(My retelling of The Burnings continues.)
PROSECUTION: Can you please state your name and profession?
SKIP: Skip Rawlings, Publisher-editor-reporter of the Centerville Sentinel.
PROSECUTION: And which of those roles did you perform in the newspaper’s story about the Booksmellers fire?
SKIP: Well, all of them.
PROSECUTION: This story said, quote, “Booksmellers came under attack because students were going to get a book for their school literature course that the school board had banned” and “the protestors said there were things in the book they didn’t want their kids to see.” Is that an accurate description?
SKIP: Yes.
PROSECUTION: Who told you this?
SKIP: I… don’t recall.
PROSECUTION: You don’t recall? That seems like an important detail.
SKIP: Sources can request anonymity.
PROSECUTION: Okay, but did this source do that?
SKIP: Um… sure, yeah.
PROSECUTION: And you granted it? After this person was connected an arson attack? Or maybe did it themselves?
SKIP: I’m a news reporter. It’s not my job to investigate crimes.
PROSECUTION: On September 7, you told Lillian McKenzie “the bookstore in Westview had come under attack from some protestors, because students were going there to get a book for their literature class that the school board had banned.” Is that accurate?
SKIP: Yes.
PROSECUTION: But you don’t remember which protestor told you this?
SKIP: No, I don’t remember.
PROSECUTION: Again, how can you not remember something like that? With all due respect, you’re been a journalist for 80 years. Who, what, where, when, why, how is the first thing they teach you in journalism school. Even I know that. How did you talk to this person?
SKIP: One of the protestors sent the newspaper an email.
PROSECUTION: Who was the sender?
SKIP: I don’t know.
PROSECUTION: Did you ever try to find out?
SKIP: No.
PROSECUTION: Why not? Wouldn’t that have improved the story?
SKIP: We’re not the New York Times, we’re a small, community newspaper with local people as writers, and don’t have resources for that kind of fact checking.
PROSECUTION: But you ran the story anyway.
SKIP: Yes, we did. I stand by it.
PROSECUTION: You said the story originally ran in another newspaper. What else can you tell me about the initial reporting of that story?
SKIP: Well, it was originally a Westview Watchman story, because Booksmellers is in Westview, not Centerville. We share facilities with that paper, and we also pool news information.
PROSECUTION: So you weren’t the original reporter?
SKIP: No, it was someone at the Watchman. I did a longer story on it, the next day, to make it more relevant to people in Centerville. Oh! I remember now. There was some kid working at Booksmellers who was the older sister of someone in Les Moore’s class, or something like that. She was the main source.
PROSECUTION: Did you interview this person for your follow-up story?
SKIP: No. They don’t live in Centerville.
PROSECUTION: According to Lillian McKenzie’s testimony, you told her “it’s not known if there is any connection between the protestors and the fire in Westview”. But you just told me what the connection was, and you knew this at the time. So why did you tell her that?
SKIP: I guess I wasn’t sure.
PROSECUTION: The Centerville Sentinel reported it as news. The newspaper you’re the editor of.
SKIP: I was trying to remain objective.
PROSECTION: You were trying to remain objective in a personal conversation?
SKIP: It was an on-the-record interview for a news story.
PROSECUTION: Why were you interviewing Lillian McKenzie about a fire in another town that happened the day before?
SKIP: Because Tom Batiuk needed a way to tell the readers what happened so Dan Davis wouldn’t have to draw –
THE JUDGE: – sir, I remind you, you are under oath in a fictional courtroom. Please refrain from breaking the fourth wall.
SKIP: Because… I wanted some local perspective quotes for the Centerville version of the story.
PROSECUTION: But why is Lillian McKenzie the only other person who appears in your story? Of all the bookstores in your newspaper’s coverage area, you chose an unlicensed bookstore in some lady’s attic, who also has personal ties to Les Moore, the teacher at the center of this controversy. And the story didn’t mention this tie at all. Why?
SKIP: I guess I thought it would make the story hit home more, if someone in Centerville was at risk.
PROSECUTION: But Lillian McKenzie wasn’t at risk, at that point. According to her testimony, she did not agree to host the restricted books until after you left. Your conversation with her was at night, and the books were moved to The Village Booksmith during daylight. So at least one day must have passed, right?
SKIP: So?
PROSECUTION: So, you were awfully prescient about interviewing the exact person who would be the target of the next arson. What is your relationship with Lillian McKenzie?
