REPORT, Mr. Data!

64 thoughts on “REPORT, Mr. Data!”

1. that’s 107 too many speaking panels for Dinkle

   the fat bastard (Dinkle) should’ve stayed quiet the entire year, or better yet, not appeared at all

   1. Or died. Or got fired. Or sued. Or reported to the police. Or beaten to a pulp by an angry family member. Or lost his hearing again, for good this time. Any of those would have been fine.

2. Today’s Crankshaft

   Day Four of the Bus Driver Shorage Storyline of 2025:

   ha ha it’s funny because Ed immediately assumes that nobody wants to go to school

   1. Today’s Past Batiukverse Strip: June 19th, 2002 of Funky Winkerbean

      

      GAH it hurts too look at Blond Rachel

      Man, Jim Kablichinick sounds like fun at parties, If he behaves like THAT at any kind of party, his ass would be thrown out immediately

      1. Regarding “good luck omen”:

         That comic strip includes the holder of an Oscar trophy; a lawyer who worked some highly relevant cases; a world-champion video gamer; a second video gamer who was almost as good; a successful business owner once featured on a magazine cover who retired to Florida; a man who was miraculously rescued from certain death in Bronson Canyon; an NFL player, who was also a coach that turned the worst high school in Ohio into a championship contender in multiple sports; and, in fetal form, the woman who would “define humanity as our nation.” All from the same small-town high school, and most from the same graduating class.

         And that strip doesn’t even include Pete (writer of this world’s Star Wars), Lillian (writer of a major book series), Dinkle (the world’s greatest band director and salesperson, with a medal from Belgium to prove the latter), Ed Crankshaft (an MLB-caliber player), Chester Hagglemore (an absurdly rich man), or any of the other massive success stories in this town. Or any of the dozens of priceless comic books they found over the years.

         Maybe the comet really *was* a good luck omen. Because these people got waaaaaay more than their share of good fortune in life. You wouldn’t know it to hear them tell it, though.

         1. a man who was miraculously rescued from certain death in Bronson Canyon

            That was Jeff Murdoch, not Fred Fairgood (though they began to look similar during Act III until Timemop came around and fucked everything up)

            1. thanks for the correction. I was afraid i was mis-identifying someone. I can barely tell the characters apart. If you hadn’t told me that was rachel with the wrong hair color, i would have included jessica darling’s accomplishments in that post.

         2. Crazy Harry was also a champion air guitarist.

            1. Unlike “video game champion”, that one is just as absurd as it was in the 1980s.

3. All of FOUR speaking panels for Keesterman?! While he’s always been a secondary character in the strip, he’s one of the first Crankshaft characters that comes to mind when I think of this strip. Heck, he’s been on the cover of a Crankshaft book, something I don’t believe Ralph, Mindy, or even Jeff have ever done.

4. And thanks to Harriet’s fantastic calendar, we can now see:

   Longest streak of consecutive Crankshaft strips without Crankshaft: 23 (August 26-September 17)
   Longest streak of daily (non-Sunday) Crankshaft strips without Crankshaft: 38 (August 5-September 17)

   Streaks of 10 or more Crankshaft strips without Crankshaft:

   23: August 26-September 17

   14: April 15-April 28

   13: August 5-August 17
   13: October 21-November 2
   13: December 2-December 14

   12: April 30-May 11
   12: June 4-June 15

   Streaks of 10 or more Crankshaft strips with Crankshaft:

   14: March 10-March 23
   14: July 22-August 4

   1. Cranky’s appearance on April 29 broke a string of 14 consecutive no-shows, and was followed up immediately by 12 more consecutive Crankshaft-free strips. If not for that cameo on the 29th, there could have been a record-setting 27 consecutive Crankshaft strips without Crankshaft.

5. Hope the SOSF crowd has had a swell 2025 so far and going forward. Been a bit occupied in other intrigue spheres for the last few weeks, so sadly I haven’t had much to say with Funkshaft’s final months. Not like there was much to talk about anyways, the last few weeks have been mostly harmless fluff, even with the easily snarkable stuff like seeing Dinkle conduct bands and the critiques that could be had with the continuity of that old Christmas VHS.

