Dog Calling The Kettle Black

75 thoughts on “Dog Calling The Kettle Black”

1. I kinda have to agree that Chien (in spite of her being my favorite character in FW’s second half of Act II) in her first year of appearances was kind of a asshole

   1. Yes, but a believable a-hole, because you kind of expect her to behave a certain way. Like CBH said, Batty (Les) could have made this a teachable moment.

2. In 1998, Usenet would have been a plausible venue for this discussion. The rec.arts.comics.strips group was active back then. (In fact, it’s one of the few groups that still consists of on-topic discussion and has not been overtaken by spam.) But I don’t think that this storyline got discussed there, or at least I can’t find such a discussion.

   The yearbook storyline did get discussed in the comments section here at Son of Stuck Funky a few months back, and the consensus was that Ally and Chien were completely in the wrong and that Les was doing a terrible job at being a yearbook adviser if he was going to let them ignore an extracurricular activity with a lot of participants just because they didn’t like it.

   1. If I may be old here, yes, we in rec.arts.comics.strips were talking and making fun of Funky Winkerbean a lot in the late 90s. That was the most vibrant era of r.a.c.s, so it wasn’t the only strip we were snark-reading. But late 90s … well, my recollection, supported by my wife’s sharper memory for detail, is that the big snark focuses of the group in that time were:

      • Mallard Fillmore (no explanation needed)
      • For Better Or For Worse (only a bit, though, and nothing like the snark that would cloud the strip when Lynn Johnson made Liz get involved with Granthony; mostly leftover feelings about April’s role in Farley’s death)
      • Funky Winkerbean (no explanation needed)
      • Liberty Meadows (wanting so very much to be Bloom County and yet so angry it wasn’t)

      Liberty Meadows was the most divisive of the bunch. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what the group’s feelings about Funky Winkerbean were at the time because that was about when I had rage-quit Funky Winkerbean (following the Near-Miss-a-Palooza summer of Les Chases Lisa Through Europe).

      1. And now I just remember Thatch, another of the Bloom County Wannabe strips. That ran for a couple years in the mid-90s and Wikipedia tells me it shut down in 1998 so the cartoonist could become a speechwriter for Bill Clinton. I don’t remember how reliably people were snarking on it, but I know it launched its way out of being a college newspaper strip thanks to the bland protagonist’s secret superhero identity of — you might want to sit down and clear your evening so you have time to laugh this one out — Politically Correct Person.

         (Who in fairness did have one joke that I still remember smiling at so let me give it that. PCP overheard someone talking about the ‘girls’ over there and scolded them to speak of ‘women’. Someone says, ‘They’re seven’ and PCP declares, ‘Well, they’re pre-women’.)

         It’s odd in retrospect but while there was discussion of Dilbert at the time it was mostly positive, since the strip seemed fresh, although my recollection is that people were losing interest in saying anything one way or another. (I remember a discussion about ‘why doesn’t anyone talk about Dilbert anymore’ but can’t place which side of the millennium it happened on.) I think this may have been around the time they put a Dilbert doll on the set of The Drew Carey Show. Decade was peculiar for comics.

         1. hate to admit but I was also there, probably lurking, on r.a.c.s. in 1998. Wouldn’t have paid attention to Funky Winkerbean content though as the local papers (Baltimore Sun and Washington Post) didn’t carry it. So besides the Simpsons reference I was blissfully unaware the whole Batiuk extended universe existed until the comics curmudgeon started covering the strip.

3. If this was Chien and Allie’s first month, I’d say Yeah, a bit mean. The problem is with Les.

   They’re just used as his mouthpieces. It’s like The Borings and the banned book. Nothing was Les’s fault. Everyone else was to blame. He’s doing the same thing with the yearbook. He knows he’d fail worse than this staff of 2 teenagers, so Goodnight Irene; that’s their problem now. And he sure is using them to hate on Bushka. Like Tom loves Silver Age DC Flash comics, Tom hates jocks. All good people must have his exact opinions. All good people have book signings. If Chien had started as a writer and not a photographer, she’d be in strip today. And be soooo boring. At least the strips are reasonably funny.

   Just my 2 cents worth. My “awake for 40 hours with 2 hours sleep in the middle” worth.

4. I’ll start by saying that, for whatever reason, I am completely incapable of caring about any sports or sports teams anywhere, at any time, for any reason. So I’m a completely unbiased judge of Chien’s behavior, and I can say, as someone who probably wouldn’t even glance at the sports pages in the yearbook: She’s being a pompous, self-righteous, insufferable ass. Even for an immature teenager, this behavior is indefensible.

   And then she tries to defend her gatekeeping high-horse horseshit by busting out some Anthropology 101 drivel, and she gets it entirely wrong. Sports has nothing to do with hunter-gatherer behavior; it’s sexual fitness display/mating competition, the same thing we see in other primates, mammals, birds, and invertebrates. In other words, everywhere mating occurs. Why is it that the idiots who snidely lecture others on their superiority are always the ones who don’t know what they’re talking about? I blame Dunning-Kruger.

