Don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Crankshaft awards! See a list of nominees here. Vote here.
Voting closes Friday!
In the meantime, longtime commenter and snarker hitorque popped back up and said something that once again got me musing on the metaphysics of the Funkyverse.
We’ve talked a lot about Batiuk’s beliefs and potential lack thereof. Normally he treats religious/metaphysical questions like a pseudoprayer given before a multicultural family reunion. Vague, big tent, feel good, theism with just enough winks and nods to agnostic toleration to make all but the most militant atheists feel mostly at ease.
Which is fine, IMO. I hate Batiuk the most when he’s thumbing his nose at traditionalists. I prefer him playing coy.
And for a guy notorious for having a world where everyone thinks the same, looks the same, and talks the same, there’s hints that he made an honest attempt to give his characters differing philosophical viewpoints without making any of them (except Roberta, of course) a strawman loser.
Some couples did get married in churches. Fred and Ann Fairgood, Pam and Jeff Murdoch, Crazy Harry and Donna Klinghorn, Bull and Linda Bushka (Until food poisoning from rotten ranch pizza interfered.)
Pam, Jeff, and Lillian seem to have the most hints of long term church involvement, with some arcs dedicated to them doing church activities outside of Christmas, but they’re not the only ones that have lined a pew or made an offhand reference to a higher power.
Funky himself was for a time, pretty solidly agnostic, and even had an arc in 2004 dedicated to philosophical musings with Wade.
And for those of you in the ‘Batty Pro Atheist’ camp, he did have Funky quietly pick up church attendance later in life. So make what of that you will.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: the “Les Takes Steroids (But It Was A Dream All Along)” 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 which puts you at a greater risk of a heart attack, increase in blood pressure, shortened lifespan, when you get off of steroids your testosterone levels plummet)
And Batiuk found a way to make this otherwise serviceable story about his comic books. Christ, it never ends, does it?
Another bungled Batiuk premise. Instead of telling everyone it was a dream sequence three panels in, he could have drawn it out for weeks. Les goes on the juice, becomes swole, turns into an asshole bully sporto, while his old pals beg and plead with him to stop. There was real potential there. But, as is typical, he opted to go with football, gym rope, comic book, the end. Such a lazy, lazy man.
You’ll notice the story really isn’t about Les at all. He shows up, does a couple bits about his situation, and wakes up. A better storyteller (i.e., almost anyone) would have made this story about Les’ transformation.
“We want our jerk back” is a common variation of this kind of story. Les transforms into a jock, only to make the world realize that he was actually less annoying as a nerd. Maybe Les himself even preferred his true self to his chemically-enhanced self. Or, Les’ cheating for muscles blows up in his face, like happened in one good Spongebob episode. There are so many things you could do with it.
But Batiuk’s thinking is too simplistic. He has no ability to make his stories human. He has no concept of self-awareness, which one would need to process the situations he writes himself into. Either everything is completely superficial, like it was in this story, or he deus ex machinas himself into an ending that doesn’t require anyone to go home and rethink their lives. Especially not Les.
Exactly. He could have joined Bull’s little gang and become a bully himself. Or maybe Cindy Summers suddenly liked him, but for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, though, those would have been stories with clever premises, actual events, and a clear resolutions. And Batiuk doesn’t really do that, being the worst writer who’s ever lived and all.
“We won the midwest pizza competition, and all-expenses paid trip to Italy…” Christ, it never ends, does it?
That story arc was at least ambitiously dopey. The Montoni’s pizza team won with a “gazpacho pizza”… since the pie went uncooked after their oven was sabotaged. Especially fun was the implication that Funky and Co. were such dolts that they didn’t notice the oven was off until right before the judging.
The Montoni’s pizza team won with a “gazpacho pizza”… since the pie went uncooked after their oven was sabotaged. Especially fun was the implication that Funky and Co. were such dolts that they didn’t notice the oven was off until right before the judging.