SKIP: Oh, you know, she owns a bookstore, and is a famous author, so she’s kind of a big deal.
PROSECUTION: When was the last time you interacted with Lillian?
SKIP: About a week before.
PROSECUTION: Really? Why?
SKIP: I was covering the Les Moore/Harry Dinkle book signing at The Village Booksmith. Book signings are a huge deal in this town, major social event. In fact, we’re the only newspaper that has a Book Signings section!
PROSECUTION: Did anything newsworthy happen that day?
SKIP: Well, the Booksmith has a display of banned books. I remember that getting my attention. Maybe that was in my head when I decided to interview Lillian.
PROSECUTION: Other than the email, did you have any contact with the protestors?
SKIP: No, that was it.
PROSECUTION: That’s it? One email? That’s the only evidence you have?
SKIP: Well, there was also the Watchman reporting.
PROSECUTION: Okay, but that didn’t say much else. Mr. Rawlings, I’m going to ask you a simple question. Can you prove to his court that these anti-Fahrenheit 451 protestors exist?
SKIP: Oh come on, we all saw the social media posts the protestors made themselves!
PROSECUTION: But that was later. I mean before that. Do you have any proof that these protestors existed, before they showed up at Lillian McKenzie’s house the night of the second fire? I remind you, you are under oath.
(murmuring)
THE JUDGE: Order in the court. Attendees should remain silent, please. Witness, answer the question.
SKIP: I suppose I don’t.
(murmuring)
PROSECUTION: No further questions.
THE JUDGE: Thank you, Mr. Rawlings, you may step down.
Son of Stuck Funky 
GUILTY!!!!
regarding Skip Rawlings: LOCK HIS ASS UP AND LET HIM ROT IN PRISON
There are so many ways TB could have given them a reason to run the ferkakte pizzeria.
Even the flimsiest of reasons would have worked. It’s a cartoon, after all.
— Funky discovers that he still owns the place but doesn’t want to deal with it any more as he’s retired, so he gives it to Pete.
— A consortium of Westviewians miss the place so much they crowdsource the money to reboot it.
— Pete has a case of writer’s block and goes through a crisis about it, eventually deciding he needs time away from the comics industry to refresh his creativity.
All dumb ideas, and none took me more than 15 seconds to think up.
Of course “dumb” and “15 seconds” is all too much effort for Puff Batty, and here we are. The world’s most celebrated and most highly compensated comics writer walks away from a carte blanche dream job to run a pizzeria. Even though we’ve never heard him even mention the idea of running a restaurant before.
Hitorque, I think I know why this enrages you (and me). It’s the unrecognized privilege of TB, shining through one of his many Gary Stu characters. He — and “he” refers to both TB and PR — has been so immensely lucky in so many ways. With much less talent than so many, he’s managed to obtain a sinecure that just keeps churning out money, no matter how little effort he puts into it.
He’s ungrateful for his parents and upbringing. He’s ungrateful for his schooling. He’s ungrateful for his professional success. So ungrateful that he doesn’t realize how goddam lucky he is, so ungrateful that he has his characters throw away the equivalent of life’s winning Powerball ticket to run a failed pizzeria.
And his privilege shines through in another way: He has NO IDEA how brutally hard it is to start and run a restaurant. Especially one like a pizzeria. There’s no prestige in it, no glory. Just a blue-collar job dealing with regulations, taxes, bills, payroll, demanding customers, and backbreaking work day after day after year. But from Tom’s vantage point, everyone’s job is easy. Life is a lark. Because he’s never experienced anything else.
Yet he mopes.
#RAGE
applause.gif
Even more important, not only did Mopey walk away from his dream job to run a failed pizzeria… he did it SPECIFICALLY as means of acquiring FINANCIAL STABILITY. I mean, yeah, the comic book writing gig could always fall apart at any second… but to replace that with one of the MOST financially risky choices imaginable? AND to choose to revive a specific business that ALREADY failed, under the management of someone who had worked there for literally DECADES (and who I believe went to college as a business major?), when Mopey had ZERO experience in either running a business OR working a restaurant…
I mean, at least Funky had the decency to laugh in Mopey’s face when he said he could write in his free time, but Batiuk still seemed to think that Mopey was in some way NOT ruining both his and Mindy’s lives with this moronic decision.
My theory is that they are living at Montoni’s because they got the building so cheap it was more economical than buying an actual house. That’s why they sit around and chat and put up decorations and no customers are around. If someone wanders in, they make them a pizza, give them a beverage and presumably take payment. Otherwise, they remain cozy in their enormous, oversized pizzeria themed living room.