   And speaking of the Tri-State Dunning-Kruger Champ, 12 years running: Les’ behavior here is execrable and reveals his total lack of compassion, social skills, and basic moral sense. Imagine taking the stance, “I don’t like these people so they don’t deserve recognition.” This stance, from the brave social justice warrior. Yuck.

5. Chien is definitely someone who needs a talking-to about respecting the work and interests of others who are outside her own clique. But she’s young, and that’s a pretty common issue for kids. Probably every single one of us here held her attitude to some extent even into the very early years of high school. Chien seems bright enough to get it, and to work on overcoming it, if it’s explained to her.

   Les is the person who is paid to deliver that talking-to and explanation — and he actively, deliberately and gleefully doesn’t. He encourages and rewards her behaviour.

   Chien? Annoying … but still young enough that maybe someone will pull her aside, have a heart-to-heart with her, and she’ll be okay.

   Les? A lazy, emotionally stunted, self-righteous ten-year-old in a teacher’s body. Les is the real villain of the piece here.

6. I’m also surprised that people have a positive view of Chien. She seems like yet another in the endless parade of people who are dismissive of any viewpoint other than their own, and are in fact incapable of perceiving said viewpoints.

7. Today’s Crankshaft

   Now we’ve shifted gears to Lillian McKenzie (sigh)

8. I think the positive feelings about Chien, especially immediately after her introduction, are more toward her role in the strip rather than the character herself.

   Creating Chien allowed TB to explore certain high school student perspectives that he had not done in two decades at the time. She was the first real cultural outsider student character TB had at his disposal since he shipped the likes of Roland, Wicked Wanda, and Derek off to the cornfield, and was a well-informed enough amalgamation of mid-90s popular counterculture that she fit well into the strip’s setting. I believe at least a few of us of a certain age mentioned knowing or encountering “Chiens” back in the day, an experience I can attest to as well as someone old enough to be young at the time.

   This story arc shows the strength of having a character like Chien, you get a fairly interesting premise out of it that would not have worked with pretty much any other student character TB had created since 1975. TB fumbles the premise, of course, because he’s post-Reagan era TB and that’s what he does. Les is irredeemable at this point, and is naturally the major problem with this yearbook story; but Chien could have been like Roland and Wanda, presented as wrong about her convictions or wrongheaded about her behavior. Chien really should have been Act II-Class II’s Roland, a character who shows how daring it can be to be different in high school while also deflating the self-importance and bouts of hypocrisy that often go along with such an attitude.

   Ultimately, I rather liked the role Chien played. Certainly more so than the character herself, who had the misfortune of having to deliver bit of TB’s worldview via TB’s dialogue. Alas, Batiuk would never really make any of his student characters in subsequent classes into cultural outsiders again, and the strip was poorer for it.

   1. Despite their mutual hatred of sportos, Chien could have been a great foil to Les in Act III. Les desperately needed someone to call out his bad behavior after Lisa died, and Chien would have excelled at that. She could have been that friend who cares about you enough to tell you when you’re full of shit. Instead, we got a world of enablers, like Linda and Cayla. But that’s what makes the Funkyverse the craptacular it is.

9. The worst thing about this story is that it belittles Bull for being right, and doing the right thing. It’s Bull’s job to ensure his kids are treated fairly. He tried to resolve the problem with Les directly, so escalating the conflict to the principal is the next stop. Which is not the same as “I’m telling.”

   And the principal would 100% side with Bull, because Bull is 100% right. If local parents learned their child’s activity was intentionally left out of the yearbook because of the dubious “artistic choices” of some weird arty kid, and this being was enabled by a smug asshat teacher who’s still grinding axes from childhood, there would be hell to pay. Quadruply so if it was the expense of the football team, which is the center of the universe.

   Of course, this doesn’t happen, because No One Is Allowed To Question Les Moore Ever. Not even ten years before Lisa died.

   1. Once again, we see BatYam’s total inability to write anything with any nuance or actual thought. Perhaps Chien might have watched the football team and taken something positive from it, or viewed it in a slightly new light. But alas, they’re all just brainless meatheads to her, and that’s that. Ditto Les, with his smug anti-sporto attitude. No matter what Bull did, Les just couldn’t get past those Act I shenanigans. Such a small, petty, vindictive dick with ears.

      1. Yeah, Chien and Lisa Clone just decided to include the football team after all, without any realization that it was wrong to exclude them, or even any reason why. And of course Les has no reaction to this. Making the whole story pointless.

         1. I think they decided to include the football team in the yearbook because they realized that either Bull or Matt would’ve beaten them to death if they didn’t

      2. What’s even worse is, Chien was classmates with Bulk Dombrowski… the football player who was also intelligent and nice. Like, we’re obviously supposed to take Chien’s side and view the football players as idiot meatheads, but then Batiuk goes and makes a character who is very much NOT any of that. Which could have been a good opportunity for Chien (and Ally and Les) to learn to not judge based on their own preconceptions, but… nope. Instead Bulk just kind of gets shuffled off to the background and the sportos remain the villains.

         Another masterpiece of contradiction from Tom Batiuk.