That was in 2006, Funky and Tony lost the competition in 2004
They won a trip to Italy for winning a regional pizza competition?! Ridiculous! It would have been stretching credibility had the prize been a tour of the Teaneck Armory…
One could argue that TB’s most anti-religious statement is making Lillian, a character most definitely on the Mount Rushmore of Batiukverse monsters, the most avid churchgoer among the cast…
And without Lillian, we wouldn’t have had witnessed the death of the church organist in mid-service. Carted away in an ambulance with apparently no family or prayers present.
Today’s Crankshaft
HOLY SHIT IS THAT MADAM MARIE!?
Wait, what was the strip about again?
Given that Tuxedo Mask escorted Lisa to the afterlife, the word that comes to mind is kitbashing. He believes in everything and nothin.
I only want to discuss religion through Dinkle’s Seeing God experience.
HARRY, rummaging through Becky’s medicine cabinet because, oh and like it surprises you that he would: “HA! A whole jar of gummy bears! She’s probably saving them for her band members, and I HATE kids!” (eats whole thing, not noticing the label says “Medical Use ONLY for Pain of No Arm. THC 18%”)
DINKLE, 60 minutes later: “I AM THE GOD! MY SWEATY FACE IS CONTORTED WITH THE JUICES OF JESUS!!”
DINKLE, 62 minutes later: “SAAAVE ME SAINT LISA! OH SAAAVE me, flooded trombones! Oh, wait–I hear the music of the angelic choir! It’s…Claude Barlow. KILL ME NOW, GHOST OF PHIL HOLT!”
Every Harry Dinkle story arc makes me more religious. I pray for it to end as soon as possible.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
You are suave, sophisticated, and erudite. You must have a secret, hidden muse. I wonder what his name is?
Thank you! You are most kind.
My muse? Charles Shaw, also known as Two Buck Chuck? 🍷
Of course! How could I forget Two Buck Chuck. 🥃
Tom’s theology is like all his opinions: As dull as dishwater, as bland as pablum, as thin as gruel, and as other cliched similes that Tom would use on his road trip to Damascus. He finds that safe middle ground, and that’s the hill he’s not gonna die on. He’ll stand there bravely alongside that Canada wildfires strip run months later with the word balloons blotted out!
Of course Lisa’s in Heaven, well “Duh,” as God would say. Phil Holt is in Heaven, until he isn’t, because…He needed to come back, as he was such a beloved character? Bull’s in HELL because a jock made fun of Tom still reading comics in 8th grade. Jesus would never give up on a grudge formed in 1961! Bull Bushka BURNS, in the pit next to Dr Wertham and Tom’s Mom.
Wait…
“Bull and Linda Bushka (Until food poisoning from rotten ranch pizza interfered.)”
So. A week slamming Bull during Bull’s fucking funeral wasn’t enough? Tom had to ruin their wedding too, because why should anyone Tom dislikes have a good day?
And there is his God. It’s Tom. He is the Eternal Judge. That is the beginning and end of his theology.
(I assume the poisoned pizza was Montoni’s. Did anyone see where Les was before it was served?)
The poisoned pizza was indeed Montoni’s, and Les was part of the wedding party, but didn’t poison the pizza with expired ranch
According to the August 1st, 2006 strip, It was Rachel who done it (unintentionally)
My favorite strip in that week is this one:
Just note how smug Les looks in panel 2 and when Bull mentions that he doesn’t have cold feet, he starts feeling the effects of food poisoning
Thanks for the link to that story arc, @csroberto2854. A refresher for old folks like me. If I don’t remember it, it’s new to me.
Why is Rachel, a waitress, making a pizza? Why is she entrusted, especially when it is such an “important occasion”? I’m guessing it’s because the misogynistic Batty likes blaming women for disasters (see ‘Backpfeifengesicht Award for Most Punchable Les Moore’ nominee ‘Women, Amirite?’). He needed a scapegoat and he chose Rachel.
