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It’s time for another visit to Tom Batiuk’s wacky blog!
In Match To Flame 221, we get the continuation of Batiuk’s trip to North Carolina. During this trip, he discovered he has synesthesia, but didn’t realize this was the only interesting thing that happened to him. Nor did he care enough to learn that the condition had a name.
This continuation blog post isn’t about synesthesia, but I like the title so I re-used it anyway. Mostly because it reminds me of these two songs:
Here’s a tip: any time you read Batiuk’s own blog posts, imagine it being spoken in Ben Stein’s voice. Like this:
That makes a lot more fun. Which is to say that it makes it any fun at all.
I began to think of my situation in Chapel Hill as an odd writer’s retreat, although one accompanied by southern hospitality. From the hospital to the residence and everywhere in between, I was met with nothing but graciousness. On the weekends I would breakfast at the residence, and one Saturday morning I opened the communal refrigerator to find that the milk I’d picked up on the way back from the fitness center hadn’t survived its baking in the heat during the trip home.
That’s exactly what a Ben Stein character would say, isn’t it? Could you hear his voice just now?
I decided to substitute water on my cereal instead. A visiting family at the next table had whipped up some pancakes and sausages, and when they saw me sitting there with my Cheerios and water, invited me over to share in their feast. Graciousness.
If I saw a grown man eating Cheerios and water, I’d put a dollar in his cup because I’d assume he was homeless. Are you sure this was graciousness and not pity?
I think it was pity, and I think this was Batiuk’s whole idea. Because this feels very manipulative. “When they saw me sitting there with my Cheerios and water, (they) invited me over to share in their feast.” You could have just asked, Tom. I bet he just sat there with his sad little bowl of something you wouldn’t feed a stray dog, looking pathetic until somebody took pity on him. Lisa would have liked that.
This is why I find his cruddy blog so fascinating. It’s full of little insights into what this man is really like in his day-to-day life. And it doesn’t paint a nice picture. He seems to have all of the same awful traits we’ve identified in characters like Batton Thomas, Les Moore, Ed Crankshaft, and Funky Winkerbean himself.
SECU Family House was where I would write the final year of this volume (Funky Winkerbean Volume 14).
Batiuk name-drops his location, as he loves to do. Guess what’s a five-minute drive away from SECU Family House? A grocery store. How lazy and self-entitled is this man? He acts like the lack of milk for his cereal was an insurmountable problem.
Now, because I’m not a complete jerk, so I realize that going to the store may have not been that simple. TThe intervening post Match To Flame 220 (URL tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-75/ for some reason) explains that Batiuk was in North Carolina for cancer treatment.
But he mentions picking up milk “on the way back from the fitness center”, which means he’s not bed-ridden, and he can get to a place that sells milk. He mentions a “communal fridge”, which means there may have been other milk he could have used. He mentions it being 100 degrees out, and needing the bus to get around, but he doesn’t say either of those things influenced his decision not just to go buy some milk. I don’t think his wife was with him to help; but as usual, Batiuk’s writing is so muddled it’s hard to be sure. He mentions other people “whipping up” hot breakfast, so eating something else must have been an option.
I mention all this because, well, Batiuk did. He must have thought it was narratively important to list all the obstacles that came between him and his friggin’ Cheerios with milk one Saturday morning. He doesn’t mention trying to solve these problems, asking for help, eating something different, or simply eating his cereal without milk for one day. I think it’s implicit that any change to Batiuk’s routine would have been completely unacceptable.
So, back to that golden idea, which was a pretty simple one, really. It was a feeling that I should somehow have my characters explore the history of my medium.
What is Tom Batiuk’s medium? Is it newspaper comic strips, or is it comic books? I bet it’s comic books, even though that medium declined to hire him.
It seemed to refer to things that had apparently been on my mind since I’d done my first old comic book cover Sunday strip.
