The One You Feed

Okay. I lied.

Well, I didn’t really lie. I did as thorough a deep dive on Bulk as I could without subjecting his chinstrap beard to a spectrographic analysis or taking a DNA sample from his number 90 jersey.

But the entire time, it was Heather ‘Chien’ Parks I was planning to put under the microscope.

Chien has been oft requested as a subject of further scrutiny. And it’s easy to see why. In a fictional world almost completely filled with sequential photocopied, reused stereotypes of unattainable blonds, comic obsessed geeks, sweet girl-next-door types, and dumb jocks, she seems unique. On the surface at least, unlike any Funky Winkerbean character we had seen before or since.

And, crucially in a fictional world where every initially unique character gradually devolves through inexorable Batiukian forces of Blandness Entropy to a crushing uniformity of personality, Chien resists becoming just like everyone else for nearly a decade.

Most of her Act II arcs have already been posted in the comments section with SOSF brand snarky captions by our junior Batiukstorian, csroberto2854. But I wanted to take things a step further. Reviewing her tenure in the strip with a few questions in mind.

1.) Is Chien truly unique in personality?

Some Funkyverse females may not be ‘bland blond’ in character model, but a simple dye job would render them identical to the crowd. Cayla, Becky, and Rachel for instance. Does Chien ever degrade to this point?

2.) Where does Chien come from?

What media out in 1996-1997 made Batiuk decide he wanted a pretentious goth in his next high school class?

3.) Is Chien morally/intellectually/philosophically justified in the author’s eyes?

When Chien speaks, are we supposed to take her words as a mouthpiece of Batiuk, or has he intentionally written her as a character with a flawed viewpoint?

4.) What can Chien’s portrayal tell us about how Batiuk views and writes the internal lives of women?

For example, here is Chien’s first proper ‘arc’ following her classroom introduction.

So the very first thing we hear from Chien is angst about her own lack of attractiveness and low social standing in comparison to perfect preppy Jessica Darling.

So I just put on some black eyeliner, black lipstick and red eyeshadow and white foundation. Then I came. We all went outside the Great Hal and looked in from a widow. A fucking prep called Britney from Griffindoor was standing next to us. She was wearing a pink mini and a Hilary Duff t-shirt so we put up our middle fingers at her. Inside the Great Hall we could see Dumbledork. Cornelia Fudged was there shouting at Dumbledore. 

‘My Immortal’ by Tara Gilesbie

On the one hand, the ‘unattainable hot girl draws the interest of a pack of dudes’ is a trope Batiuk has drawn from again and again and again, as well as showing women being jealous of the benefits other prettier women get. On the other hand, he also shows men as being desperate losers at the bottom of the ladder comparing themselves to other guys.

The only consistency is that a girl or woman is the focus of unattainability.

The ‘most popular’ recurring male character almost never appears in Funky lore. Matt Miller was a bait and switch because you learn he’s an abusive loser and he’s put into his place within months of being introduced. Maybe, very very late in the game, you could put Masone Jarre up there.

In the meantime the Most Popular Girl in School is like the office of the President: a role that must always be filled, at least nominally, by someone.

Mary Sue Sweetwater, Cindy Summers, Sadie Summers, Jessica Darling, Rana Howard, Mallory Brooks, Maris Rogers. Those last two were barely characters at all, but still…there.

Unlike Jessica filling Sadie’s space of Popular Girl, and Pete and Darin filling Wally and Monroe’s as Those Two Guys, there isn’t an exact Chien and Ally shaped empty space recently vacated in 1998. Becky was a bland, sweet, girl-next-door, overachiever. Susan Smith was a cripplingly shy wall-flower who had no friends until she struck up an unlikely camaraderie with Sadie.

If anything these two seem set up to be girl versions of Those Two Guys. And if that was Batiuk’s intention, it was a noble attempt that failed. Mostly due to Ally having the personality of a sour hearted, elderly woman complaining about the new formula of her cat’s food on a one star Amazon review.

Ugh, I hate it when my super annoyed sister is super annoyed that she has to enter my bedroom to do school work on the shared computer that I alone get to keep in my extremely nerdy bedroom. Woe is me!

But what do you guys think of Chien (And Ally’s) introduction to the Funkyverse?

47 thoughts on “The One You Feed”

  1. Putting aside Batiuk’s characteristically tin ear for dialogue (and he’s JUST SO BAD at trying to be clever!) … Chien seems to be a goth girl version of early Les? Not very self-confident, out of step with mainstream thought, but bright and somewhat sarcastic.