Tony proudly lists the ingredients of his new pizza invention that Rachel is making. Ranch dressing? Caramelized onions? Almonds? Yuk. It would probably make me sick, even if the ranch dressing wasn’t spoilt. Not one of your more inspired pizza recipes, Tony. Back to the drawing board. Bleah!
Btw, NOBODY PURPOSELY SERVES PIZZA AT A WEDDING RECEPTION, BATTY! You weirdo.
I wonder how many couples have exchanged wedding vows at Luigi’s.
Holding wedding ceremonies in a pizza restaurant. That’s an odd fetish, Batty.
Montoni’s is the Circle of Life. You’re born there (or in one of their delivery cars), work there, and get married there. The Poison Pizza arc just barely missed “and then you die in misery there.”
(“Getting married dressed as Batman and Robin when you’re 2 of the few characters who’ve never shown an interest in comics” is maybe more fetishistic)
I’ve actually enjoyed these repeats. They really are a quarter-inch from reality: Just exaggerated enough to make them both recognizable and funny. And the art’s so much better! Look at the Rana gets Adopted arc. Outside of 1 hatchet mouth, Becky’s expressions are perfect. I’ve always wondered if there was a precise point where the strip went to hell. Maybe here, when Dinkle the Jerk becomes Dinkle the Sweetheart (who’s a bigger fucking jerk. I’ve seen people quit jobs after a “prank” like his. Of course, they say “What, can’t you take a joke?!” as the victim storms away to the Labor Board)
Then I read what followed the end of Poison Pizza. Is this when it became All Lisa’s Cancer All of the Time? Even though it’s really about how Les is the perfect husband and the true saint.
That’s a good question. I don’t have a clear line on when FW jumped the shark, but it might be interesting to try and identify one. Was there one “last good arc”?
I can identify the exact episode when I decided “This isn’t funny anymore” with the Simpsons. (Season 8)
As for Funky, don’t ask me! From c.1995, when I stopped getting the paper, to whenever syndicate comics suddenly became a web thing (late 2000s?), I never read it. But my guess would be the Grand Canyon arc.
https://www.gocomics.com/funky-winkerbean/2006/08/07
Is the last panel retconning? Look at how pasted-in the balloons at the bottom look. Maybe it was added to explain why Lisa went from a full head of hair to chemo-bald so abruptly. Although, “It’s so HOT!” with her wig sweatier than Dinkle’s seeing GOD face is a tip-off. Then her hair’s back! This could’ve been done organically, with her saying “It’s so hot, I’m taking my wig off!” in front of confused airport strangers. Followed by her later saying she’ll put it back on. But that’s our Tom! We know everything he knows, except the things he always forgets himself.
billthesplut:
Most people on SoSF would say FW started going downhill at the beginning of ACT II and massively cratered by the end of ACT III.
In my opinion, Crankshaft started to go downhill in the mid-2010s when TB attempted to feature Loathsome Lil as a more likable writer avatar. It was like converting Dracula into a Sunday School teacher. The vile one took over the strip for weeks on end in several incredibly dull story arcs.
Crankshaft is still going downhill, but there’s a silver lining to the Dinkle and Skip Rawlings story arcs this year. We’ve seen a lot less of Lillian.
Number of Loathsome Lil’s appearances so far in 2025: 3 👍
It was like converting Dracula into a Sunday School teacher.
And around that time, he did the same with Dinkle. Maybe he was trying to soften Dink’s image to increase merchandising opportunities? But I thought the idea that appealed to America’s most cherished consumer demographic, teens in school bands, only “liked” him because he was a screaming martinet. But Lillian too? He took perfectly adequate villains and comic foils and made the all live on the Planet of the Toms. “Ratatouille” came out in 2007. Did Tom decide every bad guy needed an Anton Ego heel-to-hero turn?
