Murder In The Burnings: Reactions

“Murder In The Burnings” continues. Today, we see the town’s reactions to Les Moore’s shocking admission. You can read all previous installments under the Burnings tag.

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Author: Banana Jr. 6000

Yuck. The fritos are antiquated.

70 thoughts on “Murder In The Burnings: Reactions”

  1. Well done, these are some top-notch parody strips. Nothing beats a hilarious FW parody strip, at least as far as goofing on FW is concerned. “Less skilled me”…LOL. I always loved it when he did those strips that just begged to be parodied. Like years ago, when Cory was playing with bombs in the army, and he did one with Les and Funky and a silent third panel. I mean come on, he was just asking for it.

    1. I was not expecting the all-out visual extravaganza here! Considering the original source material that there was to work with, this is way more fun than I thought it could be… gold from straw!

  2. I wonder how Funky, Susan Smith, Wally, Keisha, Chien, Mooch, Darin, Mopey Pete and everyone else that Les knows reacted to Les admitting to letting Lisa die

    1. If you don’t like it, DONT REED IT!

      (pause)

      Sorry, that was the wrong index card of “What People Shriek When You Make Fun Of Crankshaft.” (chooses another card, clears throat)

      Here it is! “Then write your OWN comic! Write 18 months of demo strips for your corporate presentation, but make sure you have an AGENT! 10% of all your work’s income! THEN work on it for decades, THEN you can make mild jokes about Crankshaft!” Wait, here’s another card:

      “EAT POISON AND DIE!”

      Oh. That one’s new.

      1. Yeah, that was a new one from her today. No family, but eat cyanide. OK?

        I don’t know if you saw it elsewhere in today’s comments, but some other fingerwagger put up some so called “poem” to address the snarkers and that was removed mere hours later. Hers remains, though. Strange.

        1. Yes, some new commenter, Jen somebody. (Jenn Erica?)

          Only “lemonbaskt” and I responded. I mentioned the death threat, and Jenny’s long free-verse literary object went away. For those wondering, it was the NEXT index card of “What People Shriek When You Make Fun Of Crankshaft,” namely “Yor all sad miserabull people who I will projeck my life onto, because I CERTAINLY AM NOT doing that.” We who do not love Tom are just mad about our terrible, 9 to 5 lives of “druggery.” She ended with a paean that called Tom a literary genius, why did I not save that? It was beautiful.

          But now, it’s lost to the sands of time, like every part of Ozymandias above his ankles including his Tom-sized wiener.

          1. When I said “I mentioned the death threat,” I didn’t make one to her. Just said that’s where we are now with some commenters like DQ. Death threats over not liking a boring comic made for pumpernickel eaters. Maybe Jen realized “Hey, maybe I don’t want to be connected with that!” and wisely retreated.

    2. Everyone else would react the same way one of these characters did: betrayal (Linda), anger (the bus drivers), sadness (Lillian), curiosity (John Howard, Crazy Harry), shock (Marianne), prurient interest (Mason), denial (Cayla), and emotional devastation (Summer).

      People like Mooch and Chien have been gone from Westview for ages, so I doubt they’d care much, other than it being a reminder of their own pasts. Funky, Darin, Susan Smith, and Keisha are such ciphers that there wouldn’t be anything interesting in exploring them. Pete and Darin would never learn it happened, because it’s not in a comic book. Wally’s reaction could be interesting, because of his PTSD and the awful things he’s seen, but I don’t know enough about this kind of trauma to write it well. And again, Batiuk gives us nothing to work with.

      And the story is a long way from over.

      1. Any drama strip could get a week, or even months, of story from any of these reactions. The pizza-reeking Komix Koroner slobs treating it like a Netflix true crime show. The Dale Evans geezers just plain not caring, the same way they don’t about Ed’s inexplicable way of escaping repeated attempted vehicular homicide charges against children.

        Cayla and Linda realizing: Cayla was wrong, and Bull was right. Les is the cancer.

        Mason smugly telling Marianne that she wasn’t portraying an angel, but the real victim. Is this why she climbed the HOLLYWOOD sign? Lillian, thinking “How could he DO that to his own flesh and bloo–OH MY GOD! What did I do to my sister?!”