    Because I’m not up on Funky lore, I assume she just drifted away as Batiuk either lost interest in her or else completely forgot about her. Or perhaps he simply forgot her name, so he changed it to something else and now she’s a member of Harry’s choir or something.

    1. I think that Batiuk discarded Chien because he didn’t have any interest after Act II

      I think that Chien moved away from Westview after graduating from high school and college

    2. Act I Les was not bright, however. He was a poor student, unliked and unlikeable, unskilled at anything either physical or intellectual, and already creepy towards girls. He was the butt of gags rather than the cracker of wet, sarcastic remarks.

  2. To answer BWOEH’s question yesterday.

    I wonder what the April 1, 1997, Crankshaft strip was about?

    ‘Shaft took grandson Max to the Cleveland Indians home opener, where he bowled over a young girl to catch a foul ball. On April 1st, he’s arguing with Indians slugger Jim Thome who is apparently trying to convince ‘Shaft to find it in his cold, hard, shriveled heart to give the ball to the crying girl. Max is embarrassed, as Pam and Jeff soon will be when they catch video of ‘Shaft’s behavior on the local TV news that evening.

      1. The next week, ‘Shaft got roped into helping Jeff and Max move Jeff’s sister Jan (whose husband, John Darling, was murdered) into a new apartment in Cleveland as she had returned to work at Channel 1. ‘Shaft was rewarded for his “help” with free Indians tickets that Jan had procured from the television station.

        This strip from that week-long arc made me laugh:

        1. See, Tom is capable of writing some decent jokes when he is not busy talking comic books or chasing awards.

    2. This is another example of Tom Batiuk injecting his own juvenile fanboy behavior into his characters. Ed Crankshaft shouldn’t even care about catching a foul ball, but he makes an ass out of himself over it. You’d think the guy who struck out Gehringer, Greenberg, and York, and never shuts up about it, wouldn’t need a random foul ball for his baseball memorabilia collection. And that a former player for the former Indians would have enough sense not to antagonize the paying customers.

      Look at the Atomik Komix crew. They go to Comic-Con every year as fans, even though they should be busy operating their own booth. Chester Hagglemore has a bottomless pit of money to throw at the production of his preferred comic books, when he should at least be mildly concerned about profit and loss. Mopey Pete gives the we’re-not-worthy treatment to any comic book veteran he meets, even though he’s way more accomplished than them now.

      And the endless parade of authors in the Funkyverse goes through an equally endless parade of awards, interviews, book signings, and wittily one-upping those dumb fans – exactly what Batiuk wants his life to be. And exactly what a 7-year-old would think the adult lives of the professions are really like.

      1. He should be the one throwing it but he’s not because of the quarter of a mile from reality deal.

    1. True, but a plastic grocery bag stuck in a tree has more personality than most of Tom’s characters. 95% of them are “published author who does book signings, full stop.”

    2. She had a lot of potential, but Batty isn’t up to writing or developing a complex character with a unique personality.

  4. Remember my theory that Pam and Jeff finally murdered Crankshaft, and this week’s awkward banter is them trying to act normal to establish an alibi? Today’s strip really supports that idea.

    1. That would explain why they ditched the 4 door Hyundai Accent from yesterday’s strip for the 2 door Accent coupe in today’s.

      1. Ooo, good point! Probably would have worked better if they weren’t both robin’s egg blue. Oh well, this is still better than the murder stories in Rex Morgan, Mary Worth, and probably Dick Tracy.

  6. Today’s Crankshaft is a good example of bad editing. In film, I believe it’s called “cutting against the action.” It is to be avoided in general.

    In panel two, the car is travelling left-to-right. In panel three, it’s travelling right-to-left. This makes it look like the car turned around and is going in the opposite direction.

    This would confuse readers, if Crankshaft had any.

  7. Chien struck me as a “military brat” kid. She’s the kid who moves every year, isn’t integrated into the local social cliques, and doesn’t want to be. She knows she won’t be anywhere long, and her life circumstances gave her a healthy disdain for cliques.

    I spent my whole childhood in one town. But I always got along better with the transient kids, because they were straightforward and easygoing. Dealing with popular local kids, even the ones I was friends with, was an intimidating maze of social interactions. I would inevitably commit some faux pas, like mentioning Tiffany, when everybody knows she and Jason had that fight two years ago and they can’t be in the same place at the same time, duh. I’m sure some of that was my own lack of social skill. But hey, you’ve got to roll with your own crew.