And who are the bad guys after that? The anonymous, vaguely motivated Angry Blob-Mob of the Burnings? Whatever the hell Frankie was supposed to be? I’ve never seen one, but I think “reality show” and “following someone around town filming without their knowledge or consent” counts as “stalking.” (Add “release forms” to the list of things Tom knows nothing about, therefore making him an expert) Who’d watch that show anyway? At the water cooler: “Did you see the latest episode of ‘Wally walks around Medina’ last night? He almost went into the McArnolds!”
Now, the worst is Lena. Her coffee’s bad! Let’s treat her as if she were a high school nerd! Or Bull, who was bad because he treated high school nerds bad! But became a good guy, because he begged Les for forgiveness. And then again a bad guy, because he begged Les for forgiveness not goodly enough.
But become a published author and you’re aces! Yeah, Tom, you know who ELSE was a published author?! WINSTON CHURCHILL!! …wait, some other WWII guy. Mustache like he always had a whole leaf of spinach stuck in his front teeth…German guy, what was his name–
OH YEAH! Fredric Wertham!
billthesplut:
Clearly, the biggest villain in the entire Batiukverse is Tom Batiuk himself. You can see the evidence in the Crankshaft Award nominees. What other selfish cad would ever dream of putting Best Actress Award Winner Les Moore, Harry Dinkle and Loathsome Lil in the same comic strip.😱😱😱😱😱
Skip Rawlings interviewing Batton Thomas for weeks on end.😱😱😱😱😱
There’s some major league evil genius super villainy going on there.
Don’t forget that Montoni’s is the “Pizza Parlor of Love”. After all, look at how many happy couples involved Montoni’s in their nuptials.
Bull and Linda? Bull developed CTE and killed himself!
Les and Lisa? Lisa got cancer and died!
Wally and Becky? Wally was presumed killed so Becky shacked up with Skunk Head, and tossed Wally to the curb once it turned out he was actually alive!
Fred and Ann? Turns out Ann secretly loathed Fred for decades!
Funky and Holly? Hm, okay, despite both of them turning into potato people, they’re still together and seem to be as happy as anyone gets in the Batiukverse.
That’s… quite the track record for the “Pizza Parlor of Love”…
The Pizza Parlor of Horror.
You made it seem like fat potato people Funky and Holly fed on the misery of others. There’s a scenario a talented writer could have used. Stephen King or Clive barker writes Funky Winkerbean.
Let’s not forget, Funky is once-divorced and a recovering alcoholic. Holly has an abusive mother and has suffered third degree burns over much of her body.
Has any comics creator tortured his characters as much as TB? The richest person in Westview is the trauma counselor.
Today’s Crankshaft
This week is dull even for Batiuk standards
“Success courts disaster even more than failure does.”
Wow, that could be Batiuk’s epitaph.
Today’s Past Batiukverse Strips: 1989 Act I week-long storyline where Holly and Melinda remince about Holly’s days as a kid practicing with a baton
Holly: I’m only doing this because my mommy told me to.
Pointless bit of information: I headcanon that Holly’s father died when Holly was around 3-4 years old
SOMEBODY CALL SOCIAL SERVICES ASAP
FORCING YOUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-AGED KID TO DO SHIT LIKE THAT IS ILLEGAL
Thanks for sharing these old strips CS, they demonstrate how far this strip has fallen. Like BJ2000 mentioned above, it’s hard to tell when exactly this strip jumped the shark. My opinion is that once he was nominated for a Pulitzer he felt validated as a professional artist and so he then felt free to indulge in his own interests and revenge fantasies. This was the jump the shark moment.
i would agree with that interpretation. The Pulitzer nomination validated him as a “serious writer”, and after that Batiuk saw jokes as beneath him.