When the story of Lisa’s cancer was finished
And when was that, exactly? This is the foreword to a collection of 2011-13 Funky Winkerbean strips. Lust For Lisa, the kill fee, the graphic novel, the Eisner Award nomination, the second movie attempt, the Oscar, and many other revisitings of the story took place between 2014 and 2022. If Lisa’s Story even finished now? Is Les going to Winnipeg with Jeff so he can spread Lisa’s ashes on the 55-yard line? You can’t rule it out, can you?
It truly felt that it was the end of something.
Well, that’s what death usually is. But if there was ever a death that ended nothing, it was Lisa’s.
By the way, Batiuk’s blog post before this one said “the conversation with the other patients on the porch would invariably drift to the subject of cancer—yours, theirs, or someone else who had recently died of cancer.” Which I imagine went like this:
You would think that having cancer himself, and hearing the stories of other people’s deaths from it, would have given Batiuk perspective on how shallow Lisa’s Story really was. I guess it didn’t.
I had done the heavy lifting
Just like he did when he didn’t have milk for his cereal!
any attempt to replicate it would be burdened with intent.
It’s hard to imagine anything more “burdened with intent” than Lisa’s Story. Which I think means “a shoddy follow-up that’s obviously a cash grab on a franchise’s popularity.” Like all the live-action Disney remakes. But this only works when people enjoyed something the first time. Batiuk has whined about poor book sales for Lisa’s Story, which makes it even more inexplicable that he keeps going back to this well.
So I would somewhat facetiously tell anyone who asked that I had achieved what I wanted to achieve and that going forward, indulgence would be my watchword. Of course, that didn’t happen. Okay, that kind of happened a little.
What is he even trying to say here?
Poster The Drake of Life, who originally brought my attention to this amazing blog post (thanks, Drake) asked me to name this writing technique. I called it Stream Of Pointlessness. It’s stream of consciousness, written by someone who knows nothing about stream of consciousness… except that it’s something good writers do, so he should probably do it.
I had spent my artistic life up to that point creating works for a new generation
And Pepsi slogans, apparently.
while trying to channel the soul of the work that had inspired me in the comic strips and comic books.
At least he acknowledged comic strips for once.
Collectively, comic books were my place in the universe even if I didn’t fully understand why.
Just like the synesthesia, this seems like something he should tell a doctor about.
So now I became curious about and sought to examine the creators who were the source of my inspiration
He just mentioned two inspirations. Why is it singular now? Which inspiration did he mean? “Source of my inspirations” would have made sense. You can take inspiration from both Joe Shuster and Walt Kelly. But I bet it’s just the comic books again.
Phantoms who sat for long hours at sweatshop drawing boards pouring their hearts and souls out onto paper with no expectation of selling a million issues, or having a big-screen superhero blockbuster, or creating something that would one day lead to collectors spending millions of dollars for a single issue.
Spirits who in spite of their harsh Great Depression reality
Spirits who in spite of their harsh reality that big-screen blockbusters, million-issue copies and 7-digit collectible value wouldn’t exist for another 40+ years.
This kind of remark is why I think Batiuk doesn’t actually know squat about comic books. From his stories in Funky Winkerbean, he certainly doesn’t know squat about grading.
The rest of it is another avalanche of nothingisms. But I do want to talk about the bizarre image choice for this blog post.
The first two blog entries included nice 40th anniversary-themed Funky Winkerbean strips, which you’d expect. This one is a comic book excerpt of Madam Fatal, an obscure comic book character which poster Green Luthor called “a cross-dressing superhero.”
Why on earth did he choose that? It makes no sense in any possible direction. Batiuk’s fandom is Silver Age, not Golden Age, and he’s into conventional superheroes. This feels like it has some kind of subtext. But like the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Roland’s sex change, he won’t give you a clue. It feels like he wants you to guess what he’s trying to tell you. Which is one of those awful traits he shares with Les Moore.
I realize that I use a lot of weird imagery in my blog posts, including this very one. But it ties into the story, or at least my intent is obvious enough. Does that make me “burdened with intent”?
