brother Chinbeard, no one can say.)

      (But that’s Batiuk for ya. Comes up with an “Elegant Solution™” to a problem that really didn’t exist, and makes things infinitely more confusing. Thanks, Tom! It’s called writing!™)

      As for Chinbeard and Chinbeard’s Token Generic Blonde Girlfriend Who Is (Probably) Not His Twin Sister, they’re still running the Valentine. Mason Jarre-Jarre, upon finding out the Valentine closed (and that the replacement strip club “didn’t take off enough”), decided to buy the place, and hired the two incompetents who ran it into the ground back as managers. (Because that’s totally a thing one does when they’re not looking for either a tax write-off or a money laundering operation.) Like Montoni’s, Batiuk closed a place only to have some idiot with more money than brains come in to buy it, making one question what the purpose of closing it at all was.

      Mopey left his full-time job at Atomikkk Komixxx for the financial security of reviving a failed pizza restaurant. But he still does freelancing for AK in his spare time, or something. (Since we never seem to see any customers at Mopetoni’s, I suppose he actually has lots of free time.) Boy Lisa… I dunno, he might still work for AK, or he might not. Batiuk hasn’t bothered to tell us, but probably assumes we know. It’s called writing!™

    1. What was the joke? “Cliches people say when the power goes out”? Then it should’ve ended before PMonster’s line. Or, it should’ve ended with Pete’s mope stating the obvious. Really surprised Dangerously Lazy Dan didn’t just show a black panel with word balloons.

      I know there’s narrative convenience by having characters state the obvious. Like “My Father John, Who” and “Famous Silent Movie Actor” and “I’m Skip and/or Battom and here’s my CV every time I arrive.” Like a week of restaurant workers in another strip describing their boss and only other female coworker as “Luann’s Mom” for 6 days as if she has no real name, although Luann doesn’t even work there. I describe her as “my sister Patty, who’s a hairdresser” to people who don’t know her, but I don’t begin every sentence after that with “Then, my sister Patty who’s a hairdresser, said to me…”

      I know we comic readers are old, but do the writers just assume we’re also in late-stage dementia?

  15. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    it looks like Jess (who’s father John darling was murdered), Mopey, Boy Lisa, Mindull, and the PBM are going to ramble about ghost stories

  16. Unless they start taking drugs and swapping spouses…this isn’t going to be anything like the Geneva Shelly/Byron ghost story party.

  17. How does a scary story in the Funkyverse even work? Legitimately horrible things happen to these people all the time, and they don’t even notice. “I found out my childhood toy was the gun that murdered my grandfather” and “I was forced to read my mother’s rape journal” are two of the most traumatizing things I can imagine, but they’re passed off as positive stories.

    What would even upset these people? Oh, wait, I can guess:

    “But the comic book… wasn’t mint condition! AND IT HAD MULTIPLE UNIVERSES!”

    “I had a book signing…. and nobody came! Nobody at all! My self-published dreck had given me no one to look down my nose at!”

    “I went to order a Montoni’s pizza… and they were out of coffee!”

    1. Oh no, 1960’s Batman is on TV? (Of course they still watch those in the Batiukverse.)

    2. Horror stories in the Batiukverse:

      – NIGHTMARE IN THE MOVIE THEATRE WHERE THE PROJECTOR BREAKS DOWN PARTWAY THROUGH THE PHANTOM EMPIRE

      – THE DAY LES MOORE DIDN’T GET WHAT HE WANTED

      – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST, SUMMER

      1. MASON JARRE NEARLY CONSIDERED SITTING ON THE SACRED LISA BENCH

        A CLERK SCOWLED AT A GUY MANHANDLING THE MERCHANDISE

        LOS ANGELES BURNED TO THE GROUND

        (nah, scratch that last one)

        (+ 1M upvotes for your suggestions. I will always cherish “I Know What You Did Last, Summer”)

      2. I have a few:

        – Les Becomes Supreme Ruler of The World

        – Lillian Burns Alive Inside Bookstore

        – Crankshaft Goes Too Far

        – All Copies of Lisa’s Story Banned

        – The Day Wally Snapped And Went On A Killing Spree

      3. How long will this (Count Floyd voice) “OOH, kids, SCARY, eh!” arc go on? It’s 7 days to Halloween, and Tom couldn’t tell the terrifying non-story of the Burnings in 7 weeks.

        Are these going to be single strip Hemingway stories? “For Sale: English major, never used.”

        LES, holding a flashlight under his chin: “And then–the Pulitzer went to SPIEGELMAN!! With some dumb Tom & Jerry & Adolf story!” PBM loudly defecates in shock. “Sorry!” says PBM. “But I am eating Montoni’s.”

    1. Ugh! How did THAT nonsense get through when YOU got torso chuted!?

      WORDPRESS YOU USELESS PILE OF ONES AND ZEROES!!!!

      1. Four or five of my comments in a row ended up stuck in the torso chute. It hadn’t happened for quite a while. Just my turn, I guess. I performed I few tests. Sorry for cluttering up the discussions.

        I cleared my web browser. Logged out of WordPress. Logged back into WordPress because WordPress won’t let me post with my email address unless I login.🙄 I also turned on my VPN.

        Here comes another test comment. Torpedo los!

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