WHAT

WHY HAS WORDPRESS GONE ALL FUNKY ON ME?

(I seriously have no idea what happened or how to fix because I’m a technological luddite driving a borrowed blogging vehicle I barely understand.)

WHY ARE EMILY AND AMELIA SUDDENLY HIGH SCHOOLERS?

(I know that this Time Mop splash first spilled out in The Burnings arc, but I wanted to reiterate it. They were grade/middle schoolers in May, and then BAM.)

WHY IS EMILY’S LAST NAME NOW REYNOLDS?

(Emily and Amelia’s last name had been stated at least once as Mathews. Though it had hardly ever come up.)

And, as BWOEH said, WHY DOESN’T WESTVIEW HAVE A NEWSPAPER?

But. Most importantly.

WHY BLOG LOOK LIKE THIS?

And now…for your viewing pleasure. More entries in the “CBH DUSK HARVEST” collection.

ADDENDUM BY SPECIAL FAN FAN REQUEST

62 thoughts on “WHAT”

  1. Related to the Batiukverse: inaccuracies I found on TV Tropes

    That was Crazy, not Funky

    That was John, not Crazy

    That was Wally, not Funky (although they looked similar in Act II)

    I can’t blame TV Tropes for deciding Harriet’s take on the Dimorphos week-long storyline is the one actually happened because it was better than the original

  3. Hey! At least the Son of Stuck Funky email notifications when a new blog is out still work. Oooo! Nice photos. All that land. Lovely sunsets.

    I know nada, zip, zilch, bupkis about website programming or design. Did you read the comment by @Will left late yesterday? Will said, “Looks like the CSS sheet is missing/broken.” Cascade style sheets? The website of the other WordPress blog I frequent looks the same as always. Would Epicus Doomus or TFHackett know how to fix the website?

    I’m not sure how, but I bet Sorial Promise is behind this.

    1. It seems like a CSS problem, but I took a quick glance at the HTML and didn’t see any obvious broken links. This being WordPress, it’s probably a problem with one of the 37,500 files that go into making a simple blog like this one.

    2. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
      As Inspector Clouseau might say:
      “Il semble que les preuves soient bien trop élégantes pour Monsieur Sorial Promise.”

      At least that is the testimony of Anonymous Sparrow.

      1. Après un examen attentif, le jury est arrivé à la conclusion que vous n’avez pas pu commettre le crime parce que vous êtes un “cheese weenie” ! (des sons de pet)😁😉

        1. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
          I didn’t even know ‘cheese weenie’ translated into French!

          As they say in Portuguese: “Vivez et apprenez!”

          Do you ever wonder what goes through TB’s mind when he decides to spend at least a week with Skippy? Does he actually think, “this guy is a strip favorite? I know, I will pare him with some girl that I do not even know who she is!”
          Actually, who is she? I think she has an emo twin, but who is she actually related to?
          Happy Thanksgiving, Eve!

          1. Have you heard the insult “cheese weenie” before? Is it a KC thing? I never heard it until my son was in middle school. He undoubtedly picked it up from his friends. He’d yell, “cheese weenie!” and make several fart sounds. The neighbors would look at him and probably think, “What a strange child.” I’m not sure what made me think of it today.

            Skip Rawlings is TB’s avatar for what he thinks is the lamentable decline of old-timey print newspapers. As @BilltheSplut recently reminded me, TB dances around the old newspapers he keeps on the shelf, listening to them by himself! Many commenters in the GoComics discussion have labeled Skippity-Do-Dah as “creepy.” Several months ago, I contacted TB on his website to ask how Skipper lost his arm. TB’s response was along the lines he only met Skip after his arm was gone. Okay.😬

            I used to think the Emily in today’s strip was one of the Mathews twins. It’s hard to tell with the twins suffering from a condition that causes their age to flux between 8 and 18. With the change of the last name to “Reynolds”, I’m not even sure the young lady in the strip is one of the Mathews twins. She may be yet another indistinguishable blonde who happens to be named Emily. In today’s strip, Emily has that certain deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. Is she regretting the situation she has gotten herself into? It is possible she has been murdered and stuffed by Skip-to-My-Lou?

            I’m waiting for TB to confuse Skip’s last name with another sporting goods company. Skip Spaulding? Skip Wilson? Skip Russell? The Crankshaft comic strip continues to spiral into late era Apartment 3-G territory.