        Summer. She looks down from the high diving board at the deep end. “Three inches of frozen pond scum at the bottom. Maybe scum like me should join it. It…it’ll be easy enough to clean, just flush the pool out like a toilet.” She takes a few steps back, a lump in her throat. “Dad said I could change history. And I will! THE LINE ENDS HERE!” She runs full speed. Her last thought as she leaps in headfirst “Please don’t hurt long…”

        And what did we get? Tom bragging about how his auntie praised his coloring book skills 70 years ago.

        1. Yes, Lillian’s reaction has a lot to do with her own choices in life. She destroyed Lucy’s marriage, and then punished herself by refusing to marry. She can’t comprehend why anyone who is in love with someone would destroy them.

          With Summer, I was borrowing an idea from Watchmen. Laurie Juspieczyk realizes the man she justifiably hates (The Comedian) is her biological father. Summer can’t hate Les without also hating herself, because she literally *is* him. And her last act in Funky Winkerbean was to make herself even more of a clone of her father, by deciding she needed to write a book. A book about Westview. Which was a collection of inane stories about band candy and helmeted video gamers, and not the fact that the town legend was a complete and obvious fraud. As was her entire existence.

  3. Masone being almost gleeful over the news is great! You just know he’s imagining a grimdark re-quel to ‘Lisa’s Story’.

    Lisa’s Story: Retold!

    1. At first I wanted Mason’s expression to look shocked like some of the others, but as I was putting it together, I realized I loved it. Masone doesn’t actually care about Westview or anyone in it; it was just one of many projects over the years. In real life, he’d have moved on to owning a soccer team and a dubious cell phone provider by now. Or at least, his next movie, especially considering it’s supposed the Star Wars of this world. It’s also a nice contrast with Marianne, who at least has the humanity to be shocked at this news.

    2. Yes please I want to see Susan Smith in despair that Les Moore didn’t kill HER!

      1. I think she’d lose what little mind she had left if she figured out he didn’t think she was worth killing……and go totally Jack Ruby on his dumb ass.

      3. I’d like to think that part of Susan leaving so abruptly and apparently fleeing Westview was due to her realizing just how terrible Les is and how far away she had to get from him, and how much help she needed to get over him.

        So if she hears that he killed Lisa, she just shrugs and thinks “Yeah, I could buy that.”

  5. Does anyone think Batty is getting ready to retire? The recent Crankshaft arc seems to be a final lap. I wonder if Davis will just take over completely. Or does Batty have the right to close the strip?

    I am about ready to stop reading the comics altogether as Mary Worth is nothing but Wilbur now and Mark Trail has sucked since Jules took over. FW is living through Crankshaft and is even more dreary.

    1. Retire from what, exactly? From writing down whatever self-congratulatory self-interview crap wanders through his mind, and then having the thrill of seeing it reproduced one year later in print? From the only even vaguely successful thing he’s ever really done at all in his life? From the one thing that allows him to feel he has some sort of connection to the world of comics artistry — which is the only thing he cares about?

      He will keep writing comics until he dies, or until he is physically unable to do so. Or until the syndicate declares it unprofitable.

      When Tom Batiuk dies, Crankshaft dies — and vice versa.

    2. Unfortunately, no.

      We know of two things coming this year – Jeff goes to a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game, and a wedding. Ultimately, I think this is going to be another situation like Johnny Hart or Frank Bolle where only death itself brings this to an end, and then there’ll be an entire year’s backlog to publish once he dies.

    3. I don’t see any signs Batiuk is looking to retire. This kind of ego indulgence is pretty standard for the strip. But there also weren’t any signs in 2022 that Funky Winkerbean was about to end.

      1. I agree with Rusty that all the retrospecting we’ve been getting is sort of suspicious. Though we know we’ve at least got another year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got some end date in mind that he’s working towards. Yeah, he loves writing. But he could be telling himself that he can bribe Burchett into drawing whatever he wants on his blog as a salve to ease him into retirement. And retirement wouldn’t stop him from reaching out for back pats at conventions or book signings either.

        I also wouldn’t really be surprised if he’s prepared to go until death or the syndicate stop him.

        1. I don’t think his “work a year in advance” thing is some kind of Sisyphus-like curse. In other words, just because the calendar moves forward, he’s not compelled to write a strip, while dreading the next dawn. The last strip could happen this Saturday or it could happen in 2053.

          That said, I don’t think he will voluntarily retire. Where would he get the attention?

          1. I get the feeling his age is catching up to him and he just doesn’t have the energy for this anymore. Yeah, I can see him doing little blog posts and finishing up the collections of his strips.

