Just a quick one today, as I’m sure BJ6K is cooking up an Epic Rap Battle of History between Les Moore and Wilbur Weston.
But this panel. This panel confirms to my tinfoil, self-centered brain that Batiuk reads the comments here and elsewhere. As I have explained this way of differentiating the DoubleDumb twins on many an occasion.
When Batiuk half-randomly decided last year to hypercharge Emily and Amelia Mathews-Reynolds from precocious 12-year-olds to high schoolers, I wonder if he knew how much it was going to shoot those characters in the foot.
Whereas Emily and Amelia as kids had about a decade of strip time and dozens and dozens of appearances to pull art from, Emily and Amelia as high schoolers have an insanely limited number of strips, only 52, to copy pasta from. And many of those are hampered by the twins just being blonde heads in a sea of classroom faces.
Additionally, a few Emily and Amelia strips come from the Burchett era, meaning posting them in with Ayers lines leads to weird effects. Like when Simpsons met Family Guy.
Son of Stuck Funky 
He can’t figure out what to do with the characters.
He reads the GC comments, and has some Baron Harkonnen/Floating Fat Man control over them, pulling their heart plugs out when they upset him.
By no means brilliant, but I know this will be memory holed, so here it is:
CS 6/13:
“The book’s set in Northeast Ohio. Specifically, Akron. If it was set in central Ohio, say Columbus, he never would’ve read it. What an incurious man he is.”
To repeat myself, here’s Devo on their hometown of Akron: “Put it real plain, it’s a city of pain, it’s one big factory!” Tom and Dan: they’re one small factory. No one escapes Akron, or Westview. The Spice is everything, or at least the tire plant is.
To think zombified acceptance of boring nonexistence in a one stoplight town is supposed to be humanity’s nation. No wonder they made a legend of The Burnings.
There’s something kind of 1983 about the Funkyverse. Westview/Centerville should have the modern problems of Rust Belt cities: factory closings, stagnant economy, blighted neighborboods, crumbling infrastructure, drug problems, population decrease.
But the characters are more like midwesterners from decades ago: pessimistic, but content with their stable existence. Plot developments like layoffs and strip clubs never affect the main characters. And if they ever need money, they can sell 3 or 4 of their 10,000 comic books, because this is also Tom Batiuk’s fantasy world.
He wants the Ohio of his youth to be humanity’s nation. Typical.
Don’t forget, the author of that book went to Kent State.
And he once profiled Batiuk for a newspaper story that ended up in a book:
https://jamesrenner.com/new-ebook-short-nonfiction-from-cleveland/
“33 pieces of short nonfiction. Includes profiles of famous/infamous Ohioans like Bill Watterson, Tom Batiuk, Dave Chapelle….”
That’s not my opinion, that’s a direct quote from the book description.
FW and Crankshaft are like advertisements for KSU and all the other things that interest Batty. Maybe it is in his contract with KSU press.
CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN Thomas Martin Batiuk AND KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS (KSU Press)
Mr. Batiuk agrees to provide collected Funky Winkerbean strips for publication, plus i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶, i̶n̶f̶o̶r̶m̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ introductions to same, on an annual basis through 2027.
KSU Press agrees to print 1,000 copies of each volume annually, 925 of which will be bought by Mr. Batiuk at our special s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ “author’s rate” of $29.95/ea.
Mr. Batiuk is free to sell copies of the volumes he bought at various book signings, trade shows, etc. He must post photos of these events at least twice a year on his website at tombatiuk.com, as we get an admittedly twisted kick out the forlorn hopelessness these photos exude.
Both Mr. Batiuk and KSU Press agree to only mention each other’s names in a positive context in any public forum, as well as the names of any associated products, institutions, employees, holding companies, grubby little cut-and-paste clipart lackeys, etc.
Mentions of KSU, or books published by KSU Press, in a comic strip authored by Mr. Batiuk may, at the discretion of KSU Press, be rewarded with a coupon for 5% off the purchase price of any one (1) KSU book that is purchased over and above the contractually mandated 925 copies of each annual Funky Winkerbean volume.