            Thanksgiving is 8 days away. Are you going somewhere? Oh, well. Happy Thanksgiving to you too, SP.

          2. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
            1. Today at 4, I am attending a Thanksgiving celebration at my sister’s retirement apartments. It inadvertently, put me in a holiday spirit, and I accidentally shared that bit of kindness onto you. I had forgotten that you maintain a very strict schedule regarding holidays. “No holiday greeting shall exceed 8 days prior to its actual day!🥹”
            (I bet Mal could show me scars for breaking that rule!)
            2. I do not find Skippy creepy, just a waste of artist ink. His arcs lack interest to me.
            3. Who are the Matthew twins related to? I see them often with the Lizard. I do not know if they are related to any other characters. Enlighten me, please.
            4. Skip Wilson comedian in the 1970’s.
            Skip Russel Kurt Russel’s dad.
            5. I am a firm believer that if one breaks a rule, break it all the way. So…
            Merry Christmas to Be Ware of Eve Hill, Mr. BWOEH, and to their son and grandkids!
            💒☃️❄️🎄🎁🎁🎁

          3. 1 – So you and your sister celebrate Thanksgiving twice?🤔

            Mr. bwoeh has a certain lack of enthusiasm for any holiday, including our anniversary (thus the scars). It goes back to when I worked for Hallmark. He believes most holidays are due to the Great Greeting Card Conspiracy.🙄

            2 – There is a fair amount of dread every time Skip starts off a new story arc. Skip is the harbinger of the incredibly dull stories to come.

            Crankshaft Reader: Ugh. Not this guy. Not another ham fisted Batiuk lecture. I’ll see you guys in a couple of weeks.

            At least this time, Skip is not interviewing braggart Batton Thomas bloviating about his career.

            3 – It’s impossible to pin down the details of the twins when the Funkyverse is so inconsistent. As far as I know, the twins are not related to any other characters except their parents, who have been featured in Funky Winkerbean a couple of times. I believe they first appeared in Crankshaft in the mid 2010s. They didn’t seem to be too bright at first and generally just roamed the neighborhood asking stupid questions. For some inexplicable reason, they grew fond of Lillian. Then TB decided to make the twins techno whizzes. In Funky Winkerbean in the late 2010s, the twins transferred to Westview High School from Centerville. After a few years of high school hijinks they graduated and Time Mop burst the time bubble, and the twins became 8-year-olds again. Until TB needed them to be teenagers again. I guess.🤷‍♀️

            4 – The comedian in the 1970s was Flip Wilson. I remember Flip had his own TV show. Kurt Russell’s father was Bing Russell, who was also an actor.

            5 – Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, and Happy Valentine’s Day. There, you’re covered. Happy?

          4. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
            1. I am very happy. I get to write to you.
            2. My sister lives in a retirement village. It was a celebration for the residents and their families. She invited me. So I guess I do get 2 Thanksgivings. Neither of which will include hotdogs and peas.
            3. This part of the letter has been edited out. It involved a discussion of someone with the name of Be Ware of Eve Hill working for the epitome of warm and fuzzy.
            Now take my name for instance. It offers strength, resiliency, fortitude, savoir faire, steadfastness, aptitude, and eternal friendship.
            4. Happy Sadie Hawkins Day which I believe Al Capp celebrated around this time of year.
            5. Thank you for your info on the Matthew’s Twins.

  7. Hey Funky friends, sorry for the poor user experience. What happened is, the WordPress theme that this blog has been using has been retired. I’m in the process of locating a suitable new theme, stay tuned.

    1. The new theme I’m seeing is … okay. It will certainly do fine if it’s going to be the one that sticks!

    2. I always liked the original theme, would have tried to do something similar (or borrow it) if i ever started a blog myself.

    3. Thanks Captain! I was absolutely terrified I’d done something to break the blog.

      As for the theme, I don’t know why WordPress is trying to cancel Coke Classic and roll out New Coke. Pick whatever you think is best.

    4. We need to be able to see the awesome banners! And the internal sections, like the Act III yearly breakdowns. And the direct link to the comment section, which is there but appears in a different place now. Other than that I’m not picky.

  8. Wednesday’s Crankshaft has a decent premise for a joke (probably stolen, but what isn’t) absolutely destroyed by garbage tier art. Emily from panel one is just reposted in panel three, slightly larger.

    1. Do you get the feeling that Emily’s not really there and is simply a figment of the isolated and increasingly senescent Skip Bittman’s imagination, a memory of someone he recalled seeing at The Burnings? Will she next inspire him to start Centerville’s branch of Fight Club?