         1. It’s like it never even occurred to him. Batiuk has always had an uncanny knack for completely missing the most obvious story paths. And not only does he miss the obvious ones, he misses EVERY conceivable path, then hacks out his own unique, totally incomprehensible one instead.

            Like in this idiotic yearbook story. The protagonists have their principled stand, which amounts to “we just don’t want to put them in the yearbook”. Then, they cave, but no real reason is given. No one wins them over, no one changes their mind. They just do, and their principled stand was totally meaningless, and really obnoxious. The whole point of the story ended up being “dumb meatheads always win”, which has to make you wonder what BatHam’s vaunted childhood was actually like.

            1. It’s like the mess with DSH’s mother. No attempt is made to understand her because he has no theory of mind.

         2. Did he contradict himself?

            Very well, then, he contradicted himself.

            He is large, he contains multitudes.

            1. Anonymous Sparrow,
               I have taken up my summer residence early within “Le Chapeau Carney (That is how bwoeh spells Kearney!) Always a large crowd…curious, but well behaved. (I am alluding to the winner of the
               Buck-Eye News Hawk Award. I believe TB is from Ahia.)
               See! I come for the snark, yet get my further education from you.
               Also from *Song of Myself*…
               “Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
               Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
               (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)”
               Rip Torn played a great Whitman in *Beautiful Dreamers* 1990.
               If you are bold, and you like camp, I recommend on Amazon Prime, Sid and Marty Krofft, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. It was a Saturday morning serial. The villain Glitter Rock, episode 2, is worth the price of the admission. Deidre Hall hopefully paid some bills with her check.

               Your bearing is large, and it does contain multitudes.

10. What irritates me is that we’re still supposed to think that smug infants who refuse to understand what they’re doing to annoy people are in the right. It’s like watching someone defend a super depressing play guaranteed to alienate people only to wonder why school levies keep getting voted down.

    1. 

11. See this is why early FW was so relatable to me. My high school was similar in that the band was more popular than the football team. The band parties were where all the action was and the football team and cheerleaders came to our parties. So we had a nice mixture of jocks and geeks, sure there was a social strata, but it was minimal.

    My first college roommate was one of those football players. He realized he was never going to play pro and so he instead went into teaching and became a high school science teacher, and this gave him the chance to help coach football. Take that Les, I mean Batty.

    It is too bad that Batty is so jaded, he could have a produced a lot of interesting strips. And here we go again with the book signings this week. Must be time for the Ohioana book fair, oh wait, it is because a lady from my Italian class ( who publishes actual novels) was just down there. No she does not know who Batty is.

12. Today’s Crankshaft

    how I feel when I have to endure a Lillian At A Book Fair storyline (it’s boring as shit):

    

    1. I can’t tell if Lillian is being sarcastic, or if she actually thinks this gibberish is a good idea. Given what passes for good writing and normal human behavior in the Funkyverse, I genuinely have no clue.

13. Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: The Field Trip to Channel Seven (i decided to get them from Anna’s Archives instead of GC because of the fuckin’ paywall)

    

    ha ha it’s funny because teenagers are fucking stupid

    

    

    Pete: Why couldn’t it have been either Mr. Rhodes or Mr. Clark instead of you, Ed?

    Crankshaft: Because fuck you, now get on the fucking bus or I’m running yer ass over!

    

    wait where did Pete go

    

    

    I assume after cindy gave Les’s class a opportunity to give her questions, the whole field trip went south real quick

    1. That was hardly a misbehaved fieldtrip by comic strip standards, or even Funky standards. A bit of the classic “tell, not show” action rearing its head once again.

       Also, good to know that according to Tom’s observations, “vendos” was a hip new lingo in 2000 that was good enough to last 20(timemop 30?!) years. I’m inclined to believe him, but maybe like he heard it once from a Medina high-schooler’s rambles and just latched onto it as something he earnestly liked the sound of.

    2. Did… did Les threaten to MURDER a student?

       (Consequences? What are those?)

14. Another problem with the story is that of the yearbook staff being in charge of all photography. The basic team photo Bull wants would already exist. It would have been taken long ago, before the season started. Other football photos would be taken by other local entities, like the town newspaper. (Though I can see the awful Skip Rawlings joining in this little freeze-out.)

    Bull would not be able to infer the ongoing editorial process of the yearbook. And if he did, Les would just tell him to mind his own business, since it’s his team to manage. If something was omitted from the yearbook, nobody would find out about it until everyone received their books on the last day of school. All Chien and Les ever had to do was keep their mouths shut about out what they were doing, and they would have succeeded. The whole story is self-defeating.

    Note also the eternal Funkyverse theme of complete editorial control, and how the “right” people abuse it. No competent faculty advisor would allow students to leave people they don’t like out of the yearbook, or let them use the yearbook to indulge their half-baked artsy-fartsy crapola.