Son of Stuck Funky 
I have a sister in Toronto who’s a nurse.
<a href=”https://youtu.be/Bp2dNXQH1Uo“>My Pink Half of the Drainpipe</a>
More people should know about the Bonzo Dog Band. And not just because they were the house band on proto-Monty Python TV show Do Not Adjust Your Set.
Innes was in Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias. The “Sweaty Dinkle Talks to God” arc made me think about this song. Duh.
https://letsloop.com/artist/alberto-y-los-trios-paranoias/song/god-is-mad
The Albertos were certainly inspired by the work of Innes (amongst others), but Innes was never a member of that band.
As for Innes, if you ever get a chance to check out the TV series The Innes Book Of Records, don’t pass it up. It’s not always funny, but it isn’t meant to be. It’s basically conceptual music videos of Innes songs — some goofy, some inspiring; some wistful, some madcap; some melancholy, some cheerful. And some all of those at once. But almost all the songs are catchy and clever in some manner, and the videos, while low-budget, are similarly well-constructed and fun.
I always thought Innes wrote the best melodies, and Stanshall wrote the best lyrics.
There doesn’t seem to be a mind that can solve problems, does there?
“One afternoon there were no takers for the dog’s services, and the trainer and I sat in awkward silence for a while. Finally, an invitation was proffered by the trainer, and, not particularly wanting to break the writing thread I was exploring at the moment, I jokingly asked, “Does he bite?” Probably shouldn’t have done that. I’m sure I offended the trainer, and who knows what I did to the dog. I was never invited again.”
Most people would pursue the thought “who knows what I did…I was never invited again.” Tom does not. Tom exists, Dog does not, Trainer does not. THIS is why no one wants to draw for Tom. HE’S AN ASSHOLE, and blames it on others. Like a two year old, he still hasn’t grasped the Theory of Mind. I’ll bet that like Scott Adams, he believes in the NPC Theory. Only the main character exists, and he’s it. You got turned down by a damn THERAPY DOG, you pathetic egomaniac. When Rover says “Fuck you too,” I think we can guess who’s in the wrong.
Tom? Do babies cry the instant they see you? Oh, they do? “STUPID BABIES, DON’T THEY KNOW WHO I AM”
That exchange struck me too, but I didn’t know what to say about it. I wanted to talk about the therapy dog, so I’d have an excuse to post this adorable thing:
(8) Pip, a Southeastern Guide Dogs Short Film – YouTube
(WARNING: Keep onions handy.)
There’s etiquette about interacting with therapy dogs, which the trainer/facility would have explained to him. You’ve probably seen the ‘do not pet’ message on the handles of dogs that help the visually impaired. It also wasn’t clear if this was some individual’s therapy dog, or if it was a shared therapy dog anyone could interact with if they wished. There are also different types of therapy dogs. I once had a co-worker with PTSD who brought a therapy dog everywhere, even on a trip to the corporate headquarters in California. So I learned a bit about them.
And this “invitation proffered by the trainer” was probably “hey man, are you here to see the therapy dog?” since that’s what the room was for. “Does he bite?” is somewhere between stupid and insulting. It’s something a small child might genuinely ask. But a 60-something man who gets paid for his writing?
But Tom is so self-important he was annoyed by the presence of this dog and his handler. He couldn’t just say “no, thanks” if he didn’t want the services. He couldn’t just move to another room, because he “didn’t want to break his writing thread,” whatever that means. He couldn’t be bothered to learn about the therapy dog, even though his own work would later (or maybe already did) include a therapy dog for Wally. And the dog was there to help cancer sufferers, which he himself was! This is how he reacted to something that was there to help him recover!
Just — wow.
Batiuk writes on his blog, “A young couple entered the room with their baby in tow. For some indecipherable reason, it started to cry. My writing thread was broken. How inconsiderate. I had to move to another room. And why? Because that baby was a selfish dick.”