      1. Considering the content of his one-man small-town newspaper – spike-related deaths and hedge fund failures – I think there’s definitely something wrong with Skip’s mind.

  9. Are we sure Emily Reynolds is Emily Mathews or is it just another Emily and they didn’t bother to put effort into another generic, blonde woman and simply reused some art of E. Mathews face?

    1. I have the same question. I think there’s a 10% chance this is supposed to be a new character, and isn’t one of the two twins we always see.

  10. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    MEANWHILE IN SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE US:

    The Deep: Sir, Black Noir has requested that we go to Centerville, Ohio to kill this fat old bastard Ed Crankshaft.

    Homelander: If it means razing the entire fuckin’ town down while doing so, then I’m in.

  12. Anonymous Sparrow,
    1. I got nothing for Skippy and this blonde. Obviously, she is not one of the 4 Non Blondes.
    2. To carry on that motif, I ask you, “What’s Up?” Your answer could be expanded to *Bigger, Better, Faster, More!*
    3. So waiting for TB to come up with an arc interesting, I came across Rudy Vallee, and his “the Drunkard Song”. Spectacular! Rudy was big in the 1920’s and ‘30’s, so by the time I first heard of him was in the 1960’s, well past his prime. But this song is Rudy at his best. So I look him up on Apple Music, and found the *Very Best of Rudy Vallée*. It has songs such As Time Goes by, Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries, and The One that I Love, Loves Me. Then it has a song with lyrics: We’re 4 Little Lambs That Have Lost Their Way, Bah, bah, bah. Do you know the title? I know you do, but I did not until yesterday. It is the *WhiffenPoof Song* I never knew that. I can see Rudy’s style evolving into Swing Music, and laying the groundwork for a contemporary named Fred Astaire. Speaking of him, I would pay good money to see a video of Fred dancing to *Sing! Sing! Sing!* that would be nice. What an era that captured Goodman and Miller! Be Ware of Eve Hill says, “More children were conceived to *In the Mood* than any other song! I must take her word for it. She has such a high opinion of me, she must be right.😃
    4. J’espère que vous ne trouverez pas ce message trop tôt, mais je vous souhaite sincèrement, ainsi qu’aux vôtres, un joyeux Thanksgiving!

    1. Eh, big whoop, I know it’s called “The Whiffenpoof Song” because I live in CT and we are contractually required to know everything tangentially related to Yale.

      Coincidentally, 11/21 is the anniversary of the opening of the biggest football stadium ever built, at Yale in 1914. They battled Harvard, who apparently fought fiercely, as they won 30 to 0. I am not a sportsball guy, but that sounds a bit one-sided. Also, “For unknown reasons, the Yale Bowl was designed — and built — without restrooms or locker rooms.” Yankee Ingenuity, my ass.

      BTW, Yale is in NEW Haven, not New HAven, don’t pronounce it that way, you damn furriners. Also, Berlin’s “BERlin” not “BerLIN,” as CT has never been overrun by the Soviet Red Army. And London has the Thames River, New London CT has the Thames River, and it’s pronounced *exactly as it’s spelled*. It’s not “Long Island,” it’s “Lawnguyland,” like some guy with a really big front yard. And “steamed hams” is not an Albany thing, it’s more of a Meriden thing.

      We hope you have enjoyed today’s “Things You Never Needed to Know About Connecticut.”

      1. billthesplut,
        I can read “Things You Never Needed to Know About Connecticut.” all day as long as you are the writer!
        Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃

        1. SP:

          “The Whiffenpoof Song” had its origins in a Rudyard Kipling poem called “Gentlemen-Rankers”:

          To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
          To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
          Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
          And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
          Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
          And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
          And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
          But to-day the Sergeant’s something less than kind.
             We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
                Baa!  Baa!  Baa!
             We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
                Baa—aa—aa!
             Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
             Damned from here to Eternity,
             God ha’ mercy on such as we,
                Baa!  Yah!  Bah!

          Oh, it’s sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
          And it’s sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
          To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
          And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
          Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be “Rider” to your troop,
          And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
          When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
          Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you “Sir”.

          If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
          And all we know most distant and most dear,
          Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
          Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
          When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
          And the horror of our fall is written plain,
          Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
          Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

          We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
          We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
          And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
          God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
          Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
          Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
          And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
          And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
             We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
                Baa!  Baa!  Baa!
             We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
                Baa—aa—aa!
             Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
             Damned from here to Eternity,
             God ha’ mercy on such as we,
                Baa!  Yah!  Bah!