Today’s Crankshaft
I have a hard time snarking on this strip as of lately because it’s dull
Today’s Past Batiukverse Strips: a Week-long storyline in Funky Winkerbean where Les gets his revenge on Bull Bushka at the fair
Les’s expression in panel 3 reminds me of the Trollface meme
I love how Les’s demeanor goes from “I DID IT I GOT MY REVENGE! to “WHAT HAVE I DONE I’M ABSOLUTELY FUCKED NOW” in a matter of seconds
Anonymous Sparrow,
1. I trust you have done your due diligence and voted on the Cranky awards?
2. This week’s Crankshaft involves sleazy politicians, drunk driving, and *senseless* murders. Somebody is in need of Perry Mason. But not the late 1950’s version. I recommend the mid-1930’s character played superbly by Walter William. To me, he is more bon vivant than Raymond Burr. (No criticism of the great Burr!) 1930’s Mason is recognizable everywhere. He hangs with celebrities and powerful people. He is a gourmet chef. (If one likes crab!🦀) I am guessing, these films would be considered B films, maybe a step higher than the Falcon series. That brings out a wonderful bit of trivia. Alan Jenkins plays a sidekick as Spudsy Drake PI with Perry. He plays Goldy Locke in the Falcon series. [side trivia: Barbara Hale is in 2 Tom Conway Falcon movies.]
The scripts have money put into them. It is said that the films follow Gardner’s plots pretty well. William’s films are set in San Francisco rather than LA. I guess they were worried that Timemop would put the California FW fires🔥 back into the 30’s. But saying that, the 1906 SF earthquake was less than 30 years before. [2nd side trivia: I think it was *One Step Beyond 1960* that does a great job on the SF earthquake. Not to mention,
* San Francisco* starring Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald 1936 that puts it at roughly the same time as the Perry Mason films.]
Well, sir. Always great talking to you.
Être ou ne pas être, mais se séparer est toujours un tel chagrin!
SP
SP:
It is with a heavy heart that I confess to skipping the voting for Crankshaft. Much as I love following the commentary here, I can’t always seem to see a need to check out the strips on a daily basis.
(I imagine that if Batiuk had to define what he did with his longest-running strips, he’d say something like Oscar Wilde: “I put my talent into Crankshaft and my genius into Funky Winkerbean.”)
Ricardo Cortez played Sam Spade and Perry Mason, and Humphrey Bogart was Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Warren William seems to have cornered the market on mystery-fiction heroes: a renamed Sam Spade in “Satan Met a Lady,” Perry Mason, Philo Vance (“Philo Vance/needs a kick in the pance,” wrote Ogden Nash) and the Lone Wolf.
Sort of like Reginald Owen playing both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (in different pictures, of course).
William is also in “Gold Diggers of 1933,” a nifty Busby Berkeley musical (he doesn’t sing), and the 1934 version of “Imitation of Life.”
One of the best comments on Gardner’s Perry Mason series I’ve ever read is that you don’t read Gardner for style or characterization, but for pace, plotting and the legal lore which the TV series couldn’t always accxommodate.
He compensated for that with the Bertha Cool-Donald Lam series, which allowed him (as A.A. Fair) to have some fun with the genre and the nine novels featuring D.A. Doug Selby. (He stopped writing those at the end of the 1940s I’m not sure why: maybe he found it more rewarding to stick with Mason and Cool & Lam.)
Gardner also wrote Western stories, but I don’t think he had any success with them in other media, in contrast with Elmore Leonard, whose “3:10 to Yuma” inspired two excellent movies. (I saw the 1957 version recently.) Not to mention giving us source material for “The Tall T,” “Hombre” and “Valdez Is Coming.”
I was at a performance of Henry IV (both parts, artfully compressed into one performance) on Sunday, so I should exit with something from Shakespeare en francais, but someone very important invoked Napoleon recently, and I’ll quote Marechal Foch instead:
Les avions sont des jouets intéressants mais n’ont aucune utilité militaire
AND:
Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j’attaque.
