Farm work hasn’t so much been kicking my butt, as suplexing me into the ground. But we finally got the last of planting done on Tuesday! Yay!
I enjoyed catching up on all the comments on the current Roger Bollen saga. As BillyTheSkink pointed out in the comments, Bollen and Batiuk did have a history, and Batiuk not only was quoted for his obituary in the newspaper back in 2015, but also eulogized him in his blog, along with posting a bit of Bollen art a friend had commissioned for him.
“Roger Bollen was one of the true masters of the newspaper comics page. He was the creator of Animal Crackers, Catfish and Funny Business. Roger passed away this past Saturday. To me Roger was by turns an inspiration, a wise and sage counselor, and a friend who never failed to bring a smile. When I was a senior at Kent State, I badgered, cajoled and pleaded for the opportunity to meet with him so I could pour out all of the heartfelt questions I had about cartooning and how you negotiated the path to becoming a syndicated cartoonist. He graciously spent a wintry Saturday afternoon with me talking comics and opening my eyes to the ways of the comics world. Over time we became friends who would enjoy the occasional lunch together and the chance to talk shop which, given our hermit-like existences, was something to be treasured. The cartoon above was commissioned by my best friend from college and created by Rog for my thirtieth birthday. It has remained framed very staunchly on my studio wall these many years. When Roger left comic syndication to work in children’s books and television, some of the heart disappeared from the newspaper comics pages. I missed his work and I miss the man.”
Tom Batiuk
Looking at Bollen’s body of work, I was surprised to see he and his wife had written and illustrated some children’s books that I remembered from my own grade school days.
And about one of the last things he did was help develop the screen-based-babysitter love child of Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder.
But, because it was what Batiuk admired, let’s look at some of Bollen’s best comics.
Okay. So. While I appreciate the character designs. I gotta be honest. I only found a few Rog Bollen strips that made me crack a smile. Maybe you just had to be there? Or maybe my brain is rotted? Either way. I’d say he was a good artist, but only a serviceable joke smith.
This was probably my favorite I found.
And this Lyle the Lion guy is basically Les Moore.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Bollen also illustrated for another of then-wife Marilyn Sadler’s book series, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which was later and much more popularly adapted into a trilogy of very silly Disney Channel movies.
I like this Batiukverse Bollen, who goes to great lengths to avoid the infernal drip that is Batton Thomas. Batton successfully corners him in today’s strip, but Bollen deftly turns the tables of midwestern guest polity on the leach darkening his credenza and manages to keep Batton at bay once more. This doesn’t make up for whatever inhuman thing Batton and Skip are doing with that pizza, but Bollen is gunning for the title of best character introduced to the Batiukverse since Zanzibar regardless.
I thought this was supposed to be someone else
https://i.imgur.com/EM2KUsU.png
I started to type a comment, and realized I had started writing a post! Look for it here soon, kids.
Looking forward to it, TF!
Yay! Hail To The Chief!
Handy Manny….now that’s a name that I haven’t heard since I was in elementary school
Still Today’s Incredibly Fucking Boring Crankshaft
CAN THIS STORYLINE MOVE ANY SLOWER
Careful. Batty might take that as a challenge: “Oh, you think taking six days to open a letter was slow? Hold my chocolate milk and watch this!”
Thank you for showing these strips! It’s all new to me. This might be projection in hindsight, but I feel like there is a very strong similarity in this style of work with what Batiuk typically makes, at least when it’s not Trying To Get A Pulitzer fodder.
Batiuk actually gave a very nice eulogy there, and in the news article we saw earlier. In particular: why he sought Roger out, what they talked about, the fact that they became lifelong friends, that they bonded over their solitary existences, how he keeps a memento of Roger around after all these years, and Roger telling him “he always turns down people the first two times to make sure they are serious.”
This is all great stuff. It’s all believable, human and honest. So why did none of it turn up in this week’s Crankshaft?
Instead we got a disjointed, and-then-this-happened story about the unfunny and boring process of negotiating this meeting. The bit about getting into a traffic dispute and then seeing that car at Roger’s house was good, but Batiuk didn’t do anything with it. He also turned that great quip into “by the 14th call he must have figured I was serious.” Which prevents us from hearing Roger speak for himself about the meeting, and makes Batton look like a pushy jackass.
The real story verbatim is much better than the fictionalized version Batiuk wrote. And would have been far more realistic.