“Clearly, that baby did not understand what a good writer I was.”
https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/match-to-flame-222/
The next “Match to Flame” entry is up, and… well, I’ll just quote a bit from the second sentence…
Yeah. He actually calls it “fabulous”. He also calls Pete a “comic strip writer” for Atomik Komix, despite AK not actually producing comic strips, only comic books (or, at least, only comic book covers… which are presented to us, the audience, as comic strips, so maybe Tom is acknowledging that AK really doesn’t do anything but produce covers at $4 a shot?). (I guess it’s a good thing he only had to identify Pete by his first name, since not even Tom knows what Pete’s last name is supposed to be.)
(The summary of the post? “I usually don’t alter strips for the collections, but I changed the font for some of these.” Boy, that sure rearranged my molecules, I’ll tell ya.)
Yeah, that was baffling too. This man constantly retcons his 50+ year history to make stupid throwaway jokes work, and to up the misery for transparent awards baiting. But changing a font to a comic book font in his comic book-addicted world was something he felt he needed to apologize for? (SEE ALSO: Summers, Sadie.)
Gotta love him bragging about fonts, and then publishing his post in Comic Sans. Hey, Tom, Geocities in 1999 called! They want their blink tag back! (insert needless .gif with an autoplaying Midi file)
Once again, I read about three sentences of a Batiuk blog before I got annoyed. Here’s the A.I. Batiukese to English translation:
Who the hell does he think he’s impressing with all the flowery language?
That’s how Batiuk thinks writing works. First, you have to be anointed a “good writer.” This is easy, because you can just anoint yourself. Second, you sit around waiting for inspiration, because only good writers are special enough to get ideas. After you get an idea, you apply random literary techniques to it, to show everyone what a super-writery writer you are. For example, I’ll do an alliterative simile now. This post is as pathetic as the Pittsburgh Pirates if Paula Poundstone – oh wait, did I mention stream of consciousness? Stop and interrupt yourself frequently, so you can list off every random thought that goes through your head. Mere mortals cannot comprehend the velocity of your mental acuitivity-ness! Then just start rambling on again, never finishing the thoughts you’ve already started. And end with a pithy phrase! You’ve got to let the stuffed alligator of justice have a say!
I ain’t reading Tom Batiuk’s blog.
I read Tom Batiuk’s blog so you don’t have to!
Today’s Funky Crankerbean
Dinkle should’ve been struck down and turned into a band turkey and eaten by his former victims/students
Today’s Past Batiukverse Strips: A Week-Long storyline in 2005 where Wally comes back to Westview with Rana (or as I like to call it, Another Reason To Hate Dinkle)
Dinkle: I DO NOT CARE IF WALLY IS COMING HOME, YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE DAY OFF!
Becky: (if he drops dead on friday night, there won’t be a damn jury who will convict me.)
WAIT DINKLE ORCHESTRATED THIS WHOLE THING?!
If I were Becky in this moment, I would’ve punched Dinkle right in the balls at full force with my remaining arm
Yeah, what exactly was supposed to be nice about this?
Dinkle bullied Becky into doing her job when there were probably a lot of procedures to do for this international adoption. And that job was hypocritically bullying the students into doing their job, something Dinkle could have done himself.
I don’t remember what Becky and Wally’s relationship was at this point. But this is someone who was thought dead, and who she forgave for crippling her. So maybe this adoption was a teensy bit more important than high school band concert #52 million? And what’s the surprise? “We’d like to welcome a new member into our band family.” This is a goddamn war hero/POW who adopted an orphaned child from the country he fought in, and this is how you introduce them? “A member of the band family”? No thanks, Dinkle. I’ve seen you treat your children. Both the hundreds of children you’ve abused over the years, the biological wife and child you run roughshod over.
Fuck you, Dinkle. And fuck the guy who writes you, for thinking this was anything other than the worst sociopathic Karen behavior imaginable.