In return for this, Mr. Batiuk irrevocably agrees to stop pestering us about putting up a spinner rack in the KSU bookstore.
SIGNED
______________________________
KSU Press and not a
vanity press no matter
what anyone says
______________________________
Tom Batiuk, Batom Comics
Pulitzer Nominee
Had an interview at Marvel once
When Batiuk half-randomly decided last year to hypercharge Emily and Amelia Mathews-Reynolds from precocious 12-year-olds to high schoolers.
No worries. He’ll just randomly change them back to precocious 12-year-olds again.
Don’t ask how, but I have obtained a couple of screenshots showing how the sausage is made… Behold!
I wonder! I did notice that DC was using QuarkXPress in production not so many years ago (some preview pages at a con) but i had no idea it was available in the Mac Classic era i loved so well.
As for the book from this weeks strip, amazon describes it as: “The story follows David Neff, a reporter turned true crime writer who has taken an extended leave of absence from writing after his wife’s suicide”
hmmmm big think
“Northeast Ohio” and “Kent State” was all I needed to hear. Today’s Crankshaft is practically a commercial for the book.
“Practically”?
It can’t be a coincidence that the protagonist of “Double Indemnity” also had the surname Neff.
And what a joy to see that System 7(?) QuarkXPress page. Really twangs the ol’ nostalgic heartstrings.
“Nice job of drawing the book cover. Twice!”
…said a GC commenter I’ve not seen before. New to the strip, or super-sarcastic?
I wonder if the “timely” tariffs joke this week is because Don’t-Care Dan has put Tommy on notice: “You write what I draw. Work your ‘plots’ around that. And by what I draw, I mean what Ayers drew before he got sick of you.”
Today’s Crankshaft
“ZZZZZZZZZZ”
In Crankshaft, the rain is eternal. The black mold inescapable. The faltering brains of Centerville’s citizens continue to…falter? Did I say that already? Why does it smell like black mold in this bookstore?
On the Komix Thoughts blog, Tom pats himself on the back for that time his made-up character bravely, heroically, made-uppedly confronts Joe McCarthy. This would be the same character who said a chimp once talked to him.
TB’s heart is in the right place, but his brain is…Dang, it’s a word that rhymes with “haltering,” gimme a sec…OOH, Gothily’s got a book written in Ohio! NORTHEASTERN OHIO! Specifically AKRON! You Cincinnati and Columbus weirdos can just sod off!
As lukewarm as his attempts are and how much of a minefield it stirred when he surprised us with the oddly-topical Sunday strip last week, I’d give Batiuk kudos if he tried to go after these topics more often. Certainly the tone would match the norms he usually go for with the Funkyverse; it’s worth noting that even in Comic Mecca in its canon that the country’s “best” comic writer thinks the industry is going down the toilet so he’s better off dropping writing entirely as a breadwinner career in favor of running a restaurant with two people. Plus better odds to actually see things burnt in the Burnings.
Today’s Crankshaft
This week has been boring just like most of this year has been for the strip
When I worked as a manager in record stores, I did a lot of hiring interviews. My first question would be “Why do you want to work here?”
More than half would cheerfully say “Because I think it’d be cool to get paid to listen to music all day!”
Me: “Yeah, I’d like that job too! Tell me when you find it.”
They didn’t know it, but the interview was now over. You just told me you wanted to get paid to do nothing. If we hired these people, they’d get mad and quit after 2 weeks because Hey Guess What, they had to do things.
So Lillian hires the twins for no reason, immediately regrets it–like in seconds–and finds out they don’t want to work! Bet they’ll be there forever, even if they regress in age faster and more randomly than the “characters” in 9 WTFweed Lane.
Second worse at the record store: NEVER hire a guy who leads with “I’m in a band!” They think they’re rockstars. One guy got fired after a month of no-shows and might as well have been a no-show when he did show. Classic parting line: “In 10 years, no one will remember Sam Goody except as a place where I worked!” And that man’s name was…How the fuck should I remember. His band never got above “dollar beer night dive bar” status.