          You may have detected the title of a 1951 novel and 1953 film in this. The film features George Reeves as Sgt. Stark and was his second and last appearance in an Academy Award-winning film. (His first is in “Gone with the Wind” as one of the Tarleton twins.)

          Rudy Vallee became a “Batman” villain in the final season of the TV show as “Lord Marmaduke Ffog.” (Glynis Johns was his sister, Lady Penelope Peasoup.) When in Londinium, be sure to stop in at venerable Ireland Yard for a cup of char!

          Vallee is also a delight in Preston Sturges’s “Palm Beach Story,” as is Mary Astor as his sister. (Nix to you, Toto!)

          John Barrymore was a frequent guest on Rudy Vallee’s radio show in his last years, and in one memorable broadcast from 1940, Orson Welles joins them. They do a biographical sketch of Barrymore (when he was born, Barrymore’s father declares himself “the happiest man in the Thirteen Colonies!”) and then Welles and Barrymore join forces on a reading of a scene between Brutus and Cassius from *Julius Caesar.*

          Their deliveries are wonderful, but it’s also rather sad: in 1942, Barrymore would die, and Welles as a filmmaker would never recover from “The Magnificent Ambersons.” I find much to praise in Welles’s later work, but there’s no denying that, like Barrymore, sometimes he was an enormous parody of himself. (The one “Best Picture” in which he was involved was “A Man for All Seasons,” and he just portrays Cardinal Wolsey there.)

          As for me, I have no more doctor appointments until January and after a dream which felt like a collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Patricia Highsmith I look forward to one in which Dick joins forces with Aretha Franklin. Dr. Bloodmoney, meet Dr. Feelgood!

          Art Buchwald wrote a column for the French explaining Thanksgiving, which he called “le Jour de Donnant Merci.” He told of the gallantry of Miles Standish, rendering his name as “Kilometres Deboutish.”

          Your Thanksgiving wishes were not seen too late at all, and I thank you for them. May the holiday be joyous for you and yours!

          1. Anonymous Sparrow,
            1. *From Here to Eternity 1953* Burt Lancaster. I will also include Montgomery Clift, Ernest Borgnine, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, and Frank Sinatra. (I didn’t think much of her TV show, but Ms. Reed was in some pretty good films.
            2. Perhaps you can help me out. I remember a scene where Clift is promised Liberty off base if he would box. He fights, never throws a punch, and never gets hit. Am I making that scene up? I haven’t seen it since the ‘60’s in any version of the film.
            3. Orson Wells, my personal favorite. *Touch of Evil* is one of my all time films. If it works out on Thursday, my daughter and I may watch *Chimes at Midnight*.
            4. Thank you for “Gentlemen-Rankers”. I am so uneducated. I didn’t know until billthesplut told me yesterday that it was a Yale song. Now thanks to you, it has ties to Rudyard Kipling. Life is good.
            5. I am happy you can put off the doctor until January. I am sure you will use your time wisely.

            Thanksgiving est peut-être un jour, mais je suis toujours reconnaissant envers Anonymous Sparrow.

          2. SP:

            I don’t remember such a scene in “From Here to Eternity,” but I do recall that Captain Holmes (“Dynamite” to you) offered Robert E. Lee Prewitt sergeant’s stripes if he boxed for his company. Prew won’t box because he blinded a friend in an earlier bout and refuses.

            (Four years earlier, in “Twelve O’Clock High,” General Savage demotes a sergeant…and then learns that he’s his driver, who are traditionally sergeants. He reinstates his rank, but tells him to put zippers on his stripes.)

            Donna Reed, who traditionally played nice women, won an Academy Award for playing a prostitute in “From Here to Eternity.” Gloria Grahame, on the other hand, who traditionally played femmes fatales, won an Academy Award for playing a scatterbrained “lady of quality” in “The Bad and the Beautiful.”

            Make of that what you will, but don’t ask Marianne Winters her opinion.

            (I suppose that Grahame’s win in 1952 prevented her bravura performance in “The Big Heat” from getting a nomination a year later, when Reed won.)

            “Chimes at Midnight” is well worth watching, and should leave you “crying out a’ sack and babbling o’ green fields.”