I don’t remember what Becky and Wally’s relationship was at this point.
Wally and Becky got married in June of 2005, along with Holly and Funky
I guess Wally hadn’t been recaptured yet? Anyway, this is still vile. On top of everything else, adopting a child is one of the most justified workplace absences imaginable. It’s usually specified on a company’s HR rules, alongside jury duty and the death of a family member. It may even be protected by law, or by the teachers’ union contract.
Dinkle would simply have no power to cancel Becky’s time off. If he tried, she’d go over his head. And if the school board didn’t allow it, they’d be facing a very ugly lawsuit. And it would have gone viral. “School prevents war hero and handicapped woman from adopting Afghan orphan!”
Dinkle should’ve been fired IMMEDIATELY after pulling that shit
Batty considers this crap some of his best work. And you are correct, Dinkle has no say over when she gets to use her time off. Agh, here we are putting more thought into this than Batty did. He was just chasing awards at this stage.
Surprise homecomings work much better if the spouse doesn’t know they’re coming (or when). If Becky hadn’t already been told that Wally would be home that Friday, they could have surprised her without all the extra drama. Even with the knowledge, they could have come up with something better than Dinkle denying her the night off. How much anger and stress did he cause Becky while gleefully pretending to be an ass just so that HE could play the hero? This was all Dinkle’s ego, plain and simple.
How much anger and stress did he cause Becky while gleefully pretending to be an ass just so that HE could play the hero?
If Becky was a Saiyan, she would’ve immediately become a Super Saiyan
Dinkle was one of the first people Rana met upon arriving in the US?
No wonder she disappeared for 7 years and only showed up to tell Wally she’s leaving the country…
Please let this week be a series of random jokes, and not a story about somebody running for mayor again.
Today’s Crankshaft
Ed: Why are we watching TV again?
Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: The debut of Linda and Mickey Lopez-Bushka
If you’re wondering why Les has a cast on his arm, then here’s the answer: Les broke it the week prior punching Bull in the face after Bull thought that he was the one who impregnated Lisa at the Class of 88/72/79/89/whatever it is reunion
Fred: Shut up, Harry. You’re doing morning bus duty and that’s final.
Dinkle: BUT I’M THE WORLD’S GREATEST BAND DIRECTOR!
Fred: No, you’re fucking not.
Shut the fuck up Dinkle
When have I seen this before? Right. In this 2017 Crankshaft below
Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz: If I had a nickel every time this happened, then I would have two nickels.
Random Football Kid: OUR CURRENT FIELD KICKER SUCKS! LET THE GIRL IN!
Coach Stropp: STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, WILL YA?!
Mickey: Have you read Title IX? It says that if no female team for a high school sport exists, then schools have to give girls the opportunity to compete on the boys team.
Bull: Ah’m not getting your jacket, Mr. Stropp. It’s 86 degrees fahrenheit.
Dinkle being present in a single strip in the middle of Mickey-Stropp week, for no reason beyond delivering the punchline, is top shelf TB. The punchline isn’t all that bad, though… would have been funnier if Dinkle hadn’t been in panel 1, implying that he had rushed into the panel simply in order to roast Stropp.
The school board strip has a solid joke.
I like to think that after Dinkle butted in Mickey and Stropp’s conversation, Stropp beat the everloving shit out of him
That’s Linda? She’s smiling? By Act III, she was the most depressing character in the strip. Boy, Westview sure did a number on her. It seems she has always had that Death Star trench part in her hair. The onion ring earrings were a later addition.
Human Relations teacher? Bus duty?
Did Linda go to the salon and ask the hairdresser to shave a half-inch part in her hair
Okay, I was wrong about Innes being in the Albertos. I could’ve prevented that by Googling it, and I didn’t. And that’s something that I’ve made fun of Tom about. Usually in terms of his bizarre idea of Hollywood. Yes, all movies in 1940 were silent, sure.