Today’s Crankshaft
Hopefully we shift to something different tomorrow
also, Happy Father’s Day
“Happy Father’s Day, Ed!”
(snarling) “I don’t have any kids!”
(Bus drivers stare)
“Well…That speak to me now, anyway!”
(sitcom laugh track)
Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: The Finalization of The Funky-Cindy Divorce
Cindy fears getting older, and does everything to make herself look younger
Funky: And by “we” I mean just me because Cindy needs to lose everything.
If I were Funky, I would either punch her in the face or shove her away and tell her to leave
I think that kissing Funky during Act II would be a bad idea because I think his breath reeks of alcohol
Funky: Now get the fuck out of here or else I’m slashing your tires.
Man, that 2nd strip! I’ll bet TB thinks he’s a “feminist ally” or such, but I don’t think he really likes women. Half the time we see Pam, and every time we see his mother, they’re doing the dishes by hand like it’s 1957.
And what’s with his dislike of TV news anchors? Did ABC News 5 Cleveland not drop everything when his last stale anthology was released, so they could give him one of his canned interviews? (ABC, IIRC, is where Cindy worked in NYC) Why, he’s so bitter about news anchors, he should write a whole strip making fun of those blow-dried, vapid egomaniacs! Maybe have the art be fugly, and have them killed by a man dressed as a ficus!
I was looking for something on a radio website. I came across the morning show hosts. The men were in their 60s, fat, and clearly wearing baseball caps to hide their baldness. The weather/co-host and traffic reporters were women were a 35ish blonde and a 22ish Chinese-American. And they were hot! Yes, to succeed as a woman in American journalism, you have to be HAWT! On the radio.
Yeah he thinks he is an “ally” but I don’t think he hates women, he just cannot write anything realistic or interesting about them.
The only characters he can write for now are Les and Batton. Oops, typo! I didn’t mean that to be plural. He can only write he.
I don’t feel the desire to read enough about law to know if it’s right to snark on this arc for saying you can dump a bunch of divorce lawyers you’ve been paying for some time in favor of a local attorney who isn’t specialized in that field at all writing up a quick paper. But it does feel like an easy answer for the local miracle worker Saint after the notion that Cindy would want to take a good chunk of things in the seperation before her kind soul got cold feet.
That or just commentary on all non-Lisa lawyers being jerks (She’s good because she attended her death row client’s execution!)
Ah the old “all lawyers are jerks, save for Lisa” trope. Lisa is one of the good ones because she fights for the little guy. I’m sure this is just Batty grinding his axe because he hates lawyers, but has no problem bringing them in to protect his intellectual property.
You know that old chestnut about “a man representing himself has a fool for a client”? This is exactly why. Part of a lawyer’s job is to protect you from yourself. When you’re fighting in court for something that’s important to you, you can get emotional and make bad choices. So Cindy’s lawyer was 100% correct to tell her to put a sock in it, because she was undermining her own case. If Cindy came to the hearing with plans to fight for Montoni’s as part of the settlement, and she changed her mind and dropped it at the last second, then she wasted everyone’s time. His response to “I’ll do what I please” would have been “fine, you can fire me if you want, but I’m still billing you.”
If Cindy and Funky were wiling to separate amicably with “nobody contesting anything”, the whole thing never should have gotten to the point of a hearing with lawyers. That it did suggests what I’ve said many times about the Funkyverse; people will let the elephant in the room destroy their life before they’ll say a word about the actual problem.
Yep, I’ve worked with lawyers several times and that is their primary job when you hire them. I’m currently working with a lawyer in Italy and he is helping me get my Italian passport. No way I could navigate their legal system without him.
Anyways, yeah just write up an agreement if you are both on the same page. But this idiot wastes everyone’s time only to then say nah, let’s go talk to St Lisa.
And if they are on the same page, what do they even need Lisa for, other than doing basic paperwork? Batiuk is so eager to make Not-Yet-Dead Lisa the hero of everything,
“Lawyer who attended her death row client’s execution” really sounds like “fireman who was first on the scene was really who set all the fires he reported.”