It didn’t show up because it was realistic.
The really interesting thing is that back in 1997, they made Animal Crackers into a series. I don’t ever see Batiuk allowing that to happen to his crap.
I don’t ever see Batiuk allowing that to happen to his crap.
You don’t?! I sure do. Tom’s weird obsession with Holllllywood (Bullwinkle pronunciation) is always there. Always wrong, but there.
I assume the George Kennedy “Crankshaft” movie ended because no one wanted to fund a movie about “Who?” Of course he would’ve done a Funky TV show! Can’t get a Pulitzer, then get an Emmy! Also, it would’ve been just like “Lisa’s Story: The Movie.” The guy who wrote the book the story was based on would be on set, with the Most Popular Actor in Hollywood there, shrieking “THAT’S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED!” like a toddler who’s mad that he ate his cookie, but now the cookie’s GONE! No, not another cookie Mommy, the SAME cookie I just eated! And they’d all run to calm the little fuckhead down with a juice box.
The most surprising thing is that Tom’s not mentioned Bollen’s TV show. Which is also the least surprising thing. Because Tom didn’t get one. Who cares if Bollen’s ran 3 seasons? That was in CANADA, and Canada SUCKS! Weird poutine-eating NITPICKERS!
If this was like this week’s strips, the next day: Go Blue Bombers! I almost got run over by a Zamboni! It wouldn’t show me its studio! Tomorrow, I will never mention this! Skip will now eat pizza with his nose!
He’s not just a spoiled child with an inflated ego. He’s also a ferkakte imbecile who thinks life is like a funny book losing his temper when it’s not. The more Stan Lee tried explaining what an in-joke was to the deluded rube, the angrier he got about there not actually being a Marvel bullpen.
I don’t think there were ever any real plans for a Crankshaft movie. George Kennedy was a fan and wanted to play the character. He sold Batiuk on the “shopping agreement” and pitched it around Hollywood himself. As far as we know, he got no takers. But hey, Marmaduke got a movie (two actually), so it was worth a shot.
Then the same thing happened to Les. (Which ignores that the Lust For Lisa people would still own the rights, and he just couldn’t re-sell them to someone else. Must be one of those “kill fee” things.)
Classic old school FW parody strips. Well done. Hey, remember the first “Lisa’s Story” movie, when Les went to Hollywood, saved Mason Jarre’s career, and left in a huff when Hollywood tried to turn his book about his wife’s horrible death into some sort of sick soft-core porn movie? LOL man, that Batiuk and his zany Hollywood revenge fantasies. He may be an affable bloke, but man, he sure does carry a grudge.
That first one is perfect. “They’re doing it all wrong” is Les Moore’s entire personality, but he’s completely incapable of expressing this sentiment. Much less *why* it’s wrong.
Saying it’s wrong and explaining why require him to act. Can’t be a victim if you ain’t helpless, right?
How can Canada suck when it’s home to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers?
Holy mackerel, comic strips with jokes! I remember those. That was back before BatHam reinvented the genre. After that, it was all cancer, and drowning dogs. Where have you gone, Bil Keane? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
RE: Sat. 5/31’s “Pizza Slices with Skip”:
In the immortal words of Frank Sutton, “You have got to be kidding me, Pyle!” This is the non-joke that Batiuk selected to end this week’s installment of the World’s Longest-Running Interview on? A ridiculous comment that no one in their right mind would ever say and that, if there were any justice in the Funkyverse, would have gotten Batton Thomas tossed out of Bollen’s house on his ear for being a weirdo? Can we please get back to Eugene returning to Lucy’s grave to see how his wisteria are doing?
Not to mention, why would Batton go to the office of the Chicago Tribune Syndicate in New York City? Even if they had an office there, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate might have had its headquarters somewhere else, but I’m not sure where … Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee? It was probably somewhere in the Midwest ….
Seriously, though, this is one of those strips where the joke might play better if the panels were in a different order.
Present-day Batton: “Roger was my role model, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps!”
Past Roger: “Now just because I personally went to visit the comic strip syndicates in New York City doesn’t mean that you have to do that.”
Past Batton: “Right, got it … Now when you left the King Features office … did you turn right or left on 42nd Street?”
First he talks about calling the guy FOURTEEN TIMES, now he’s trying to recreate his exact steps. Was Batton’s next comment about wearing Bollen as a skin suit? That’s totally the direction this story is going.