            For sure he will remain a fixture at Luigi’s and the Akron ComicCon.

        2. Comic strips are still considered parvenus when they are twenty years old. I could make a comparison to a federal employee who is more likely to die on the job than be fired on it.

          I have really wondered about the ‘end game’ here too. Part of having a legacy is actually passing on your legacy, and we have heard that TB’s kid has no interest in it. This is in stark contrast to Luann, where the kid not only eventually became involved in the strip but seems to have taken it over, with the father still doing (lazy) art chores. Could TB Jr have a change of heart and still get involved at this late date? Maybe it would help if the strip was completely generic and the art was outsourced?

          I only wish he had a month’s worth of Crankshaft stuffed in a drawer somewhere “in the event of my demise” with a fully articulated sequence in which Crankshaft himself (gracelessly) expires.

          1. If Batiuk does have an “in the event of my death” ending written somewhere, it’ll be to render the comic strip useless, like he did with John Darling. He’s that petty.

  7. RE: Mon. 3/24’s Batton-Free Strip:

    There was an old Crankshaft who swatted a fly,
    I don’t know why he swatted a fly – perhaps he’ll die!

    1. Mercy of Mercies! The cops are here to eject Batton and Skip from the strip for a while.

    2. Considering Ed Crankshaft’s history with the authorities, why aren’t they just going in shooting?

      1. Well, speaking as a seasoned Batiuk interpreter, I don’t believe the action in Panel One is actually happening. He’s setting up his Benchleyeque wordplay by showing a “SWAT team” demanding the target leave the house, then switching to Ed swatting at David Hedison. Knowing TB as I do, there’s a good chance the whole week could be filled with these two-panel punfests. Still, it beats “My Free Meal with Skip.”

          1. Yeah, but I didn’t want to confuse people. Fun Fact: I met Mr. Hedison at a horror film con in the late ’90s. He signed a “The Fly” poster “Help me! Al (David) Hedison”

  9. These alternate strips are actually quite good… There’s some potential here!

    Sunday Krankenschaaften was just… Ugh… You’d think Batton Thomas would have infinitely more interesting and unique stories to tell about his art career besides some goddamned coloring book from his childhood and a comment from his aunt — That is a story which has already happened to most people in one variation or another anyway…

    Maybe Batton got dragged into doing political cartoons for the paper until they got too inflammatory… Maybe he was commissioned to sketch nudes of Madonna before she became famous and just wanted to build a portfolio… Maybe he had a fight with an editor after being told to censor one of his daily strips… I dunno, give me something, anything! I’m trying to work with Batiuk here…

    1. I couldn’t help noticing that if was his aunt who saw his color-mismatch and decided to praise it…not his mother. Batton’s mother doesn’t seem to figure in any of his reminiscences.

      1. I wonder if it really was his mother, but “Batton” is retelling the story as it being his aunt, so as not to give his mother any positive role in his comic book-centric life story. He’s really that petty.

        1. Banana:

          In Milan Kundera’s novel *Life Is Elsewhere,* we have an example of Jaromil, a young poet, and his mother/editor.

          In one of his first efforts, when he is still a child, Jaromil writes: “Ugly Anna stole a banana.”

          Mother, while impressed with her son’s precocious poetic genius, changes it to: “Our dear Anna loves a banana.”

          If you’re unfamiliar with Kundera, you will no doubt Swoon when you realize that he muses on Kitsch in one of his other works, assuming you haven’t already gone Ruby in your Lith.

          Or Amber…

          (Winnipeg Blue Bombers fans should know that Canada to date has only Nobel Laureate in Literature and it is not Margaret Atwood, but Alice Munro.)

  10. I don’t get today’s Krankenschaaften… I know it’s a daily occurrence for someone to call 911 and send firefighters and/or paramedics to his house, but I’m having trouble imagining what made a neighbor or a member of Eduard’s household call 911 and request SWAT just from Ed trying to kill a housefly? Was he cussing too loud? Making too much commotion? Breaking too many things? Was he making terroristic threats out of frustration to nobody in particular?

    1. It’s been documented that if there’s an accident, the best thing to do isn’t yell “Dial 911!” but either do it yourself, or point at someone and yell “YOU! DIAL 911!” if you are actually capable of helping the victim.