“You can’t climb the Hollywood sign”–well, no you can’t, but I ignored that because it was a good dramatic (of the melo- kind) effect. Recently mentioned here was the Kill Fee. In order to not embarrass myself further, it is:
“A kill fee is a safety net for your work if a project gets cancelled. This could happen for a number of reasons, like funding cuts or a client changing their mind. Without a kill fee, you risk ending up with nothing for your efforts. Including a kill fee clause means you’ll still get at least partial payment, even if the project doesn’t go ahead.”
I’d read of the Kill Fee from Scalzi’s blog. His book series “Old Man’s War” was optioned for a movie that never happened. After years, they paid him the fee. I think he said it was $2,000. Better than nothing, but a tad less than a movie franchise could make him. $2K is what Feige likely spends a week on ugly baseball caps.
In the Battyverse, it means Les can get all bored and some junk about writing Lisa’s Story (AGAIN) as a screenplay. So Les just shrieks “THE KILL FEE!” And they just pay him for doing nothing, and do so instantly. He’s like some teenagers I’ve hired as a retail manager: They think they’ll quit after 2 months and get unemployment. They would continue to live with their parents for a long time.
The thing is…Tom didn’t have to look it up. The George Kennedy as Crankshaft movie didn’t pan out. He must’ve got the fee. Why did he not know what it was?
When Scalzi mentioned his book was optioned, he was asked what creative control he had over the script. He said “None. I wrote the book, they optioned it, and that’s it.” They don’t let screenwriters on set, and certainly not “Based on a Book By” writers. Tom version: Les screaming during filming about how the director was insulting his “artistic vision.” Cut from that strip: Les screaming at craft services that “THIS ISN’T A PIZZA!! REAL PIZZAS LIST ‘PUDDLES OF GREASE’ AS TOPPINGS!”
Presented as if Les was the hero. And he wonders why no one wants to work with him.
Here’s what I think happened: the “shopping contract” Mason sold to Les is what George Kennedy sold to Tom Batiuk in real life. Kennedy wanted someone to make the Crankshaft movie, so he could star in it. So he paid Batiuk for the rights to pitch it around Hollywood. He just didn’t find any takers. I doubt there was ever a kill fee involved with the Crankshaft movie, because there was never anything to “kill.” A lot of pet projects never get made, because nobody on earth wants them. And a lot of pet projects that do get made probably shouldn’t. (SEE ALSO: Battlefield Earth).
As for where the kill fee came from: Batiuk wrote himself into a corner in the Lust For Lisa sub-plot. He needed a way to give control of the story back to Les, even though Les had already sold the rights to these people. They had every right to tell him to piss off. But Les must be in 100% control of everything at all times, so Batiuk got one of his bolts of inspiration to use this “kill fee” malarkey. Of course, he didn’t bother looking up what it actually meant, because research is for chumps.
And nobody on earth would ever sign a contract that says “I alone have the right to cancel your entire project any time I feel like it, and get paid a fee for doing so.” Certainly not a film studio, who would have lawyers, and enter into rights agreements all the time. At the very mininum, Les would have been sued over this nonsense. The “kill fee” as Batiuk describes it is an onerous clause the studio probably could have convinced a court to void.
I doubt that a movie studio could convince a court to void the “kill fee” clause, because a movie studio is a sophisticated business that enters into rights agreements all the time and presumably prepared the contract itself. By contrast, Les was not in the movie business and had never sold the film rights to a book before. A court wouldn’t feel the need to rescue the studio from its own bad deal.
Looking back at the August 2014 strips where the “kill fee” came up, it appears that Les mentioned the kill fee and quit work on “Lust for Lisa,” followed by Mason quitting the film and the project being cancelled. But I don’t see anything stated that Les had the right to kill the project altogether and collect a fee for doing so (although that had been my previous understanding before re-reading those strips). What exactly Batiuk had in mind for the kill fee is unclear to me.