    1. I was marginally attached to my high school yearbook. I drew some caricatures of the favorite teachers. I was on the school’s weekly paper, and the yearbook crew was largely the “SCHOOL SPIRIT YEAH!!” people, but their was no hostility between us. The photog was quite gifted, even if he didn’t take photos of gum in water fountains. It was an effort between I-don’t-know how many people, including teachers who’d done this for years, and of course the publishers. It wasn’t this weird Lord of the Flies shit Tom seems to think it was.

       Hey, wait? Ya think maybe Tom was excluded from the yearbook committee? Maybe for making it all about himself, and who knows, hating sportos?

       One of best friends was the goalie on the hockey team. We were both Python-loving sci-fi nerdos and geekos and–stoner-os? He was the head of what today would be called The AV Club. You know how damn much a VCR cost in 1976? He demonstrated it to our class by showing a Python ep.

       His parents were aghast when he decided to drop out of college, despite his fantastic grades. He was gonna roll the dice and sign on to that new fad with some unknown CT-based company. The fad was cable, and the start-up was ESPN. Wonder what happened to those guys? I ran into him a few years later, and he said “I can’t BELIEVE I’m getting paid to do this!”

       Did the sportos hate Tom because he was a nerd, or did the sportos hate him second, because Tom reflexively hated them like some bigot?

       Here’s my Chien moment: I was on the high school paper, and thought it would be funny to mock our sports teams. Because the whole school knew they were awful. People would go to our baseball games to laugh at them. So I decided to do a series on our worst team, the Varsity Polo Team. “This could backfire on me,” I thought, but did it anyway.

       Varsity Polo was a bunch of stories where they always got destroyed. By another high school polo team; by a middle school girl’s field hockey team (who were on foot), by Mrs Pierce’s kindergarten class. Eventually, they went on an empty field alone, and somehow all died. COACH: “We don’t know what happened to their horses, but, uh, if you go to the lunchroom today maybe not eat the Salisbury steak.”

       And that year, the hockey team won the state championship. And would do so for several decades. The sportos thought my articles were funny, because they weren’t that team.

       Tommy…not all jocks are dumb. And you’re not automatically cooler than them if you’re smart, but also a total asshole.

       (Yes, I’d get asked “There’s…not really a polo team here, right?” No. I think you would’ve seen the horses by now. Or eaten one)

       1. That is hilarious. I think we went to the same high school.

       2. Did the sportos hate Tom because he was a nerd, or did the sportos hate him second, because Tom reflexively hated them like some bigot?

          That’s a very good question. How much conflict did Tom Batiuk bring on himself, considering how anal he was about holding on to his comic books? High school kids in the 1960s (or even the 1980s) would have given him a hard time for that. He pretty much taped a “kick me” sign to his own back. And that’s entirely independent of the elitist attitude he has now.

15. Today’s Dull Crankshaft

    JUST GIVE US THE MOPEY-MINDY WEDDING DAMMIT THIS CURRENT STORYLINE AIN’T SHIT

    1. I’m in no hurry to see the Mopey-Mindy wedding. It’s going to be another tiresome shitshow of “young kids just starting out” when they’re both about 50. And Batiuk finding ways to make it about comic books.

       The only thing I’m interested in is the consummation. Because I want to see what happens when these two severely stunted people are confronted with the actual mechanics of the deed. I imagine Mindy yelling “you want to put what into where?!” from off-panel, while Pete sucks his thumb and reads The Flash #149 alone in a giant heart-shaped bed.

16. Now that I think of it, it seems odd — TB clearly really loves, really cares about professional sports. So many of his strips revolve around people watching sports, or playing them. Summer, Keisha, and Crankshaft have all been athletes.

    How can this square with his dismissive, snotty attitude toward “sportos” being in the yearbook (or even existing at all, the absolute temerity! How dare they, the big dumb bullies)?

17. HELP! HELP! I’M BEING OPPRESSED!

    On GoComics, there’s been yet another adventure of Indiana Jones and the Lost Comment of be ware of eve hill.

    I guess a certain GoComics Moderator has it in for me. The comment added at 12:30PM MDT, is stuck in limbo a handful of hours later.

    Somebody want to tell me why the comment below deserved to be moderated? Because I picked on sweet and lovable old Lillian? (ack gag barf) Convince me the character isn’t boring. Convince me Lillian’s book-related story arcs aren’t a slog. Could it be because I suggested Batiuk is so attention-starved he has to barter deals with book festivals for appearances?

    ———————————————————————

    CAUTION! INCREDIBLY OFFENSIVE COMMENT BELOW!

    I have a book title in mind. How about ‘Murder by Boredom’? These book-related story arcs featuring the Loathsome Lil are always a slog. Every year, we have to suffer as TB and the Ohioana Book Festival inflict their annual mutual appreciation week on us. TB features the Ohioana in his comic strip, and they feature his name on their website. What do we get out of it? Not a whole hell of a lot. 🥱

    Where’s Crankshaft?

    ———————————————————————

    I’ve decided to re-post the comment with a few minor changes. Let’s see how long this one lasts.