The protesters only existed because they believed that there were protesters? Sounds legit.
Batiuk’s idea of characters and their function comes straight out of comic books–and not even good comic books, but the simple minded ones. Skip is a Crusading Reporter; he doesn’t have to do anything related to reporting, his reputation is the only thing of importance. He’s got a label and that’s all he needs.
Kind of like Clark Kent was a Crusading Reporter. Remember all the times Kent tracked down witnesses, interviewed leads, researched topics and so on? Yeah, me neither.
Kent at least had an excuse (not sure if you know this, but he was actually Superman; being a reporter was kind of like a hobby or something).
Clark Kent occasionally gets to do some actual crusading reporting… and it’s actually pretty interesting. For those of a certain age that might most famously be in the fall 1997 Superman: The Animated Series episode “The Late Mr. Kent”, where Clark clears a man convicted of murder via interviews and computer research. Clark does it better than Lisa did with Danny Madison… heck it even incorporates pizza better than FW, as Clark is able to clear the convict by proving his alibi after finding the record of his receiving a pizza delivery at the time of the murder.
I mean, none of this is as memorable as the closing scene, where the real murderer is executed in a gas chamber right as he connects the dots that Clark is Superman (this aired on Saturday mornings?!), but still, it spent half of its runtime making Clark doing reporter stuff fairly entertaining and is probably the highlight episode of the series when it comes to showing the oft-repeated Superman story beat that Clark is the man and Superman is the disguise.
I’m not saying we never saw any reporting work from Kent, but in the comics Batiuk loves (1960-1970), I would guess that the main thing Clark Kent did was look for a phone booth.
The main thing Skip does is show up and smirk.
In current continuity, it seems that Clark Kent has won not one but two Pulitzer Prizes.
I remember reading a lot about Clark being a great reporter (during the 1988 *Invasion!* storyline, the Will Payton Starman thinks that his stories are first-rate), even if we didn’t see him on the job very much. It may be an informed ability, but we’re informed of it a lot. (“What I tell you three times is true,” wrote Lewis Carroll in “The Hunting of the Snark,” and we’re told this many, many times.)
Then again, in the great “Imaginary Story” of “Superman-Red and Superman-Blue,” we begin with Clark not getting a raise, unlike Perry White, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen…
The Funkying of Crankshaft continues! The Pizza Box Monster has been around over half a decade now. I thought PBM was fine at the start–a little goofy and silly, sure, but fine. Honestly, Funky needed more lighthearted moments and a guy dressed in pizza boxes annoying Funky worked. Now PBM is spiraling out of control. Maybe it was the helicopter? Maybe when the PBM taunted Funky about its gender? Maybe when Bill Clinton came and waved his magic wand? PBM is fine as a plot device if it wants to come and annoy the staff at Montini’s by coming up with over the top plans to steal pizza. But the PBM becoming a character and a silent partner simply doesn’t work. As a gag of the day with no real motivations besides causing chaos and stealing pizza, the PBM offered a moment of light if not laughter to the Funkyverse. Now……enh. There isn’t much that distinguishes the PBM from everyone else in the Funkyverse. At least the PBM has not yet drawn a smirk on a pizza box near its mouth. Yet.
Yet every line of dialogue from the wretched thing’s mouth has an audible smirk in it. Yes, I said audible. I know it’s a cartoon, but I can hear the terrible hackish sitcom delivery in my head as I read it. It’s a curse.
He’s like a freelance corporate mascot. Which could be a funny idea, but Batiuk does nothing with it. PBM just shows up and exists. Just like book-burning, racism, CTE, and so many other Funkyverse tropes.
This contrived “Frankenstein” setup is a perfect way to merge the FW and CS universes once and for all.
Les takes Skip and Becky’s discarded arms and has Crankshaft dig up some other body parts. He staples them together with the school’s stapler, puts them on Montoni’s steel pizza-assembly table, zaps them with lightning, and… it’s alive! Lisa 2.0!
Once the merger of the two universes is complete with the recreation of Lisa, FW can continue under its new name, and the fat guy in the red cap can go back to sitting nonverbally in his wheelchair in Bedside Manor.
Next week: Batton Thomas tells us why comics don’t have to be funny, and also they were better in the old days (defined specifically as 1960-1970).
PROSECUTION: How did you lose your arm, Mr Rawlings?