            I will try to use my time well before I go to the ophthalmologist, but I don’t think I will live up to Jack London’s “Credo”:

            I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

            (I first came across this in the “Obit” for James Bond in You Only Live Twice. Thanks, Mr. Fleming.)

            Whenever I want to echo Dennis Weaver’s night manager in “Touch of Evil” and want to dismiss the world as “a mess,” I remember that it contains sorialpromise and feel good again.

      2. The only thing I know about Yale is that they once lost a football game 29 to 29. Also, Tommy Lee Jones played in that game.

        1. Oh, and since we are comic strip officianados, of course I know that Doonesbury character B.D. was based on a real person who was a quarterback at Yale. But I had to look up his name.

        2. Banana Jr. 6000,
          You perked my interest. I had to look it up. You are correct. Journalist Charles McGrath thought for years he had attended the game. Finally, his wife told him that he was in England at the time. He had some turf from the game on his desk. A colleague picked it up, and wanted to smoke it.

  13. Today’s Funky Crankerbean

    (Meanwhile in another area in Centerville, Crankshaft wakes up, and looks outside to Homelander hovering above the ground, his eyes start glowing and is about to fry Crankshaft alive when he hears a familiar voice)

    Billy Butcher: Oi. (smirks and unleashes venom-like tentacles from his torso to attack Homelander, while Homelander fires his eye-beams onto Billy to kill him, but it doesn’t affect him in the slightest)

    Emily: Skip, Did you hear something?

  14. It’s the unironic Batiukverser here again with a question:Have any of you wrote FW fanfic? TB’s fine with it,so I’m trying to rewrite a few things like the timeskip. My biggest change is that the characters stay 1988 graduates,their kids grad in 2020 (minus Maddie,who’d graduate in 2022 as she was born in ’04),and Wally isn’t a hostage for 10 years and stays married to Becky. Also,Funky isn’t an old-looking chunky guy and stays a redhead and Montoni’s doesn’t expand except to the next building. However,Bull still dies (but not by car crash,though I do like Tom’s writing and the disabled characters–though I forget how many). If there’s anything you’d like changed,give me ideas.

    Also,I forgot to mention I love the “Full Frontal Funky” post. Like,it was kinda funny seeing Funky’s butt,but it was also really gross (Tom himself has no idea how he got away with it. As someone who finds Wally kind of attractive,the scene should’ve used him).

    1. Hey Alexa!

      The closest I’ve ever come to writing Funky Fanfic is when I re-edit and photoshop strips. It is heartening to know that Batiuk isn’t one of those authors so precious about his world that he stomps his feet and pouts at the idea.

      There is a part of me that really wishes we could have gotten a more satisfying ending, and I had one all plotted out in my head, but it never got past the head-canon stage.

    2. CHIEN: “Oh no! They’ve come to burn parts of our stairs!”

      Bill the Splut: “We should totally MAKE OUT!”

      CHIEN: “Umm…No??”

      Bill: “Yeah, you’re right, maybe we should deal with the stair burnings first.”

      20 minutes later, CHIEN: “I just said ‘DUDE! Stop burning our stairs!’ and he did. What a bunch of nothing. Why did I even bring this bear spray?”

      Bill: “Well, we could make ou–OWWW, BEAR SPRAY!!!”

    3. I’m in the middle of writing some now, with my re-imagining of the Burnings. I didn’t think of it as “fanfic”, but I suppose it is.

      1. Funny enough,Wally is also Funky’s brother in my fics,but younger by 13 years. In mine,Funky and the rest were born in ’71,and Wally and Becky in 1984. (I kept the “33 in 2017” thing) And since I do fanart and once I’m done,you can go to my Instagram to see my redesigns. For example,Funky is still a lanky redhead,but has age lines and wears glasses all the time. Crazy never cut his hair short,is still a mailman,and has double piercings. And Les keeps his old haircut and just grew a mustache–shaving his head every October. (And Summer is a WNBA star at 22 in 2024 instead of a writer) But because my timeskip fics are non-canon,they don’t line up with last or this year’s Crankshafts.

  15. BTW, does seem like this new format for the blog annoyingly makes the site auto scroll all entries from the main page when you try to check the bottom for links. So for mobile users you can only check the side links by clicking an individual entry.

  16. Related to the Batiukverse: Week four of the Chien Gets Suspended storyline

    Lisa: You should stop drinking so much liquor, Funky.

    Funky: Why? It’s the only thing that makes me forget how much of a bitch Cindy is!