    1. Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

       Maybe it is inherent in the system. Maybe this is part of the “upgrade”. There are far less commenters now. I still think “Chief Tommy” was Tom’s secret superspy name for himself. Each time I even suggested that, bang, I was wished into the cornfield. Why? I literally was told to “drink cyanide,” a thing 11 out of 10 doctors don’t recommend. But yeah, let DonkeyKong1 continue to post.

       What powers do the creators of the strips have to say about commenters? Can they just demand bannings because it hurts their fee-fees? If you think that sounds paranoid, I guess you don’t follow the news, and I will now sue you for 20 billion dollars.

       There has been speculation over the few years I’ve been here about whether Tom reads this. Egomaniacs fall into 2 categories: those who never read criticism about themselves, and those who obsess over it. Where is Tom on that list? Who is this person who randomly comes to SoSF and downvotes only people with recognizable nicknames from GC comments? Whoever they are, I don’t think they read those comments, just see the names and go “Eve! Splut! O’Malley! GRR” We’ll see if they include the recently decloaked Lectern next time.

       Does that sound paranoid? As the greatest living philostopher known to Mankind (after Quentin Robert deNameland) said, “Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” And that philostopher was named…Auric Goldfinger. He wasn’t paranoid; he literally had James fuckin’ Bond after him. The Connery Bond.

       (shrugs) We’ll see. And parents–don’t name your kid “Auric Goldfinger” unless you want him to nuke Fort Knox. It’s like Slylock Fox and guys named, at birth mind you, Slimy McFortknoxExploder.

       1. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage over Goldfinger’s “Chicago saying” over the years. It’s good to see to see it here.

          It’s not used in the movie, if I remember correctly, but we do have the laser beam exchange between 007 and Goldfinger (a buzz saw in the book), which could easily have become:

          Lisa: Do you expect me to file a malpractice suit?

          Masky McDeath: No, Mrs. Moore, I expect you to die!

          The Chicago saying divides Goldfinger into three sections (“Happenstance,” “Coincidence” and “Enemy Action”). Fleming used sections four other times:

          Moonraker: “Monday,” “Tuesday-Wednesday” and “Thursday-Friday.”

          From Russia, with Love: ‘The Plan” and “The Execution.”

          The Spy Who Loved Me: “Me,” “Them” and “Him.”

          You Only Love Twice: “It Is Better to Travel Hopefully….”and “…Than to Arrive.”

          The last seems oddly apt for Tom Batiuk’s work. Hope springs eternal, even if it is invariably dashed, with the ride to glory concluding with a hard luck story.

          (That’s taken from Elvis Costello’s “Radio Sweetheart,” for those who don’t get the reference.)

          Welcome to May!

       2. I’m not sure if this reply will attach correctly to BTS’ words on “violence in the system” and the lower comment rate since the GoComics changes, but here goes … there are likely fewer comments and ratings because to do such requires a GC subscription which I for one am stubborn about not paying.

          Gods be praised for SOSF again and again!

          1. I don’t have a subscription. Not after wasting $20/yr on CK. Maybe they give preference to paying customer’s comments? Of course, as the saying goes, “Don’t ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.” Like CK two YEARS after their “upgrade,” maybe they just don’t know what they’re doing.

             Also, “bts” on this page should refer to billytheskink. I am but a humble Splut.

       3. Yeah, the Comics Kingdom lost quite a few commenters after their “upgrade” a few years ago, too. They wanted a nicer community and they got it. Almost everybody left for ArcaMax, The Seattle Times, and the Washington Post websites. A case in point, in the four years I was on the Comics Kingdom utilizing the Disqus commenting platform, I posted 4,181 comments. Since the CK converted to OpenWeb, I’ve posted a whopping total of 71.

          Undoubtedly, GoComics lost many of their ‘Free Subscribers,’ hereafter unaffectionately labeled as “Registered.” When you take away functionality they’ve known for years without warning, people can be unforgiving. I don’t blame them.

          To be honest, I have no idea what’s going on with the comments. I doubt the finger-waggers are “reporting” my comments to the moderator. By the time I post my comments, most of them have logged off and are getting ready for their early bird special dinners.

          An acquaintance of mine, a paid subscriber, has posted a grand total of two comments since the “upgrade”. One of the two was seemingly removed for clarifying a comment a comic strip creator made. The comic strip creator mentioned a website address where people could find a feature that used to be on the old website. My acquaintance mentioned the link was on the comic strip’s ‘About’ page. Why remove a helpful comment like that? Like my comments, he can see his comment, but no one else can. I couldn’t see it, but he shared a screenshot.

          Let’s all play a game of GoComics Comment Roulette. Will your comment appear on the page for everyone to see? Nobody knows. Probably. Maybe?

          I’m not going to name the user you are referring to, as it is against SoSF website policy. I will admit I saw him leave the Crankshaft discussion a while back in a snit, claiming he could no longer tolerate the comments of certain commenters. He couldn’t just leave, he had to make an announcement. He declared he was unfollowing Crankshaft. A silly solution. If you’re enjoying the comic strip and the discussion is the problem. STOP READING THE COMMENTS OF THE PEOPLE YOU DON’T LIKE.🤪 Dur. I have seen him in the discussion of other comic strips.