    I doubt Batiuk thought Chien’s character through that much, but I think she works. She is kind of a K-mart goth. She has the goth style, The Smiths records collection, and the nihilistic tone, but actually seems pretty stable. That was a legitimate archetype too, though. I knew kids like that. And she avoids becoming a punching bag for cheap “Hot Topic customer” jokes. It was a pretty good attempt at creating a memorable character.

    1. In the 90s I was a manager in chain record stores (Sam Goody, and Lechmere, which you have every reason to have never heard of). I worked with people like Chien–my favorite worker even looked like Chien, if Chien was a foot shorter. Like a lot of oddball kids, she had that teenaged monomania about her favorite subjects. Chien, I’d say hers was her close, sarcastic eye on a world that other people ignore. My friend’s was animal rights, when that was barely a concept.

      I think Tom dismissed Chien because he doesn’t like writing characters who aren’t Tom. IRL, Chien is now in her 50s and a well-established and admired photojournalist. In his late 70s, Tom is c-list cartoonist in a dying industry, remembered only as a one-off Simpsons joke. My old friend–I’m not going to tell you the long story of “That’s a bird!” which escaped from the pet store below us. Maybe she’s a pro-bono civil rights lawyer, based on that store telling us “PLEASE don’t send down the little girl again!” They were the mall’s first store to go out of business, and I think she was why.

      1. I think Tom realizes that his world needs some non-Tom characters, so the Tom characters can prevail over them. The two main types are “people who don’t like comic books” and “women.” Beyond that, he has no interest in creating characters. An intelligent, independent-minded woman with a personality he can’t reduce into “writer” or “dumb jock” or “queen bee” or “comic books” is way beyond his skill set. So Chien just quietly left town. Which is what I imagine happened to all the interesting characters who once populated the Funkyverse. They don’t hate Westview, but they can see it has nothing to offer them in life.

  8. “Know that we’ll know we were throwing time away
    Breathlessly throwing time away. Throwing time away
    Recklessly throwing time away
    Throwing time away.”

    RIP Ohio’s mad poet David Thomas.

  9. He really never got why the popular girls didn’t have time for an oblivious maladroit who never met a social norm or personal boundary that made sense.

    1. This week’s CS is like Tom said to himself: “OK, I’m going to have a week of strips that apes on the “we’re so old” part of Pluggers, only every day will pad a single panel out to three. Good enough! Done!”

  11. Thank you for the write up!

    I have long wondered about Chien’s total arc within the strip, because there are many qualities to her that arguably make her a strong character, and exclude her from the large buckets which Banana mentioned earlier. As far as I can tell, she never got sucked into loving Golden Age comics and isn’t demonized for not doing so. She doesn’t exist to fawn over men or just get paired into a relationship with one, despite any logic that would make the pairing unrealistic. Yes, there was that prom date with Pete, but it didn’t go anywhere. Though her viewpoints and opinions usually have no pushback, they’re more presented with a cool detachment from her audience rather than a smug disdain for it.

    It feels like, as a matter of a process of elimination by having made every other character into the neat stereotypes, Tom eventually stumbled into making a female character that is relatively realistic and relatable. I wonder if further revisiting of her strips will sustain that assessment or not.

    1. I’ve heard authors say “He was supposed to be a minor character in a single chapter. Then he just came to life, and kind of took over the book!” You won’t hear Tom say that. Has this guy ever read his own stuff, and said “Why is everyone I write a published author with book signings? In RUST BELT OHIO? Wait, that’s just SUPER WEIRD”

      People here ask me why I read the viagra-fueled freakshow that is 9 Chickweed. No one asks why I read Tom. But they’re the SAME GUY. One wants endless sex with hot chinless blondes, one wants endless published authors doing greasy-pizza book signings in Ohio. Which is weirder?

      (Both.)

      1. Batiuk says Lisa had this effect on his work, but the outcome speaks for itself. Lisa’s Story is barely even about Lisa.

        Batiuk and McEldowney are 11-year-old twin boys, but on opposite sides of puberty. Batiuk is pre-puberty, where he still has really intense opinions about childish things. McEldowney is post-puberty, where your priorities instantly vanish and take a turn to the perverted.

        1. And 4/28, what do we get? Another damn book signing! One so popular dozens line up when the author hasn’t even arrived yet. In a town that has like 5 people doing it? Man, the Valentine would be making bank if they just showed more than 2 movies. These people are BORED.