Yeah, lots of people have misremembered how that all went down. I remember because for the longest time I thought Batiuk was going to have Les do what people think he did: that if he found the project so onerous he could cancel it unilaterally, which was so ridiculous an idea that I was all set to go with a rant about it if/when it happened.
Instead, Les’s “kill fee” was him being able to remove himself from the project but still get paid for the work he did. As noted, it’s not what a kill fee is, but it’s less ludicrous than the idea that Les cancelled the project. Les invoked his “kill fee”, then the next day, despite the fact that he was no longer working on the project and would have not been allowed on the lot, he talked to the secretary who told him that Mason had bailed, so it looked as if “Lust for Lisa” wasn’t going to make it. Les, because he’s an asshole who only cares about himself, celebrated by hugging the secretary.
https://sonofstuckfunky.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/140821.gif?w=840
The premise of this strip wouldn’t have made any sense if Les had just killed the project himself. People are misremembering. But, of course, because Les decided he didn’t want to have a part in it, it absolutely needed to die right then, and those two incidents happening almost simultaneously led people to not remember what exactly happened.
I’m still wondering why Clay even bothered to option Lisa’s Story if he was going to change it as much as he did, such that it pissed Les off so much that he celebrated its demise. There have been plenty of films that have far greater similarity to their “inspirations” that their creators didn’t license, after all. Just look at the 50 Shades of Grey franchise, for instance.
T
Sorry about that, I tried to comment on today’s Crankshaft but it wouldn’t put the keyboard on
So it’s not just me? Posting on the site’s been weird for a week. I gave up even writing here, composing elsewhere and then C&P-ing it into the editor. Even that stopped working with my post from yesterday. It took 20 minutes to paste it. Not really anything we do about it, I suppose.
And it took multiple tries to get it to take this, and I have no idea how it’s going to format this.
WordPress has been changing stuff all over the place without my permission. You should see the nightmare of the blogger interface that they keep forcing on me, then changing. Sorry. Maybe I should have paid more attention in computer class and less in history.
CBH, don’t apologize. We know it’s not you, just WordPress. That’s what I meant when I said “editor,” meaning the program they have. The “doesn’t tell you it’s going to post you twice” thing is a true masterpiece of Soviet-era engineering. The web version of the Trabant.
It’s funny how the Mystery Downvoter only targets people with names recognizable from GC commenters! Myself, JJ, Eve, and csroberto! He–and I assume MD’s a he, as I’m pretty sure his name is a variant of “Thomas”–made the effort to slink in and downvote not just a cs post, but the accidental duplicate! Must be cool to have all that time and no life! Gotta keep busy after that Phantom Empire VHS ends!
Today’s Crankshaft
Ralph: What are we talking about, Ed?
Ed: I have no Idea.
Today’s Past Batiukcerse Storyline: A Week-Long storyline where Mickey and Sadie go shopping and find a highly unpleasant surprise
Mickey: It’s winter, Sadie.
Sadie: NO, NO! NONONONONONONO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
So, how did Cindy lose her job for the Sears Catalog Division?
Cindy: TH’ FUCK DID YOU SAY!?!? (sprays Sadie in the eyes with a bottle of perfume)
Sadie: I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL HER, MICKEY!!
Today’s Past Batiukcerse Storyline: A Week-Long storyline where Mickey and Sadie go shopping and find a highly unpleasant surprise
Mickey: It’s winter, Sadie.
Sadie: NO, NO! NONONONONONONO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
So, how did Cindy lose her job for the Sears Catalog Division?
Cindy: TH’ FUCK DID YOU SAY!?!? (sprays Sadie in the eyes with a bottle of perfume)
Sadie: I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL HER, MICKEY!!
Today’s Crankshaft
Ralph: What are we talking about, Ed?
Ed: I have no Idea.