          I get a kick out of the commenters who make a big production of muting certain commenters. Do you think J.J. O’Malley cares that someone who whines about his comments muted him? I’m sure he couldn’t care less. Do you care if someone mutes you? If they want to mute me, please do. It would mean I can mock their comments without them seeing it. I’m not posting comments for them anyway (Dismissive wave).

          I haven’t seen your other detractor since April first. She hadn’t figured out how to change her profile name, but their comment was recognizable by her signature “LOL”. I haven’t seen them since. Perhaps her desktop computer fell on her.

          I used to see comic strip creators in the discussion of several comic strips. Unfortunately, the “CREATOR” label that used to be visible on their profile names is gone.

          I’ve read Brooke McEldowney removed the comment section from your favorite flaming dumpster fire, 9 Chickweed Lane. Ditto for Pibgorn (a.k.a. Pigporn). I’ve also read the comments for Alley Oop were also turned off. I read none of those strips.

          I sometimes think Batiuk would have to have superhuman reserves of discipline not to peek at the comments, even occasionally.

          If your name is “Shady Shrew”, you’ve got no shot at a normal life. No shot. Not with Slylock Fox around.

          1. This is Shady Shrew apologism

       4. Egomaniacs fall into 2 categories: those who never read criticism about themselves, and those who obsess over it. 

          Batiuk is both kinds of egomaniac. The very concept of criticism is hostile to him. He won’t even tolerate an off-the-cuff or mildly critical interview question, like “some have said Funky Winkerbean became too dreary, what do you say to that?” Batiuk must be 100% in control of everything all times, or he’ll take his ball and go home. He has no stomach for Unexpected Audience Reactions. He’ll tell you who the heroes are, and how you to correctly feel about them, thank you very much.

          At the same time, I think it eats him alive. Batiuk has a bad case of Unappreciated Genius Syndrome. He thinks he’s the new Sherwood Anderson, and doesn’t understand why he doesn’t get that level of respect. Or even the respect that a cartoonist like Bill Amend gets. He still can’t figure out why he never got that comic book job in 1974, nor can he ever let it go. He tries to leverage his mid-tier comic strip fame into an endless parade of book signings. But he goes to the same venues in the same cities every single year. Nobody buys a book, because anyone who wanted one bought it years ago.

          Then he indulges himself with fantasy stories like this week. Look at the line of people wanting Lillian’s autograph, like she’s Ryan Reynolds or Shohei Ohtani. It’s like an episode of Sonichu where Chris-Chan gets his boyfriend-free girl and all the trolls jump off a building. In addition to being obvious author wish fulfillment, he has no clue that it makes Lillian look hacky, unprofessional, and just plain dumb. And if this story is really going to turn into “Lillian uses ChatGPT”, that will bend my brain into a pretzel.

    2. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
       My version of today’s GoComics Crankshaft, shows 38 comments, and none with the sobriquet of Be Ware of Eve Hill. (Truth be told, I have never used sobriquet ever before in a sentence. I do not know if I used it correctly. I do not even know if I spelled it correctly. All I do know, if you impress BWOEH, it forebodes a great weekend. So WEEKEND prepare to amaze me! I have impressed the indomitable Be Ware of Eve Hill. 💝🩵💖🫂🌺💐🌹
       Life is short, but is worth it.
       Someday, I might attempt to impress COMICBOOKHARRIET. That is a much harder nut to crack! Hey! I am still young enough. I have time.
       😎😁

18. Add yearbook staffs to the long list of things Batiuk knows nothing about. Having only two students on a yearbook staff is ludicrous.

    Out of curiosity, I checked out my high school class yearbook. The yearbook staff had not two, but sixteen students and one faculty advisor. In a group photo in the yearbook, each student had their area of responsibility labeled on their t-shirts. I won’t list them all, but I will mention there were three editors. Nobody was going to hijack the yearbook for their own self interests.

    Unlike Westview, the faculty advisor at my school was the art teacher. Despite wearing a black t-shirt labeled “THE BOSS”, she was very kind, well-liked, and had a good rapport with students. I never heard a bad word about her. Contrast that with the Westview faculty advisor, Les Moore, the sanctimonious prick (pardon my French, SP). According to the story arc above, Les’s t-shirt should be labeled, “THE ENABLER.”

    Some advisor. “You kids go do whatever the hell you want.” Teacher of the year. /s

    1. While the yearbook story is a failure, I don’t see the number of students depicted on the yearbook staff as being a real problem with it.

       These strips don’t say anything about how many students are on the yearbook staff. There could be any number of students on the staff working under Ally and Chien. But, in any event, if Bull was going to complain about the lack of coverage of the football team in the yearbook, the logical people for him to take his complaint to were the faculty advisor, Les, and the student editors, Ally and Chien. Whoever else was working on the yearbook would not have been able to resolve Bull’s complaint.

       (Alternatively, TV Tropes might describe this as an Acceptable Break from Reality, with an “Economy Cast” where “The Main Characters Do Everything”.)