(But at least we got that strip about… someone passing Batton in the snow. That was definitely not a complete waste of space.)
On Sunday, Bollen tells him, “If you really want to make a good impression, be sure to take along a sample of your work that a far superior artist can steal and pass off as his own.”
Are you talking about Phil Holt/Hal Foster, or Davis/Ayers? Both work!
Today’s Crankshaft
Day 6 of the Most Boring Interview, Ever (Spring 2025 edition)
Please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week
Today’s Crankshaft
Day 6 of the Most Boring Interview Ever (May 2025 edition)
please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week please don’t let this story arc drag for another week
My god! Please say you didn’t chant that 3 times in front of a mirror! That’s how you summon Bloody Mary or Tom’s Ego! You may have unleashed another week of TOM talking to TOM about TOM!
OH MY GOD WHY DID I SAY “TOM” 3 TIMES IN FRONT OF A MIRROR
ComicBookHarriet,
I was not familiar with Roger Bollen. His work reminds me of a cross between Johnny Hart’s BC, and T. K. Ryan’s Tumbleweeds. So he is in pretty good company.
Yeah, I was gonna say, some of those Bollen strips are very reminiscent of B.C.’s animal stuff, especially the snake.
Rob,
That’s what I first noticed. That snake is definitely a BC snake.
I also thought of Tumbleweeds while reading those earlier Animal Crackers comic strips. I read in Batty’s blog that Tumbleweeds was one of his favorites, and he admitted to “borrowing” the idea of having a character do a side glance to the reader from that strip.
Be Ware of Eve Hill,
Thank you! After you mentioning it, I do remember sideways glances from the characters. I thought I had even remembered his horse, Epic doing it. But that was impossible. Epic’s mane grew over his eyes!
[old radio days: Where’s the fire?🔥 In your eyes, lieutenant! 👀]
Last of all, Tumbleweeds had this strip which introduced:
🔮”I’M POLLY SUE PIMPLE!:-YUMMY SWEET AND GUMDROP GOOD!”🔮
I think Polly Sue Pimple translates in ole West to…
Be Ware of Eve Hill!
🌺💐🌹
CBH, I agree with your assessment of Rog Bollen; his drawings were better than his writing. His work was reliably okay and B-level, occasionally amusing but always at least well-drawn.
Don’t know if Rog tired of writing Animal Crackers, or simply found he was ready for a different challenge, but in the 1990s he moved out of the syndicated newspaper cartoon racket and into TV animation. If only Batiuk had followed suit in emulating his colleague there too — at least as far as leaving the newsprint game in the early 1990s!
Well, Sunday’s ‘Shaft features what has to be the most roundabout Flash #123 mention that Batiuk has shoehorned into one of his strips to date! The “Schwartz and Fox” referred to is a reference to DC editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox. In 1961 they devised the “Flash of Two Worlds” story where Silver Age speedster Barry Allen accidentally vibrates his way from his own Earth-One to Earth-Two, home of Jay Garrick, the retired Golden Age Flash of the ’40s, thus starting the concept of the DC multiverse.
Of course, this whole thing is nowhere near a joke, but that’s to be expected. At least it’s Ed and Blue Bomber Jfff instead of Skip Bittman and Batton Thomas (Creator of the Once-Syndicated Comic Strip “Three O’Clock High”), and no one is discussing the “immortal wound” they received the first time they heard this theory.
The most offensive thing in today’s strip is the Lego pirate treasure map Davis is apparently trying to pass off as a nebula.
I was mostly trying to figure out when Ed became a PBS science documentary-watching intellectual. And Jeff, for that matter. But it makes total sense that this really is about comic books. Even though Ed isn’t a comic book guy, and was unable to read at all. But if Batiuk wants to start making his comic book references so obscure I don’t even notice them, that’s great with me.
Today’s Crankshaft
I’m a firm believer in the multiverse theory, and here’s a small bit of useless information about me:
In my Batiukverse fanfic (which is very plagued by writer’s block), there are two major universes
By the way, does anyone have any speculation about Tom being referred to as “The Spider” in that drawing? That’s the first I’ve heard of the moniker.
Today’s Crankshaft
Now we’re back with Ed Crankshaft after two weeks without him
So, is TuBerculosis down to just a few themes now?
Ed buys Bean’s End crap
Batton Thomas’ remarkably unremarkable life
BOOK SIGNING!!