          And, in 9 Chickweed…I’ve been reading this for about 3 months, but it looks like yet another week of Underwater Sex While Relatives Watch. These 2 guys should form Creepy Voltron, and write together. How about “Lisa’s Whorey”?

          1. Not only that, it’s a SURPRISE book signing! Look Lillian, all these people lined up to give you money, get your autograph, and be insulted by you without you even knowing about it! And they put your comic book cover on the wall! Isn’t that great?

            Jesus H. Christ, this is like a cry for help.

  12. Cool detachment rather than smug disdain

    Which i think is central to why Chien is so well-liked. Smug disdain is the default setting of the Funkyverse, and the whole strip ran on people taking high school too seriously. So a character who didn’t was refreshing. On top of that, Chien was a plausible but specific high school archetype, which added to the genuine realism the strip once had.

  13. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 6 of the Pam & Jeff Week

    WHAT IS MOPEY PETE DOING HERE IN CENTERVILLE HE’S GOT A PIZZERIA TO RUN

    then again, he might be like Papa Louie, off doing some shit while having a random person run the pizzeria while he’s away

  14. If you are not keeping up with Batiuk’s blog, you are really missing out. (I’m looking at you, Epicus!) The blog is where Batiuk is at both his MOST self-absorbed AND his most self-unaware. You simply can’t get the complete picture of Batiuk’s unique skill set (and mindset) without visiting.

    The most recent entry is a Flash Friday, where Batiuk (as is his wont) recaps a Flash plot in his usual dully uncomprehending “this-happened-and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened” way. But the real pièce de résistance is his concluding admonishment to Cary Bates (forever known to me as the guy who wrote all the sub-par Gargoyles episodes) about the sloppiness of Cary’s clipped vignettes and dangling threads. Cary’s frequently a mediocre writer, but this is EPIC self-delusion; it’s Ed Wood sternly chiding a fellow director for not paying attention to continuity issues. It’s everything that’s wrong with Batiuk in a nutshell.

    1. Blog posts like that serve as a reminder that he deserves every bit of criticism, snark, and negativity as he gets – because he has no problem dishing it out to other people.

    2. LOL I saw this, Y. “That’s a lot of threads to leave dangling for any storytelling medium let alone a comic book“…well, if there’s anything Batiuk knows about, it’s dangling plot threads. Go ask Becky’s mom, who never officially came down from that scissor lift. I agree, Batiuk criticizing another writer for having too many dangling plot threads is like Marillion criticizing Rush for being too pretentious. That blog of his is chock full of unintentionally comedic gems like this one.

    3. After my praising Flash scribe Cary Bates’ straightforward story telling, he abandons linear storytelling completely and returns to his hopscotching ways giving us an issue that’s little more than a series of of clipped vignettes that are more of a list rather than a flowing story.

      Tom, you’re a professional writer. You’ve been one for over five decades. THAT’S NOT WHAT “LINEAR STORYTELLING” MEANS.

      (Also, “a series of of [sic] clipped vignettes”? PROOFREAD, DAMMIT.)

      (And, y’know, pots and kettles and whatnot.)

  15. Related to the Batiukverse: My redraw of the “I Think We’re Gonna Have To Kill This Guy, Steven” meme with Chien and Wally in Garnet and Steven’s place

  17. I have too much wondered about how Tom conceived of Chien Parks’ name and possible ethnicity. She sort of looks ‘Asian’ but Tom does not give her an “I Chong” treatment–for which I am grateful. ‘Park’ is a Korean surname but in Korean it is ‘Park’ not ‘Parks’ which is Scottish or English. ‘Chien’ is a long obsolete Romanization of the Chinese word for money. Chinese like to give their kids auspicious names but naming your kid ‘Money’ would be way too much–just asking for waves of bad luck retribution. Then I remembered that ‘CHIEN’ is French for ‘dog’. Ewwww.

    1. It’s “Heather ‘Chien’ Parks”. The ‘Chien’ nickname is in reference to her necklace. I have no further speculation on her supposed ancestry.

    2. Chien “Heather” Park would make a lot more sense, as if she is Americanizing her Asian name (and if Chien was actually 치엔.) Heather “Chien” Parks sounds like she’s making a big show out of de-Americanizing it. But her ethnicity was never a part of her personality.

      1. Am I the only one with the misunderstanding? It seemed obvious to me that the ‘Chien’ nickname comes from her necklace/collar. Do a search on “collier de chien”. Isn’t that it?

        1. It doesn’t seem like a name a girl would pick for herself. Or a name that a public school would have tolerated, since it has some, uh, connotations.

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