       The problems are that nobody seems interested in imparting to Chien and Ally such messages as “The goal of the yearbook is to appeal to the broad mass of students, not just to the two of you,” and “The yearbook budget assumes that a significant percentage of students will buy the yearbook, and omitting one of the largest extracurricular activities means that the football players won’t buy it.”

       1. That’s a fair point. I’m not up on my TV Tropes like you and @Banana Jr. 6000.

          I only saw Chien and Ally, so I assumed they were the only two members of the yearbook staff. Chien is the photographer, while Ally must be the writer. Ally has to be the writer because the Roberts/Reynolds clan is firmly entrenched in the writers’ guild. Because Batiuk.

          If there were more than just the two, and there was a kerfuffle with a faculty member, I would have thought a student editor would have gotten involved. We sure as heck know Les Moore isn’t the editor.

          Having a student editor aside from Ally and Chien would require Batiuk to create another character. When fleshing out new characters, Batiuk often seems to lack inspiration.

    2. Tom Batiuk thinks a full-featured daily newspaper can be produced by an incompetent 100-year-old one-armed man who spends weeks interviewing a cartoonist. Two kids for a high school yearbook isn’t nearly that bad.

       1. Someone theorized ‘The Sentinel’ ceased publication and only exists in Skip’s imagination. I wish I could remember who came up with it.

          It wasn’t you, was it?

          1. No, I would have taken credit for something that good. Also, we’ve seen other Crankshaft characters comment on the contents of the local newspaper, so it can’t be explained away that easily.

             1. Everybody’s humouring ol’ Skipper. “Great edition this week, Skip! Read the whole thing cover to cover! And all for 10 cents — what a bargain!”

                There hasn’t been a newspaper published in years, of course. But it makes the old man happy in his dotage to “interview” people, to write “stories”, and to have “interns” around who will give him someone to talk with.

                It’s the same for Les Moore, who wrote some “books”, won an “Oscar”, “teaches”, and “climbed” Mount Kilimanjaro — although he hasn’t left his house since he finished high school. And then there’s Pete, who can’t even remember his last name. A sad, sad case — but in his mind, he’s a world-famous, millionaire comic-book author (though don’t ask him about any of the stories he’s written…he can only remember covers and titles.)

    3. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
       🔮Les Moore, le con moralisateur (pardonnez mon
       français, SP) Consider it pardoned, Eve!🔮
       You said, 🫥“I was on the Comics Kingdom utilizing the Disqus commenting platform, I posted 4,181 comments.”😶‍🌫️ Apparently, that is just a rough estimate. I counted and the actual total…(not that anyone is counting…) is 4,182. BUT Eve, …this is a big but…there were 3 times you used the same comment again and again. So your actual, registered total is 4,179. [Honesty is hard work!]
       So let me close in Français: {an easily translatable language!}
       🌜Attention à Eve Hill ! Je suis heureux de constater que la malédiction est désormais levée. Je peux maintenant lire vos commentaires à mon rythme.🌛

       1. Au contraire, mon ami. Check to the right of my profile picture. It’s 4,181 comments on the dot.

          Sorry to use a link. The website is being a dick and won’t let me post an image today.

          1. https://i.postimg.cc/RVbshGGg/2025-05-02-18-28-33-Window.png

19. I didn’t hate Pam & Jeff date night either. It fell just above my general “mostly harmless” assessment of the Crankshaft strip. I admit it, my husband and I have had similar conversations and it’s never a bad thing to see two characters have a nice “still love ya” moment.

    I’m really enjoying the deep dives. I only know Chien from this site and I don’t remember Bulk at all. And I love the confirmation that Les has been pretty much a spineless ass for most of his adult life. He’s the yearbook advisor, it’s his job to advise!! Imagine if he had stuck up for the students and let them keep the football team out of the yearbook because “it’s their decision.” Anything Bull did to him in high school would be NOTHING compared to what the players’ parents who forked out cash for a yearbook would have done to him.

    1. The “still love ya” thing works for Funky and Holly, but not really for anyone else in the Funkyverse. Funky and Holly have genuine “old couple who like being together” energy. I can’t put my finger on why, because their marriage was just as forced as all the others. But it feels earned. When he tries it with other couples, it’s squicky as hell. Other couples don’t even seem to like each other that much. Les and Lisa certainly didn’t, though they at least had the “we’re both undateable geeks” thing to bond over. Becky and John Howard wouldn’t have lasted a year.

       Pam’s only role in Jeff’s life is giving him permission to read comic books and go on comic-book related trips. Other than that, they barely talk. I’m not much of an expert on women, but she should have made peace with his hobbies by age 50, or she should be done with his shit. Him constantly asking her for permission to play with his comic books feels like some kind of infantilism roleplaying.

       1. I can’t put my finger on why,

          I assume it’s because Holly is a far more decent person than Cindy ever will be

          1. Well, Funky isn’t. He’s low-key one of the bigger assholes in Act III. Someone here called him a “dry drunk”, which is spot-on. But his marriage to Holly doesn’t feel wrong. Even when just the absolute worst, like during that financial services seminar.