   So 2024 Act 4 closed out with a distinctly Cranky edge, but the Funky infusion is more evident than ever. Les came back, Batton Thomas is making himself at home, Timemop and Starbuck Jones snuck back in, Atomic Komix has come back in lukewarm quality lacking “tips of funky felt tips”, and we got impeccable servings this year with a quizzically-Funkyverse “prestiege arc” with the Burnings fiasco. We’re not given much to much on for the year ahead other than hearing that we’re going to see a love-letter arc to the author’s quirky fandom for a Canadian football team, so who knows what’s coming.

   I’m still betting on seeing the robot eventually, not sure if we’ll see the strip ending or a surprise return of Burnings as the future sets itself up, but I’m sure the year will have its fill of surprises as well as the usual gags that edges itself onto the quarter-inch-of-reality we love to nitpick. For now at least we continue to watch as the satire of bus driver blues continues to be full of lukewarm chuckles (for my part, wasn’t it the wacky Crankshaft gimmick that all bus drivers are intentionally trying to be jackasses and miss students and stuff? Why is Ed singled out in the 1/06 strip as the only one doing that and that not being a problem?)

6. I’ve been thinking (“Could you NOT?!” you yell. “Nothing good comes when the Splut thinks!”): Comic strip weeks begin on Mondays and end on Sundays. New strips are introduced on Mondays; cancelled ones die on Sundays. I assume that artist’s contracts end on the last Sunday of the year. The last FW was on the last Sunday of ’22.

   On the last Sunday of ’24, DinkeLillian was clearly set to do a week or 2 of Church Hold’Em poker. Typical of Tom to latch onto a pop culture trend years after it faded. (Has he done pickleball yet? He will, in 2036!) But then, on the day after his contract would’ve lapsed, it was all Ed, and so far has stayed that way. What an odd coincidence.

   Next year’s strip tally may be Crankshaft appearing every day. Until 12/28/25 anyway.

   1. I think Funky played pickleball once.

7. Another interesting stat: Pam is in 72 strips, but only speaks in 74 panels. One piece of dialogue per strip appearance, Pam — we’ll give you an extra panel on your birthday and at Christmas, but that’s it!

   Dinkle, meanwhile: 53 strips, 107 panels. That’s 2 speaking panels per strip appearance, plus an extra dialogue zeppelin on Claude Barlow’s birthday.

8. TB must have been looking back through the old Crankshaft website on the Internet Archive. That’s the only explanation for Rocky suddenly becoming a cut up again…

   1. 

      1. is that one real, or a Photoshop parody? I can’t tell anymore.

         1. Haha, it’s real! Here’s Lena’s…

            

            And Jeff’s is a solid piece of Batiukness too.

            

            1. What was the pitch meeting for Crankshaft?

               “I hear you have a Funky spinoff strip for me! What’s it about?”

               “He’s a sociopathic narcissistic asshole that everyone hates! All he touches, he RUINS!”

               “Didn’t we cancel ‘John Darling’ already?”

               (shuffles papers) “No, he’s a different sociopathic narcissistic asshole that everyone hates! But he drives a school bus and attempts vehicular homicide against children! With a side job of ARSON!”

               “…and the heroes try to best him?”

               “No! He IS the hero! And he’s a SENILE sociopathic narcissistic asshole that everyone hates! AND A BAND DIRECTOR! And illiterate, and a vain published author who thinks he can get into Hollywood, and a shriveled old crone who’s a published author, and an obsessive necrophile who is a–“

               “A sociopathic narcissistic asshole that everyone hates?”

               “Who’s a PUBLISHED AUTHOR! With SIGNINGS! And women who meet him always attempt suicide! Also–GHOSTS! And the ghosts are all sociop–“

               (hits intercom) “SECURITY!”

               (being dragged away) “PIZZA BLOND GIRL COMIC BOOKS MURANIA ROCK!!”

               “Wow wow wow! That was close! Send in the next guy.”

               Guy: “Two words: MADAME WEB.”

               “And after that last guy, I have one: SOLD!”

            2. “Loves his wife in spite of her father’s flaws”? Does Batiuk have no clue how stupid this sounds?

               Yes, many people conflict with their in-laws. But they mitigate this problem by not letting said in-laws live with them! And if they do, or have to tolerate their spouse’s parents living in their house, they sure as hell don’t let them turn the attic into a grow op. Or let said in-law use explosive materials on their house.

9. Today’s Crankshaft

   How the hell is that gonna work, Rocky?