SKIP: I don’t think that’s relevant.
JUDGE: Answer the question, Mr Rawlings.
SKIP: I had a little accident.
PROSECUTION: A little accident. I see. Was this accident in New York City?
SKIP: Around there, I suppose.
PROSECUTION: And was this ‘accident’ the accidental detonation of bombs that you were manufacturing in a building in Greenwich Village?
SKIP: (long pause) Maybe.
PROSECUTION: I see. And were you not at that time known as ‘Karl Sparx,’ the chief bomb-maker for the Weather Underground, and the creator of the bombs they detonated in the US Capitol and the Pentagon, among other places?
SKIP: What if I was?
JUDGE: Please answer yes or no.
SKIP: Destroy the US Government! Baby killers! Viva la Revolución! No justice no peace! (leaps out of witness stand, attempts to run out of courtroom, is easily tackled by bailiffs)
SKIP: Police brutality! Fascist pigs! You’ll pay! You’ll all pay!
JUDGE: (wearily banging gavel) Adjourned.
The Weathermen Underground took their name from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…”
Sorry, Batton Thomas, but the closing line about “the pump don’t work/’cause the vandals took the handles” is not an allusion to Vandal Savage and his meteor.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Boo to you, PBM. Just give up and tell us who the fuck are you
I stand in line!
Also… c’mon Jess, we all know you want to tell a ghost story that involves your dad, John Darling, who was murdered. Just have the PBM be a guest on his talk show, he wouldn’t be out of place among the mooks who your mom usually booked for Darling.
Now that’s funny.
How much time per week do you think Dan Davis spends illustrating Crankshaft? Without a doubt, it’s a side gig.
————————–
BJr6000, your dislike of Skip Rawlings has never been more evident. Skip Rawlings – A̸c̸e̸ Hack Reporter.
Skippity-Do-Dah can feel the Burnings©. 🤣
How much time per week do you think Dan Davis spends illustrating Crankshaft?
I think Dan Davis spends about a few minutes at best illustrating the strip
You mean Dan Davis spends a few minutes approving and sending out the cut & paste job done by his intern, who’s earning a few bucks on the side while attending college. Or perhaps the “artist” is a freelance hire from Fiverr or Upwork.
Whoever it is doesn’t pay too much attention to whether the poses or facial expressions have anything to do with the intended action.
Davis is certainly capable of drawing, but apparently doesn’t find it worth his while. I’m guessing that, as with almost everything else on this planet, the issue boils down to money.
TB said he couldn’t find anyone to replace Ayers on FW. Bosh. What he meant is that he couldn’t find anyone to do that work for the rate he wanted to pay.
I assume he’s none too generous with Davis either. You get what you pay for.
Again, speculation — but I can’t think of a better explanation.
Quite frankly, I give Davis the benefit of the doubt. Batiuk is certainly not providing his best effort in the writing department. And as you say, you get what you pay for.
The artwork in a lot of strips lately has been very poor quality. I think the Mark Trail person is doing it deliberately, but the new Gil Thorpe artist is worse than the last one–something I didn’t think was possible.
The Funkyverse now features both an apparently unpunishable arsonist AND an infuriating golem made of grease-soaked corrugated cardboard.
Just sayin’.
PLOT TWIST:
PBM’s boxes were made of pulped copies of Fahrenheit 451!
https://i.ibb.co/6nBMwSS/c4f981ae-a4e7-46a4-8912-2615e7c2707f.jpg
Wonder why the image didn’t post?
It didn’t post because it was TOO AWESOME to be mentioned so near the word “Batuik.”
Now that’s a pizza box monster!
Just gotta take that aesthetic and commission an artist to turn this into an epic painting of them standing above Luigi’s, then mail it to the restaurant for something actually cool to hang on their wall.
That’s terrific. But it reminds me of something Pete would have dreamed. “FireBox!” Except FireBox is too clever for Pete.
He’d have named it “The Flaming Cardboardigan!” His power is to burn horribly to death in seconds, thus scaring villains into turning over a new leaf.
Dang, it’s 6 days until Halloween, and he’s still doing set-up? Will there be 1 skimpy story that ends on 11/2? That’s what I’d assume from anyone else, but with this goober–It could end tomorrow with everyone saying “Oh, what a scary story you told!”
That’s my prediction. Remember, “tell don’t show.”