             Funky is previously married, and I think Holly was too. So maybe they both know what a bad spouse is like, and have settled for someone who’s bad in ways they can tolerate.

             1. You may be on to something there. Maybe Holly on her worst day is still better than Cindy any day.

                And fair point about Pam and Jeff. The FW and Crankshaft women exist primarily to comment on whatever their spouses are doing, so there’s not much insight on why they’re still married to their doofus husbands.

    2. Mela,
       You absolutely wonderful person. I have been meaning to reply. I always read your comments. You always display plenty of thought in your posts.
       Enjoy your weekend!

       1. Aww thanks! Have a nice weekend too!

20. Today’s Crankshaft

    I have a suggestion for you, Lillian

    “Murder by Ultra Furious Son Gohan After So-Called “Gohan Fans” Make One Too Many Fanfics Where both Videl (his wife) and Pan (his daughter) Die Just So Gohan Can Get A Ridiculously-Named Super Saiyan Transformation All Because They Only Liked Gohan During The Cell Saga”

21. SO SUE ME, I DIDN’T HATE PAM AND JEFF DATE NIGHT WEEK. The jokes weren’t funny, but I’m a sucker for old marrieds expressing continued affection.

    I didn’t mind it so much, either. It was kind of like a poor man’s version of Arlo and Janis.

    Personally, I think Batiuk is getting too much mileage out of the steaming up the car windows silliness, especially when Jeff and Pam were already parked in their own driveway. I’m sure that was part of the joke. I think.

    As for Chien, I’d like her better if she directed more of her contempt and disdain toward Les.

    1. As for Chien, I’d like her better if she directed more of her contempt and disdain toward Les.

       That would require The Cartoonist to have the slightest shred of self-awareness that Les is an asshole. But Les is The Cartoonist, so that would be apostasy.

       The Yearbook Arc may be the beginning of endless years of Les the Infallible. Make Les the Pope, Chief Tommy!

       1. It’s like Batiuk felt bad for picking on Les during Funky Winkerbean ACT I, and felt the need to make amends. The Les Moore Apology Tour has been ongoing for decades.

          Batiuk: Les Moore. Ain’t he the greatest?! 😍🥰😘💘

          It’s the same thing with Lillian. He wrote a lot of story arcs that cast Lillian in a negative light. Eugene’s letter, the handling of Lucy’s dementia, etc. Batiuk rewarded Loathsome Lil by making her the Agatha Christie of the Batiukverse. Yuck.

          Speaking of @Chef Tommy, the last time I saw of him on GoComics, he was posting “SWITCH IT BACK!” in the discussion of every comic strip he read. Obviously, he meant for GoComics to switch back to the old website format. Like he has that much pull. I figure the next step will be threatening to hold his breath until they do. Turn blue, @CT, turn blue.😰 LoL

          1. I always felt like Act I Les was the nerd guy you were supposed root for and who would do OK for himself after graduation. And maybe being a teacher and author accomplished that, but the character became so unlikeable by Act 3 that I couldn’t root for him anymore. Bull was only Act I character that was allowed any sort of emotional growth (and maybe Funky to a lesser degree), and we all know how that worked out for Mr. Bushka.

             1. I don’t know if I ever rooted for Les in ACT I, but I certainly feel some sympathy for the character once in a while.

                I swear, by the end of ACT III, the only person who could stand Best Actress Academy Award Winner Les Moore was Tom Batiuk. The way Batiuk made all the other characters defer to and adore Les made no sense. I often felt like Batiuk was mocking us.

                Tom Batiuk: Wait until the Les Moore haters get a load of this. Marianne Winters is going to travel all the way to Westview to personally hand Les her Academy Award. (laughs like a braying donkey)

                Batiuk certainly did enjoy making Bull suffer. Over the last half-dozen years or so, for some reason, Batiuk also seemed to have an axe to grind with Funky. I’d like to know what that was all about. Let’s make Funky act like a total jerk. Whee!

    2. Jimmy Johnson is to Tom Batiuk as filet mignon is to a used piece of chewing gum on a dirty sidewalk.

22. Today’s Crankshaft: Lillian contemplates using ChatGPT to write her novels. Also, we learn that she plans to branch out into books about people getting killed by rough strangers they invite home for sex (“Murder by Trade”).

    1. Is that really where this is going? Tom Batiuk joking about ChatGPT may be the most self-unaware joke in history.

    2. I learned the meaning of “rough trade” from John Mortimer, the creator of Horace Rumpole (of the Bailey).

       In his Paradise Postponed, Charlotte Titmuss sums up her attraction to her husband Leslie

       (Say, isn’t Les Moore’s full name “Leslie” rather than “Lester”?)

       by saying that “he was rough trade.”

       I have a better sense of Tess Thorne’s mystery novels in Stephen King’s “Big Driver” than I do of Lillian’s Murder yarns.

       Let flow the Chateau Thames Embankment!

23. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day Five of the “Lillian At A Bookfair” week storyline

    WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN’T WROTE IT YET LILLIAN

24. Today’s Crankshaft

    This week has got me burned out on the strip, but yet I’m still drawn to it

Comments are closed.