Il nous faut de Sorialpromise, et encore de Sorialpromise, et toujours de Sorialpromise…
Anonymous Sparrow,
With apologies to George M. Cohan:
💖Ma mère vous remercie. Mon Père vous remercie. Et bien sûr tout particulièrement, Sorial Promise vous remercie!💗
What would I do without Google translate?
1. Thank you for the heads up about Earle Stanley Gardner. I will purchase *the Knife Slipped* tonight from Kindle.
2. TUBI has many old movies. I am currently enjoying the 1930’s Perry Mason, and the 1940’s Falcon with Tom Conway. I have seen Philo Vance movies available. I will check them out.
3. I just watched last month, *Chimes at Midnight* directed by Orson Welles. I went over to my daughter’s house. We both enjoy Shakespeare. Henry the V is my favorite. I was shocked to find the real Henry the V died so young, not unlike Alexander the Great. Different causes however.
4. I quite understand your reluctance to vote on CS. MR. Batiuk has forsaken quality since he gave up FW in 2022. It is just my opinion, but I believe I could throw a dart blindfolded, and any particular strip could qualify as the worst ever Crankshaft.
5. But that’s why I converse with you.
You brighten…
You enlighten…
You don’t frighten…
In my book, you are…alright in!
Love and respect!
💝💜💖🫂🌺💐🌹
SP:
My father was an ardent francophile, but confessed that when he saw the Olivier “Henry V” and heard the king say “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” he would have gladly massacred the French.
I prefer the Branagh version, especially the scene in which the French princess, having learned a few English phrases, bounds into the presence of her careworn father (Paul Scofield, who won an Oscar for playing Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons”).
For all the emphasis in Shakespeare on how shaken and wan Henry IV is, he lived to be 45, while his son died at 34. (He also reigned longer, from 1399 until 1413, while his son fell short of a decade, reigning from 1413 until 1422.) I liked your comparison with Alexander the Great (or Alexander the Pig, as Fluellen calls him in Henry V — “pig, great, what’s the difference?”). What both did was impressive, but not long-lasting.
“Chimes at Midnight” allowed me an opportunity to ask Welles’s daughter why Falstaff was so stunned at the new King’s rejection. The audience has known from early on that Henry the King will be different from Hal the Prince, and Falstaff is not a stupid man. He should have expected that he would not be hailed and embraced.
Her answer was that it was the suddenness of it all, which I liked. Had Falstaff come to him after the coronation, he might have had a kinder reception…and possibly even gotten to go to France in the continuation, instead of going to sleep in Arthur’s bosom.
It was Philo Vance’s success in the movies, I think, which led his creator to keep chronicling his exploits after he’d initially decided to write six novels and then call it a day. The books after *The Kennel Murder Case* are very uneven: Vance belonged to the Roaring Twenties (the first four novels came out in 1926-29) and when he got a radio show after the movies had ceased (and S.S. Van Dine had died, in 1939), his affectations were no longer as appealing, and his radio self is not one to say “‘pon my word” or to reach for his Regie cigarettes. (He also has a woman secretary, which the ascetic Vance would never have even considered.) He’s much more of a private investigator, rather than the casual observer D.A. Markham invites to come along.
*The Knife Slipped” is a Cool & Lam I haven’t read, so I will be interested in your reaction, should you wish to share it.
Feel free to “fry me for an oyster,” as Bertha Cool would say.
The mystery series I need to return to is Marcia Muller’s chronicles of Sharon McCone. I found one of the post-*Walk through the Fire* novels over the weekend and realized that it had been over twenty years since I’d seen Sharon at work. To rewrite Mr. Knightley of *Emma,* I wonder what has become of her!
And, then, perhaps, an Agatha Crispy, so Pam (or Pmmm) can ask me what I’m reading…
Cry God for Harry, England and Sorialpromise!
Anonymous Sparrow,
“Cry havoc! Let loose the wit of Anonymous Sparrow!” (It might sound even more forceful in the original Klingon.)