Today’s Crankshaft
Mayor Bob Kane: There isn’t enough booze in the world to make me forget that EDWARD FUCKIN’ CRANKSHAFT exists. (sob)
Act II!Funky/Drunky: (drunken Demoman noises)
Bob Kane? Seriously, he went there? BOB KANE?! More proof that those people who said comic books damage your brain were correct.
In Monday’s strip, they gave the mayor’s name as “Robert Kane”, and then just “Mayor Kane”. So it’s an assumption that he was deliberately named after Bob Kane, but… c’mon. Someone who claims to be such a Batman fan that he despised the Adam West show doesn’t use that name by accident. (Well, okay, he could, given how sloppy Batiuk can be with his own characters’ names, and how he doesn’t believe in checking his work…)
Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: the “Les Takes Steroids (But Not Really)” storyline (that I initially thought wasn’t real)
Derek: LES, HOW MUCH GEAR DID YOU TAKE!?
Bull: I heard that the entire Big Walnut Tech team uses a fuck ton of steroids.
Les, the acne should be the LEAST of your problems (increase in heart size, blood pressure
Tangentially, Tom’s friend in comics enthusiasm and sort-of long time creator Tony Isabella just went Full Roland this week. A little odd coming from someone so late in life and, well, take a look at any picture of him online. But something that inspired Roland’s otherwise odd last appearance? Always so hard to guess with TB and his year-ahead schedule. Or maybe something to think about (and so far be grateful for) when TB seems hungry for attention.
Anyway more relevant topic: This week’s Crankshaft might have been encouraging but TB blew his chance to have whats-his-name become mayor of whereever-it-is a couple of years ago. Not falling for that one again, Tom. (Also: probably best to have pseudo-political jokes in the Fall, before the elections. Just sayin’.)
I had similar thoughts about this news, but the other way around; this time next year (or later) I could see us with a non-zero chance of one of the Crankshaft/Funky cast coming out as trans themselves, if not a flashback exploring Rolanda’s deal.
Might be a longshot but it would be an entertaining timeline to see that unfold, regardless of how the story would come out.
I saw that and thought of the Funkyverse, but my thoughts went in the opposite direction. Give it a year or more and there’s a chance a Crankshaft/Funky character will come out as trans in a story that has Jenny’s direct input.
Would be entertaining to see regardless of execution. That and the comments on the host sites.
“best to have pseudo-political jokes in the Fall, before the elections”
A GC commenter was convinced that the Tuesday CS was a reaction to Sunday’s Super Bowl. Only political cartoonists are allowed to publish that quickly. 99% of strips are done 3 weeks ahead of time. Of course, as always, Tom is a Special Case, and blandly farts his strips out and then spends 11 months sniffing them. I look forward to Tom’s take on Balloon Boy soon. (Oh, you forgot about Balloon Boy?)
Today, JJ compliments the strip, and Chief T is mad about it. They say we’re the whiners, but we can’t even say anything positive without these guys complaining.
I don’t know why you subject yourself to those miserable people. One of the Luann losers called me out on CC for defending Tiffany, since she’s the only remotely likable or adult character in the strip. She’s the Bull Bushka of that world. She’s the high school straw villain who grew up, and inadvertently became only the only character who had any growth. I just felt sorry for that person.
Dude, you can’t say anything about Crank commenters if you voluntarily go anywhere near the Damnation Alley that is the Luann Clan! 90% of the Crank commenters are snarkers, and a lot funnier than the strip’s been in 20+ years. “Those miserable people” are the maybe 10% who are just bitter old people, and if you check their profiles, this is all they do. Just go to strips and complain about complaints. The type that walks into a store they’ve never shopped at, already demanding to see the manager.
Luann’s GC comments I read once, as it had a character I didn’t know. I got halfway through the featured comment and bailed. Just screaming and invective over nada. Those people be bugshit, man. If they flip out at the tiniest disagreement, why don’t they Not read it Start their own strip No YOUR the not funy guy?
Thanks for linking The Police videos. One of my favorite bands of all time. Their peak covered my formative years in high school and college.