      Two years ago I had a slip&fall in the shower. Five broken bones, and…Yes, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” I heard my downstairs neighbor in his bathroom, so I screamed “CALL 911!” For two fuckin’ hours. He heard me, he just didn’t super care. The neighbor across the hall came to walk his dog, and he mildly mentioned it, as in “It’s getting annoying, all that yelling in pain.” SHE called 911, after banging on my doors and calling me. Two cops and two paramedics came. And…my brother-in-law? (The cops called him; not sure why)

      At any rate, if the 2nd neighbor hadn’t by chance offered to walk that guy’s dog, I could’ve Gene Hackman-ed to death in there. If it’d happened in a busy parking lot, people would’ve filmed it for their ‘gram, and then done nothing. The cops should be so used to emergency calls to the Ed residence that they’d ignore it. Of course, in CS, this may or may not be actually happening. (I’m guessing it isn’t, but Tom forgets what he writes as he’s writing it, so it may morph into something real by week’s end)

      Maybe the cops will bring a K9, and Ed will joke “Does he bite? LOL” How detached from reality can you be that your random story about insulting a therapy dog doesn’t lead to you questioning yourself?

      1. My brain malfunctioned when I read this, and I somehow flipped it into the Les Moore version–the neighbor was the one who slipped, and you were the one grousing about all the yelling. (Glad it didn’t happen that way.)

  11. Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: Cindy Spends New Years Eve With Les At McArnolds

    If cindy were to call me for a date, I’m immediately telling her to go to hell

    Stealth 💯

    seriously, i can identify her because of that ridiculous hairstyle

    Les: Who you’re calling a nobody?

    Cindy: Get out of my sight! Get your ass to the rest of the nobodies where you fucking deserve to be! I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

    Like Les, I’ve never been invited to parties (though because I’m not very a social person and I don’t care about popularity)

    I’m saying it again: If I were Les, there would be ABSO-FUCKIN’-LUETY NOTHING stopping me from telling the school that Cindy couldn’t get a date for New Years Eve and spent it with me and I would watch as Cindy’s popularity go down the shitter with sadistic glee

    Les: You were throwing a tantrum and you were throwing shit around until I arrived.

    Carrie: I hope not, because she’s been a real bitch lately.

    Les: Good. Because if you pull off something like attempting to murder Wicked Wanda just because Carrie was in love with her, then I’m telling the entire school what we did on New Year’s Eve.

    1. I’m saying it again: If I were Les, there would be ABSO-FUCKIN’-LUETY NOTHING stopping me from telling the school that Cindy couldn’t get a date for New Years Eve and spent it with me and I would watch as Cindy’s popularity go down the shitter with sadistic glee

      Act II Les? That’s absolutely what he would have done.

      Act III Les? He would throw a party every year to rub it in.

      Act I Les? I actually think he would do the decent thing and say nothing. Until he formed the pupa, and metamorphized into the Act II boreworm Les.

    4. Now this is decent comic strip writing. Yes, very John Hughes (without the creepy stuff…) It’s got a beginning, middle, and end; the characters stay true to their natures but bend just enough to make a story, and plausibly go back to the status quo at the end. It would make a good sitcom episode. I would follow this strip…

  14. JB6 – if I may be so informal as a very infrequent commenter – these parody strips are brilliant. I can understand the idea that each one could be a full week – but with all due respect I think it’s better this way. Just a series of one-off reactions, and total fan service.

    That said, I think the reason my response is so late is that the line “Les never washes his junk” genuinely disturbed me and I had to take a step back because it put images in my head that I didn’t really want. Ever.

    Nevertheless – Rating: Five stars out of five! Thanks for this whole BURNINGS mishegas; it’s great fun.

    1. “Les never washes his junk”

      What if Funky Wink…(rolls eyes) I mean “Three O’Clock High”–yeah, there’s a title that leaps off the comics page–was made today?

      Would Les be a lonely nerd? Or some incel trying to pick up Cindy through negging, and never wipe after pooping “because THAT’S GAY!” He’d probably have a podcast and a TikTok where he’d claim he had Asperger’s. Who’d read FW2.0?

      Why did he nuke John Darling from orbit? Were there offers to resurrect that bomb comic in the last 35 years? He couldn’t even get anyone to draw FW at the end. Not a single up-and-coming cartoonist wanted it on their CV? The comic book and video game industries are infamous for hiring young creatives in order to work them to death for shit pay, because the noobs will be in a Cool Job. But not our Tom. No one took that bait. He’s said to be nice at cons, but there he’s selling you something.