10. Perhaps if they were to clear away the dead wood, this retention problem would solve itself.

11. RE: The Sat. 1/11/25 C’Shaft:

    Wow. Just, wow. In Saturday’s rib-tickler Batiuk is simply recycling his “joke” from last Nov. 12’s strip, where Hannah says she joined Amazon Prime “so Mitch would be picked up and delivered on the same day.” It’s bad enough that TB ran this premise into the mud just two month’s ago; now he’s doing it again with the same “punchlines.” Wow.

12. https://i.postimg.cc/x8jgwzF4/cs250111-A.gif

    1. https://i.postimg.cc/x8jgwzF4/cs250111-A.gif

       These never post correctly on the first try. At least it didn’t get stuck in the torso chute.

       1. Sorry. It’s just another link when I tried to post an image.

13. First: Bless you, CBH, for your tireless work on the trivia that obsesses all SoSFers. Are we gonna have a vote this year on the best and worst of last year? Or will we just declare everything the worst, nothing the best, and wrap it up?

    Second: I guess you and I were not the only ones who have been forcibly reminded of the Great Point Dume Fire, which coincidentally seemed to have no lasting political, economic, or social impact despite burning LA pretty much to the ground. Wish we could say the same about the current fires.

    Josh at the Comics Curmudgeon lives in LA now, and he has some thoughts on that old FW arc:

    https://joshreads.com/2025/01/metapost-smoldering-patreonizing-comments-of-the-week-and-change/

    1. Cranky Awards voting should go up sometime next week. Was having a hard time narrowing down the ‘worst’ strips of the year.

       1. Ouch. I certainly don’t envy anyone having to pick THOSE nominees.

          In all sincerity, for the hard work you put in here: we truly stand in line.

       2. (I) was having a hard time narrowing down the ‘worst’ strips of the year.

          There was no shortage of candidates.

       3. As it was a leap year, we’d understand if you declared a 366-way tie.

          1. Actually, didn’t we get the web-only strips with Crazy Harry and Generic Blonde Potato Person going back in time this year? It could potentially be even more than a 366-way tie.

    2. Josh didn’t say what was actually wrong with his original take on the Point Dume fire.

       Also, i think he overlooks the fact that the current L.A. wildfires are actually 4 or 5 different fires in different locations. That explains some of the geography. But the Point Dume fire started from one golf swing, so this explanation wouldn’t apply.

14. Today’s Crankshaft

    Didn’t Batiuk do this already in november?

    1. still today’s Crankshaft

       Lena: We should just kill Crankshaft already.

       I think everyone here knows it but I think the links to the 2020 – 2022 FW strips have gone dead

    2. November 12th, to be precise, during his Amazon “What If…?” storyline that the Pulitzer Committee somehow overlooked.

15. Today’s Crankshaft

    Quit yapping, Ed

    Today’s Past Batiukverse Strips: Week of March 19th, 2000 of Funky Winkerbean (follow up to this comment: https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2025/01/01/testimony-of-student/#comment-174082)

    

    Chien: Mr. Moore, who the fuck is that person sitting on the desk on the right of you?

    

    YAWN

    My high school almost never has guest speakers

    

    Cindy: What happened?

    Darin: Mooch Myers set fire to the lockers

    

    

    I have a feeling that Cindy will just tell the secrets (disregarding how serious they are) of others for her own amusement

    

    

    Les: You can all go back to your classes.

    (all the students groan and sulk back to their classrooms)

    1. Schoolboys: “WOW! A blond woman who looks like half the population of our town! HUBBA-HUBBA!”

       Les, sotto voce to Cindy: “They’re checking out your butt because your skirt has skid marks.” Cindy: “Oh! I shall instantly manifest a coat from the Tenth Dimension to cover it!”

    2. Look at Les, STILL harboring a grudge against Cindy all those years later. And of course, she’s still a vapid phony, because true personal growth was always frowned upon in the Funkyverse.

       1. “Les, STILL harboring a grudge against Cindy”

          Bull Bushka’s funeral. Les spending a week of strip time badmouthing him–while AT THE FUNERAL.

          Bats in the Attic had Bull grovel and apologize to Les for YEARS. And still he couldn’t be kind for MINUTES. Over what? Some guy who was mean to Wee Lil’ Tommy in 1964? What a bitter old man he must be.

          I hear he’s quite pleasant at book signings. When he hopes he’ll get your money. But we all thought “What a nice person!” about Garrison Keillor, Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Cosby once.