    Les: I was sorta friends with this woman named Natalie Stadler, back then, she was known as Roland Mathews, and there was this football player named Bull Bushka who beat the shit outta me.

    Student Lawyer Who Looks Somewhat Like A Mix of Kerry Fairgood And Heather” Chien” Parks: Seriously, what else did you do?

    Les: I got stuck on the gym rope for hours on end and I used a M-80 Browning machine gun while I was the hall monitor, ARE YA FREAKIN’ HAPPY NOW?!

    The chances of Les regaining his job are 100% because he’s a Batiuk self-insert (boo)

    SLWLSLAMOKFAHCP: (sobbing) Why is this happening to me? I did not go to lawyer school just to represent a incompetent jerk in a court case that happened because Fred Fairgood was butthurt over a class assignment!

    Les: I’m gonna rat you two assholes out. Just wait and see.

    1. Sheesh, how long does this story go on? Recruiting character witnesses for a school board meeting to get reinstated to an after-school activity? Really?

      You what could make this funny, though? If Les lawyered up to the point of absurdity to get his stupid faculty advisor role back. The idea that he has an “extracurricular contract” is already pushing the proceedings in that direction. But Tom Batiuk de-escalates his stories at every possible opportunity. Especially when Les needs to be protected from something mildly unpleasant.

    2. Nah, man, it wasn’t a Browning. It was a British WWI-era Vickers .303. The Browning’s barrel was air cooled, and Les used a water cooled model. (“HEY KIDS! Two nerds are online and arguing about what kinda machine gun was used in a terrible comic strip! It’s PEAK INTERNET, kids!”)

      Of course, it was retconned into a cardboard cutout, because Tom wants to destroy every workable joke from the old FW. Because Prizes.

    3. And these were drawn by Chuck Ayers, is that correct? Uncredited? My, how brave you are, Mr Batiuk. Such bravery deserves an award! Oh, what a coincidence! Matthew Hopkins has just arrived to give you your award. You don’t mind hot needles, do you?

    4. Sorry, Les’s imaginary friend in kindergarten was named “Jute”?

      If I had more confidence in the author’s ability to be sly I’d think it was a riff on the Les Versus The Gym Rope recurring gag, but …

    5. Here we see one of Batiuk’s problems that persists to this day. The dialogue is much more verbose than it needs to be.

      “He’s upstairs preparing for his hearing with the school board with a student lawyer from the free legal clinic at Lisa’s law school!”

      could have been …

      “He’s upstairs preparing for his hearing with the school board!”

      “Yes, some parents tried to get me fired over a poem that appeared in a literary magazine that some of my students put together!”

      could have been …

      “Yes, some parents tried to get me fired over a poem that appeared in the school literary magazine!”

  17. So the hedge fund that bought the Sentinel is about to ‘implode and go bankrupt’.

    Gosh, with the level of financial acumen they showed by getting into the small-town newspaper biz in the 2010s? Between that and their recession-proof investments in vacuum tubes and fax machines, how could they miss?

    1. And their brilliant decision to do absolutely nothing when Skip waltzed into their CEO’s office and declared himself the owner of their newspaper! Like the Valentine Theater (all Phantom Empire all the time!), you can see why they’re going belly-up.

      1. Nah, man, it wasn’t just Phantom Empire. The Valentine also had the world premiere of Slopbucket Jones! Because what says “Cinematic Triumph!” like opening in a rust belt Ohio theater, where you hope the floors are sticky because of spilled sody-pop, and not from when it was a strip club. Also, one day they had 3 vaguely eclipse-themed movies. “Gosh, Grammy! This is the place where we saw the dopey movie about robots that wore cowboy hats!” “Yes, Rictus Humonculus! I’m sure that this ‘Apocalypto’ film will be just as family-friendly!” (30 minutes later) “YOU BASTARDS HAVE TRAUMATIZED MY GRANDKIDS! I’M GONNA SUE YOUR ASSES TO THE GROUND!!”

        (“HEY KIDS! Two different nerds are online and arguing about what movies they showed in a terrible comic strip! This internet is amazing! I sure hope my free CompuServ trial never ends!”)

        1. >you hope the floors are sticky because of spilled sody-pop, and not from when it was a strip club

          …among many other possible causes of sticky floors.

  18. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Jeff: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

    (Homelander just lazers Jff in half and then gets beaten up by Butcher before flying away in sheer terror)

    Skip Rawlings: What the fuck just happened?

    Emily: I don’t know.

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