      You may all return to imagining Mr Moore’s taint.

    2. About that last strip: remember the context of the video Cayla’s watching. Lisa made a video called “For The Other Woman”, in anticipation of Les taking a new partner, and wanting to give her advice. And, in a real FW strip, Summer watched enough of it to know it was highly personal. So this is the kind of gross topic that might come up. See also Law Of Conservation Of Detail.

  16. Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: Melinda forces Holly to go to prom with her

    I went to prom during my senior year, and it was dull for me (I just walked around)

    Holly: SHUT THE FUCK UP, MOTHER!! I SAID I WANT TO GO HOME!

    Melinda: YOU HAVE NO SAY IN ANYTHING!! I SAY WE’RE CRUSING AROUND AND WE’RE CRUSING AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD OR ELSE I’M GOING TO MURDER YOUR FRIENDS!!

    Holly: You just want to live vicariously through me, Mother!

    1. Melinda Budd is another Funkyverse character I believe to be genuinely mentally ill.

      In Act I, “mom takes her child to prom” might have flown as a comedic exaggeration. But the age of “a quarter inch from reality”, and also helicopter parenting and Karens, it looks sick and abusive. And as late as 2021, Batiuk brought Melinda back, to bully Holly into doing a cheerleading performance where she got seriously injured. Which the story completely ignored. She should have at least been thrown out of Funky’s house over that. At LEAST.

      1. Was there ever a prom in the strip where people enjoyed themselves? So far the view seems to be “the prom is miserable and you’re lucky if you don’t go.”

    2. “The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons” says Jean Renoir. A cute idea and mostly decent followup but i’m almost surprised to see them buried under the word balloon in the last piece. I get wanting to present the other side of the story but technically there’s got to be a better way.

      1. Loved the allusion to Jean Renoir’s “La Regle du Jeu,” especially since Film Forum is in the midst of a Rene Clair retrospective.

        Vive Le Mauvais Loup!

    3. cs, Keep finding these! I was thinking “Maybe I only liked Act I Funky was because I was in middle school, and 7th graders are dumb.” But I see that once, the strip was funny! For years!

      Maybe they haven’t aged well–But what does? It is from it’s time. The 70s were like this. I remember back then my sisters watching Happy Days, and saying to my parents “The 1950s must’ve been SO GREAT!” And my parents looking at them in horror. “NO, THEY WEREN’T!”

    4. The last strip shows Batiuk’s weakness. The sequence works as humor if you don’t think about Melinda’s motivations too deeply. It’s all about her embarrassing Holly by trying to do something she thinks is nice for her, which is twisted because Melinda’s insane. But her insanity doesn’t matter because it’s just goofy and in service of the humor.

      The problem comes with the tonal whiplash in the final strip where Batiuk tries to give realistic-ish motivations for Melinda to do this, which both changes our reaction to the earlier strips and changes how we’re supposed to view Melinda’s insanity. It stops being funny and starts being weird and sad. You can’t go back over the previous strips and laugh at them after the final strip because the rationale underneath all the actions is serious. It’s no longer simply about Holly’s embarrassment. It’s about Melinda’s grief, regret and maternal feelings, and the insanity that they manifest in her.

      Craziness can be funny in a story, until it becomes part of a larger, damaging psychiatric issue. It was like how Batiuk tried to get us to laugh at Bull’s CTE symptoms that ultimately led him to suicide.

      1. Melinda’s tale seems awfully specific. It makes me wonder if this was TB’s real-life senior prom experience.

        1. It’s comic exaggeration, but then he removes the exaggeration so whatever humor it has goes away. If anything from real life inspired it, I suspect it might be people he knew whose parents paid for something extravagant or showy for their kids on Prom Night, and this was Batiuk’s way of dealing with his sense of inferiority. “The cool kids with the limos and the luxury restaurant dinners and the fancy clothes just have loser parents who do this to overcompensate for them being losers! My parents didn’t do that for me because they’re not losers!”

          1. Even if TB’s prom experience was like Melinda’s, it was better than mine, My prom date kicked me out of his car for not putting out. I had to call my dad to pick me up.

            Apparently, he thought a $4 prom ticket and a shrimp cocktail would convince me to let him have his way with me. My fault for not doubling up with another couple. His fault for being a creepy bastard.

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