1. *the Knife Slipped* As promised I did purchase on Kindle last night. I am surprised that of Gardner’s other books with the exception of Mason, few are available on Kindle. Perhaps that will change. I will have to work the book into my reading schedule. Currently, I am reading the philosophy of Rebbe Schneerson as written by his emanuensis Rabbi Simon Jacobson. Both were and are from New York, perhaps you have bumped into them. The Rebbe’s philosophy reads along well with the psychiatrist Victor Frankl in the book, *Man’s Search for Meaning*. In my adolescent school group in my psych hospital, I often used Dr. Frankl’s book to challenge the kids to not give up.
2. My other reading book is James Joyce, *Ulysses*. I have tried this book about a thousand times. I started it again. Then one of my connections on LinkedIn, @Barbara Fiore, a happiness coach in Italy, said she was starting the book again. I wrote her and we are holding each other accountable. Hopefully. I started section II, and have just met Leopold Bloom for my very first time.
3. But I will insert *the Knife Slipped* into the mix. I will probably get all 3 plots mixed up in my head.
4. We both mentioned Alexander the Great or Pig in some circles. I recently finished my edition of the Book of Daniel. It will be published with the other prophets from the Old Testament. Alexander is referred to a couple of times in Daniel’s book. Later, his political descendants are heavily involved in Israel’s history. One in particular Antiochus Epiphanes is called the little horn in Daniel 8:9. He sacrifices a pig! in Israel’s second temple. This guy is so important that the Gospel of Matthew and the Revelation of the Apostle John see him as the coming Antichrist.
5. I am impressed you met Welles’ daughter. Orson is easily my favorite director. *Touch of Evil* uncut is one of my favorite films. As you know, Robert Altman’s *the Player* gives homage with its opening scene to Touch of Evil’s opening.
6. You and I are probably the last 2 people on this post. So I feel I can share this next part with you.
I don’t believe SOSF can continue much longer. That it has lasted this long is a tribute to the 4 people maintaining this site. They are absolutely wonderful. But the problem is the strip’s author. TB is running on fumes. Either due to his advanced age or to a total absence of talent. So my point is this. I have enjoyed our correspondence on this site. Should you ever wish to continue it, you can feel free to write an email to me (absolutely no obligation!) at:
oldesalte@hotmail.com
My actual name, I believe you already know it is
Christopher Vaughan
Kearney, Missouri
Until next time!
On the surface, it does seem that TB has a sort of vague Midwestern religiosity — not the kind that makes you go to church, though.
But dig deeper — how could there be an entity greater than Tom? Wiser and smarter than Tom? More all-knowing than Tom? Greater even than Les, Lisa, and TimeMop put together? Nope — no way such an entity could exist. Therefore, TB is functionally an atheist.
Side note: I think Ward is one of my favorite Funkyverse characters. He’s the only Act 2 or 3 character I would be willing to hang out with IRL. He doesn’t mope, pout, or rage; he doesn’t find doom and depression in the tiniest setbacks; he isn’t a pompous narcissist; he doesn’t obsess over his past glories or bits of pop culture. He seems more or less at peace with himself and the world.
I guess that’s why he had to go.
His name is Wade, not Ward
D’OH! Right you are.
Ward is my favourite character … for having the good sense not to appear in any of Batiuk’s strips. Excellent work, Ward!
Today’s Crankshaft
DEAR GOD NOT THE LIZARD LILIAN ANYTHING BUT THAT
20 years ago, Lillian would have been scowling at Ed for his response and inability to give the proper taxonomical names to the birds.
Yeah, I’ll take the hit for that one. I had to open my big mouth yesterday and mention we haven’t been seeing much of the gargoyle this year. Hopefully it’s just a one-off Sunday. As my mom used to say, “Speak of the Devil, and you’ll smell brimstone every time.”
Sorry about that.
Funky went to Alcoholics Anonymous, where the Twelve Steps program contains a spiritual component. His finding religion later in life actually makes sense even if that’s not the reason given.