Lawyer Lisa: “Hey your Horror, I mean your Honor, those robes don’t make you look fat at all. Anyway, we’re here at the trial of whoever my client is, Shady Shrew or some shit, and I reeeeally hope he doesn’t get the death penalty for double parking, because then I’d have to…(heavy breathing) watch him die.” (begins singing “Folsom Prison Blues”)
Les and baby Summer eavesdropping at the very edge of the 8-12 strip is the kind of fun little detail that TB stopped trying to do in early Act III. For shame.
Maybe Cindy is the Pizza Box Monster? Maybe she immediately regretted not getting that half of Montoni’s that her original divorce lawyer was after (hence the “not exactly”) and decided to terrorize Funky over it for years. Then finally, she got half of Montoni’s when Pete needed a co-owner. The pieces are coming together!
That makes more sense than anything Batty could write.
Is it me, or do the facial expressions in this story make no sense? Funky and Cindy’s kiss is way too passionate for a “goodbye, it was fun while it lasted” kiss at the end of a divorce. Harry looks like a Must See TV-watching 90s hipster. Lisa looks like someone just showed her a differential equation. Sometimes the art works, like in “i’ll do whatever I please” and “we tried the best way and it didn’t work.” But this the kind of story Byrne’s art style should suit well. I get the feeling Batiuk vetoed what Byrne wanted to draw and him Funky it up, which led to these abominations.
The twins should hand Loathsome Lil an invoice for past services rendered. At a minimum, the twins helped Lillian set up her laptop and her tombatiuk.com like website. If it wasn’t for the twins, Lillian would be typing up her mysteries on her Smith Corona at the dining room table. Lillian would be selling her books exclusively from her garage, a.k.a. ‘The Village Booksmith’. Not to mention all the help the twins give Lillian around the store, like shoveling her driveway and steps, helping to move books during the alleged Burnings incident, etc.
Loathsome Lil should feel compelled to pay because not only does her store violate dozens of building and business codes, she has violated child labor laws.
Amelia: Nice bookstore, Ms. McKenzie. It would be a shame if something happened to it. Pay up.
I say we give Loathsome Lil the electric chair. (Hmm. Smells like fried chicken.)
RE: Mon. 6/16’s “Crankshaft Featuring Ed Crankshaft”:
Hey, look, gang! It’s Crankshaft’s other daughter, Chris! You know, the one who lives in New York City and only appears when Ed flies in to visit her every couple of years so she can drag him to an opera at Lincoln Center? I know she popped up back in 2020, but I think this is her first appearance since at least 2022. Hi, Chris!
In the meantime, I guess Batiuk wanted to do a “joke” about how bad airline food is but was informed that most domestic flights under four hours don’t have meal service anymore. Can’t wait to see how his week in the Big Apple unfolds.
On the upside, it’s not Lillian and the Midwich Cuckoos.
Hmm let me guess. Another sleepy night at the opera? Taxi jokes? Weird ethnic food that Crankshaft hates? Jokes about all the crowds?
Batiuk out here trying to make Skip Bittman’s material seem fresh. Maybe we’ll get some jokes about the post office before the week is out…
Ed could have saved himself the airfare by just using that word zeppelin in panel 2.
Well Batty decided to tackle the issue of high rent, dang he is such a maverick. The joke today is that while Cranky’s daughter Chris is paying an exorbitant amount of rent, Mrs Knuessbaum in 3B is paying only $96 a month as she has been a resident in that rent controlled apartment since 1952.
I’m sure BJ6K is cooking up an Epic Rap Battle of History between Les Moore and Wilbur Weston.
After the last two days, I don’t have a damned thing to say about Wilbur Weston, for the same reason I have nothing to say about the sickos on 9 Chickweed Lane.
Hm. Not that I needed further confirmation, but it would appear that permanently ceasing to read Mary Worth remains the correct decision.