DINKLE! (will involve book signing)
Bus driver shortage. Sure, they don’t bus kids to school in the summer, let’s do it anyway, I suppose you also believe that monkeys don’t talk
Batton Thomas’ remarkably unremarkable life in boring detail
Comical books!
Batton Thomas’ remarkably unremarkable life in painful detail
Yearly appearance of Undead Eugene
Deep philosophical conversations about the nature of reality. That involve comical books! Did you know that “E=MC2” stands for “ELONGATED MAN…uh…Black Canary”…I’ll get back to you on that
Tom, my dude. Why this, when 75 year old Cindy’s year-long pregnancy should be over? What horror did she spawn?
“There’s only one thing wrong with the Jarre-head baby–IT’S ALIVE”
I think we found a volunteer to fill out the SoSF ACT IV 2025 page.😉
I wrote to Tom Batiuk on his website, and he responded promptly the next morning.
Me: “I was wondering about a plot point in the May 27 and 28 strips that seemed to be left hanging.
Batton told Skip about being on the way to Roger Bollen’s house and having another driver honk at him, then finally arriving at Roger’s house and seeing the other driver’s car in the driveway.
This made it seem like Batton had gotten into a confrontation on the road with the person he was going to visit, which would have been an embarrassing situation for one or both of them.
But when Batton entered Roger’s house, Roger’s wife told him that Roger wasn’t even up yet. So Roger could not have been the driver who honked at Batton.
In that case, though, who was the other driver? The only other person we saw in Roger’s house was Roger’s wife, and she gave no indication of having been involved in the honking incident.”
***
Tom: “The driver was Roger’s wife Georgiana.”
It’s called writing!
Was that really TB’s entire response? You think he’d have more to say than that.
That’s all he wrote as the substance of his response. The rest of the e-mail consisted of the line “Sent from my iPhone” and a quote of my original message in full.
Whatever else we can say about Tom, he was quick to respond. I sent the message late at night and received the e-mail from him the next morning.
Of course, the obvious question is “why did you bother to include that strip at all, since it had absolutely nothing to do with anything?”, but… it’s called writing, I guess.
(Or will the payoff be in the next soul-draining installment of “My Dinner With Batton”, by which point no sane person would be expected to remember that strip? Zanzibar only knows at this point.)
That admittedly answers the question, while ignoring the real one: Why did he put it in there, just to ignore it? Chekov’s Bug.
Of course, every panel of that arc meant nothing the next day. Not unlike, say, Cindy’s pregnancy. I guess there’s a reason they call it “tomfoolery.”
If the syndicate could be bothered with editors, this would be the kind of question an editor might have asked.
Of course, that might lead to other questions (“What’s the point of all this?” “Who are these tedious characters?” “Why are we even interested in this story?” “Are we actually paying you to do this?”), so you can see where the syndicate maybe just wants to leave it well enough alone….
Today’s Crankshaft
Ed: For some reason the AI Garden is somehow generating images that show people having either more or less fingers on their hands.
Yes, I have framed many things very staunchly.
Like TB, I too do things staunchly! I staunchly refuse to shower! My coworkers say I “staunch on ice” while holding their noses!
TB heard “Never use a big word when a simpler one would work just as well.” Sadly, he heard this on Opposite Day, or maybe on Freaky Friday.
(This is how I think you can spot his GC sock puppets: Does the guy with only 1 comment on the site write like TB, i.e., like he ate a thesaurus and is now vomiting it?)
Today’s Crankshaft
how the fuck does crankshaft know all of what he’s saying
All character traits in the Funkyverse are thrown out and rewritten as the current story needs. So now Crankshaft is a scientist or some shit. Speaking of which, where does seeding clouds to create rain square with the “climate damage” thing we’re supposed to worry about?
Don’t-Care Dan’s intern showed Tom how to use ChatGPT to write dialog.
Probably old news to you guys (it’s from 2007), one of TB’s canned interviews:
https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/people/articles/most-interesting-people-tom-batiuk
Interesting only for this quote:
“‘Peanuts’ had a huge influence on me. For good or bad, he shaped what we do.”
…”Bad”? Was he the Zodiac Killer? “And each of his victims was found clutching an unkicked football.”
Elsewhere: “The creator of the Peanuts comic strip was a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and his comics earned him an Emmy, Peabody, and Congressional Gold Medal.”
Jelly much, Tombo?