          If any one of them offered you a Jello Pudding Pop today–would you put it in your mouth?

    3. “All you can see is what’s immediately in front of you in your headlights, but that’s enough for you to make it to your destination. At least, that’s what I always tell Coach Bushka. It’s gotta work one of these days…”

    4. “You may be interested to know that Cindy is a former graduate from here at Westview High!”

       If she’s a former graduate, does that mean that they revoked her diploma?

       1. I assume that Les meant to say that Cindy was a former student at WHS

          About the revoked diploma idea: I wouldn’t be surprised if Fred revoked her diploma after she did something truly revolting

          1. The irony is that the person calling Cindy a “former graduate” is the same person who thinks other people should take his basics class to learn to write with more clarity.

          2. Les thinks other people need to learn how to be clearer. HE certainly doesn’t need to.

16. Wow, anyone seen today’s Crankshaft (Monday 1/13)? Great googly-moogly, what is going on with the poses and art?

    Pam’s contorted body looks like she’s doing some kind of avant-garde interpretive dance. I guess that’s one way of livening up the usual “What are you doing, Dad?” type of question.

    And the stairs Crankshaft is crawling up look to have about a 2″ rise per step.

    I’ve defended Davis and/or his underpaid intern for cutting and pasting, but it’s getting ridiculous. He seems to be picking random poses/faces and just going with ’em, and for anything that can’t be cut and pasted, he puts as little effort into it as humanly possible.

    Seeing the older FW and Crankshaft strips people paste in here vs the recent Crankshafts is like comparing Kotzky-era Apartment 3-G with the dreary finale strips. It’s downright sobering.

    1. I think this illustrates why FW couldn’t continue.

       Crankshaft was syndicated to about a third more papers than FW, and therefore makes more revenue.

       Assuming the revenue trickles down through Batiuk to the artist more-or-less equally, Davis, working on Crankshaft, must be making about 33% more than a theoretical FW artist would. And Davis is clearly, clearly taking absolutely rock-bottom rates to slap together whatever Crankshaft imagery can be copy-pasted in about an hour.

       So my bet is that Davis was unwilling to take 33% less to do the same thing for FW than he does for Crankshaft. He’s doing rock-bottom work already, so he’s not going to go any lower in terms of pay. And, as it turns out, no-one else in the industry is either…

       And for Batiuk to increase the FW pay rate? He’d be running FW at a loss. He can do that for his book signings and convention appearances — those are business expenses, right? (Ha ha….I mean, of course, in Batiuk’s fantasy world.) But even in his fantasy, he can’t then ALSO lose money on the original strip.

       So he had to shut it down. Not his choice, but it had to happen that way…

       1. I like your theory that FW wasn’t cancelled by the syndicate, but they lowered the pay so much that it was unviable for the strip to continue. I would counter-argue that negotiation is far from Tom Batiuk’s best skill. You (or someone) previously argued that any young cartoonist would love to join a 50-year-old property like FW was. So replacing Ayers as artist shouldn’t have been an obstacle… unless Batiuk was impossible to work with, or offered so little pay, that it wasn’t worth it to anyone.

          1. Or most likely a combination of the two….

             “I insist we work a year ahead. Of course, you won’t get paid until the strip runs. Payment is $15 a strip, though $10 of that is in the form of “20% off” coupons for copies of ‘The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 14’. Limit one coupon per copy. Oh, and before we start, I will demand sample drawings of all 238 continuing FW characters to see if you’re worthy. Plus, every Thursday is Comic Book day — that’s when I call you up and we have to talk about comic books for 8 hours…”

             1. An ad executive I knew had a sign on his desk:

                Pick Any TWO:

                Cheap

                Fast

                Good

17. Today’s Crankshaft

    This is gonna be a week where Crankshaft is in constant back pain, isn’t it?

    1. No, it’s going to be another week of Batiuk complaining about doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. That’s what “someone gets injured” arcs in the Funkyverse are really about. Ed’s back problems will cause him no long-term issues, despite him already being at least 105 years old. Nor will his absence for treatment have any effect on the bus driver shortage the strip has been yacking about for two weeks now. But if you’re a fan of cheap shots at hard-working, underpaid medical personnel, I bet you’ll love this week!