Today’s Crankshaft
Hey look Christine Crankshaft (Ed’s other daughter) has returned since 2020 something
The latest John Darling Who Was Etc: “The baby, of course, is Lisa’s grandaughter, Jessica.”
WHAAAT
The mother of Summer’s clone daughter who was the mother of her own book-buying clone daughter from the Burnings? She was alive in the 80s? Do I even want to know?
I think he meant “stepdaughter”, not “granddaughter”. (Since Boy Lisa is Lisa’s son, and Jessica Darling Whose Father John Darling Was Murdered is his wife, that makes her Lisa’s stepdaughter.) (Why he felt it necessary to define her in relation to Lisa, of all characters, is another question entirely.)
But proofreading is for chumps.
That would make her Lisa’s daughter-in-law, not stepdaughter.
(For those of you who don’t know what we’re all on about:
https://tombatiuk.com/komix-thoughts/john-darling-take-476/)
I figured that it was a typo, except it was “Lisa,” given TB’s inability to remember his character’s names.
But…but…John Darling My Father, like ALF, died in 1990. Lisa’s Pregnancy was in 1986. This is happening before 1990. She can’t be a granddaughter, she can’t be a stepdaughter, SHE HASN’T BEEN BORN
Yes, there was a stupid time jump of 15 years in 2001, but it’s still 1986-90 when the Child uses the remote. It happened before the jump.
I guess we all just throw our hands in the air and scream “TIMEMOP RETCON!”
Self-described, Oscar-winning “Hemingway in a Toolshed,” people.
I’m not the archivists you guys are, but I think more than once we were told that Jessica’s father was…Oh, you remember?
So “Lisa” here is John Darling’s mother? As Tom said, “OF COURSE.”
I’m going to assume that Tom has no idea of his own lore. All he had to do was say “The baby, of course, is John’s daughter Jessica. She’s really not that gran.”
Thanks to the way Batiuk mucked up the timeline to make 2022 the 50th high school reunion of the original cast, Les wrote Fallen Star (the book about the murder of John Darling Who Was Murdered) BEFORE John Darling Who Was Murdered was murdered. (Assuming John Darling Who Was Murdered was still murdered in 1990, which would rather need to be the case with all the topical references in the strip.) (Then again, it also means that “President” Clinton visited Montoni’s before 1990, which… yeah, that doesn’t quite add up…)
Timemop, man. Friggin’ Timemop.
Oops, you’re right. Stupid me. (Guess proofreading really is for chumps. I could argue that I’m not a professional writer, unlike some other people who shall remain nameless (Tom Batiuk), but it was still a dumb mistake.)
I’m sure he meant “John’s daughter Jessica.”
Why his autocorrect ignored “gran-daughter” yet changed “John” to “Lisa”…That’s a question best left to his autocorrect.
Speaking of pregnancies, hasn’t the nearly 70-year-old CIndy Summers Winkerbean Jarre been “enceinte” (to borrow a term from I Love Lucy) for over 13 months by now? By this time she could have given birth to a dromedary camel…but let’s leave Masonne’s profile out of this!
I’m going to cut Tom a small amount of slack on that, because Cindy hasn’t been seen for a year. For all we know, she actually did give birth sometime in the last year. Also, we know that in the Batiukverse, time bears no relationship to time in the real world, thanks to Timemop.
Sure, that’s a possibility. Lord knows we wouldn’t have wanted to waste a week back in the first half of the year on Cindy’s delivery when doing so would have meant missing more of the Skip Rawlings interview of Batton Thomas.
But just look at the dramatic possibilities Batiuk passed on. He could have had Masonne and Cindy make one of their semi-annual visits to the Valentine during a March blizzard that shut the town down. And then, when everyone was stuck inside the theater, Cindy could have gone into labor, while Masonne was driving around trying to get something she needed. And Ed and Mary, who were there to watch the Mr. Moto double feature for free, could have helped deliver the baby. Nothing like that has ever been done before in the graphic medium!
So, when the Jarres eventually do show up, do you all think they’ll have little Ginger (just a suggestion) with them, or will the whole pregnancy thing simply be forgotten?