Coming up on the next “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre,” kids, “Dr. Tongue’s House of 3-D Pizza…”
From Dr Tongue’s Evil 3-D House of Pancakes: “Would you like thome–THYRUP?!” ee-OOH, ee-OOH
Tom: “Would you like thome–EXACTLY NOTHING?!” honk-SHOO, honk-SHOO
Bruno: RROOOOUUUUGHGHGH!!!
“Think outside the pizza box…” Ugh. I promise you if Lester Moore was sitting at that table even he could have come up with a *slightly* better pun.👎
You know, for someone who eats, sleeps and breathes comic books his entire life, Pete’s inability to drop a half-decent one-liner is depressingly on-brand…
What’s more, I’d swear it was reused. I can’t believe anyone would use such a bad non-pun even once, but I think he’s done it twice.
Odd on that either woman will get the chance to tell a Halloween story?
The odds? I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it’s not zero.
Mopey Pete is wondering why the ladies aren’t serving their men drinks. They could be heating water over some candles to make some cocoa. Montoni’s has plain white mugs.
Hey! This comment did show up. I wasn’t sure if I remembered to submit it before closing the app. Getting old sucks. Thanks moderator.
It must have been my turn to run afoul of the torso chute yesterday.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Make Mopey Pete’s storytelling stop
Sunday’s strip would be the perfect place to tell Pete’s teased Halloween story, but as predicted above, I don’t think we’ll get one.
Instead, Lillian is painting away the fire damage. (In other words, there was no real damage.) She seems very jolly and there’s no further talk about videos recording the culprits.
So “The Burnings,” which remade the entire political and social structure of the world, were painted away in an hour by a centenarian and the Shining Twins.
Hey! At least we got the HIDEOUS Jazz Hands Lillian today, what a nauseating surprise.
Deciding to abruptly age the Mathews Twins up to High School age again, seemingly so they could (once again) be in Les Moore’s class, was one of the most pointless bits of setting breaking Time Moppery I’ve seen in a loooong while.
The elegant solution is becoming clumsier by the week.
To be clear, Lillian’s bookstore was stated to have survived the Burnings.
But Summer’s daughter implied that almost every other bookstore in America had been destroyed.
… and we’re back to Crankshaft: Featuring Lillian McKenzie. TB just can’t get enough of Lillian. I think he has a̸ ̸h̸u̸g̸e̸ ̸w̸o̸o̸d̸y̸ a lot of affection for Lillian.
Lillian: (cackles) The comic strip is mine now!
The strip is a metaphor. The twins represent the Great American Reading Public:
“I thought you were going to write an epic, unforgettable story that would resonate down through the ages, and have repercussions for generations!“
Lilian, an author, represents All Authors, of whom Tom Batiuk is a leading exemplar:
“Changed my mind. Walt Whitman says authors can do whatever they want. So now I will talk about trees.“
_____________
This has been No. 582 in our series, Understanding Batiuk. Side effects of reading Batiuk may include drowsiness, incredulity, bafflement, anger, and/or muffled groans. If symptoms persist, consult a doctor for a misdiagnosis, and then do nothing.
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
The Byrnings: EPILOGUE
Looks like Lillian went back on her word and decided to repaint her house
(meanwhile in somewhere other than Westview)
Les: Let me tell you about my life. I was bulled during high school, my friends treated me like crap, I became a teacher at Westview High School, my wife died of cancer-
The Hero’s Shade: Les, I grew up in a forest where everyone except this girl named Saria looked down on me for not having a fairy, and then I was chosen to save Hyrule, the Great Deku Tree was killed, I was kept frozen in place for SEVEN FUCKING YEARS, and then after I saved Hyrule, I was sent back in time to prevent Ganondorf from destroying the world, but the Hyrule I came back to was clearly not the same one I was from. After that, Navi, the fairy that The Great Deku Tree assigned to me, left me after the whole “Saving Hyrule from the dystopian future seven years from now” was said-and-done, leading me on a fruitless adventure to find her, which led me to this place called Termina to defeat this haunted mask that hurtled the FUCKING MOON onto the place. I experienced the damn city being destroyed SEVERAL TIMES before I killed the being inside of it by using a mask that turned me into this “Fierce Deity” being. I felt a tremendous amount of remorse over not being known as a hero and for not teaching anyone of the skills I’ve learned, which lead me to being stuck in the mortal realm after my death until my descendant, the Hero of Twilight, came along. Go back to that shit town of yours and appreciate the fact that your life is a fucking cakewalk compared to mine.