       1. And heeeeere we go. On Thursday, Crankhole is in the doctor’s office, mocking his reasonable advice to exercise more. (Though this scenario does ignore Ed’s advanced age.)

    2. today’s Crankshaft

       Ed: I think I pulled my back out trying to smirk like Dick Facey.

       Meanwhile in Garfield (Dan’s other strip)

       Ha ha it’s funny because Garfield is drinking decaf instead of regular coffee

18. Guess whose blog today led with this opening sentence:

    “It was another one of those road to Damascus–double down–who’s your daddy moments. I was sitting on a couch in my room in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, doing some writing when this ephemeral thought passed through my brain like some sort of cosmic ray. It was less of a thought and more of a feeling, a peaceful-happy feeling that came wrapped in a warm diaphanous glow.”

    He really doesn’t know what “road to Damascus” means, does he? It means a dramatic change in someone’s beliefs, not “I’M THE GOD NOW!” And it’s “ANOTHER one.” I guess he gets these a lot. Talk to your doctor to see if epiphany-blocking drugs are right for you.

    Son you are disappoint! It’s not a full rant, just another Funky forward excerpt. Part One. Now he’s not “HEMINGWAY IN A TOOLSHED!” now he’s a literal Saint. Saint Paul double-downed daddy…Dude? You okay? Try screaming that on the subway tonight, see who thinks you’re sane.

    No, after that it does not get better. Just “color-coded.”

    https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-219/

    “Who’s-your-daddy”? WTF?

    1. Give the guy some credit; he’s trying to avoid using “rearranged my molecules” for the 3,657th time.

       Tom, here are a few more suggestions:

       — A bolt from the blue!
       — A sea change!
       — It turned my head around!
       — The scales fell from my eyes!
       — A God-given revelation!
       — No longer did I see through a glass, darkly!
       — Twisted my Weltanschauung into pretzel knots!
       — Updated my OS to Tom 2.0!

       I can supply more. Just pay me your usual rate for collaborators: $5 an hour. Skip the Luigi’s 20% off coupons, though.

    2. Oh, we’re going to talk about that blog post.

    3. Tom writes these blog posts using the predictive text on his phone, doesn’t he? That’s about the only way I can see those words being arranged in that manner.

19. Oh, goody! Can’t wait. There’s so much juicy wretchedness there to chew on.

    What I love most about these posts about The Muses, Roads to Damascus, Molecules Being Rearranged, etc, is what a dissolving basket of nothing they turn out to portend.

    There I was, on a grey Ohio November afternoon, looking out my studio window onto my vast, sloping lawn. A last leaf fluttered its way melancholically onto the meticulously landscaped grounds. NPR’s “All Things Considered” played softly on my Bose radio. As I heard the mellifluous announcer interviewing a Florida citrus grower about the urgent need for more minority representation in the lemon tree pruning industry, I was suddenly visited by the Muse! Angelic trumpets played a heavenly fanfare as the clouds parted and a glorious rainbow sprouted, straight from Heaven directly onto my drafting table! At that very moment, I achieved the ultimate enlightenment that an Earthly soul can attain. Nothing — NOTHING in my life would ever be the same.

    I grabbed my pen right away. These revelations could not escape my grasp, for I would enshrine them on paper before they fled back to the Elysian Fields whence they sprang! And, hand trembling, I scribbled the words that would forever change my life, and the life of all newspaper comics readers:

    make Les have a yellow sweater and he wears it all the time

    1. “Then fate looked well on me again, and like a shopping cart colliding with a wheelchair, my idea was refined even further (and greater) and I knew that the comics page would forever be divided–before this moment, and after this moment. Scholars would weep with happy relief that I had preserved all they needed.

       No, not a yellow sweater. A yellow shirt.

       1. Drake, Beckoning: Very well done! Also, too well done. Yours made sense. Tom’s is just random gibberish that he thinks makes sound edumacated.

          You’d think “It’s called Writing” man would have heard the phrase “Kill your darlings.” “Road to Damascus–KFC-sandwich–ding-dong-daddy meets a Southern belle”* would require an H-bomb to kill.

          How about instead “Hey, Tom! The Eye of Argon guy wants his thesaurus back!”

          *1939 WB cartoon referring to Gable and Leigh in “Gone With The Wind”

20. Today’s Crankshaft

    Please Batiuk I beg you just give us something truly crappy I cannot take the Unsnarkables any longer

Comments are closed.