Besmirched

Ol’ Cranky is far from the craggiest old mug on Washington Square. As a century plus of beautiful New York air, friendly New York critters, and civic minded New Yorker’s meant that Washington’s head from the statue on his arch is more spackle and epoxy than marble at this point. Madonna would be envious of these fillers.

At first, I was offended on behalf of this landmark. After all, it was erected to celebrate the centennial of the inauguration of our own nation’s Cincinnatus. The man who probably could have taken power for life, and instead released the reins. We can celebrate now nearly three centuries with no lifelong tyrants. (Except, according to my dad, FDR. But that’s getting us too close to politics again!)

The triumphal arch was designed by Stanford White, architect of many impressive edifices; not least of which included his impressively groomed mustache.

like a tiny hair bird about to take flight

Unfortunately, I learned in my research today that moustaches weren’t the only thing Stanford liked to groom. I guess the Pedostache can be traced further back than I’d first assumed.

In 1906, this Victorian Bryan Singer of balustrades attended the premiere of Mamzelle Champagne at Madison Square Garden. During the big finale number,  “I Could Love A Million Girls” Stanford White was shot dead by the disgruntled (and equally abusive) husband of one of his alleged victims.

So I’m no longer enamoured of Washington Square’s crumbly little arch. It serving no greater function than reminding a crotchety old tourist of foot pain seems appropriate.

85 thoughts on “Besmirched”

  1. Old George doesn’t look much different than current Ed.

    Little known fact: Stanford White’s mustache was the inspiration for Sister Bertrille the Flying Nun’s hat.

  2. Am I the only person to see Stanford White’s stache, immediately think of the Flying Nun, and then of Blaze Glory? Jeez, I hope so!

    1. The Washington Square arch or Stanford White’s mustache?

      The arch used to be part of the 5th Avenue traffic and cars would drive through it until 1959.

      As for White and his facial hair, you can see or read depictions of him in the book and film of Ragtime, the movie The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and on TV’s The GIlded Age.

  4. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 7 of the New York Storyline/Day 1 of Summer Bean’s End Storyline, 2025 Edition

    WHY DID WE SHIFT BACK TO CENTERVILLE ABOUT BEAN’S END

    1. Whenever Crankshaft’s not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, “where’s Crankshaft?”

  5. Norman Mailer played Stanford White in the 1981 “Ragtime” movie.

    Elizabeth McGovern was Evelyn Nesbit, whose husband Harry Thaw (Robert Joy) killed White.

    Joan Collins played Nesbit in the 1955 movie “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.” (For those who care, in that picture, Ray Milland was White and Farley Granger was Thaw.)

    Collins, like Tom Batiuk, has not won the Pulitzer Prize, but is a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

    1. Wow! How did I miss Tom Batiuk becoming a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire?

      1. Joan Collins arrived at Batty’s home in Ohio to turn over her honor to him. “Here, Tom. You’re one who truly deserves this.”

        Flash Fact: Batty is also a Kentucky Colonel and a Sagamore of the Wabash.

    3. Sure, why can’t Tom be a Dame Commander? Are you assuming his gender?

      And even as a man, it makes total sense in a world where Les won Best Actress.

  6. Every time I see Jeff in a Crankshaft comic strip without Ed, I fear that it could be the start of the much-dreaded Jeffrey Goes to T̸o̸w̸n̸ a Blue Bombers game story arc. Too soon, right?

    1. I don’t dread the trip to Winnipeg nearly as much as I dread the additional weeks of Batton Thomas we all know are coming.

      I wonder if Jeff will have to beg Pam for permission to go, like he always does. And I wonder if today’s strip — Jeff joining into Pam’s reverie, and criticizing her father in a very mild way — is the beginning of that process.

      1. Oh, I agree 100% about the Batton Thomas arcs. By saying “much-dreaded,” I’m referring to the fact that all the story arcs TB builds up in his blog become as dull as dishwater after a week. Eventually, everybody clamors for anything else (never Batton Thomas).

        Coincidently, I wrote a comment besmirching the Batton Thomas interview arcs on GoComics today.

        Pam and Jeff are sitting on a porch swing and discussing Ed’s absence from the strip. It’s not the best story arc I could hope for, but it’s still more engaging than yet another Batton Thomas interview with Skip Rawlings.

        Three panels of an empty porch swing would be more engaging than another strip of Skip Rawlings interviewing Batton Thomas.

        We were subjected to another Batton Thomas arc just last month, so I’m hoping we won’t see another installment for at least another month.

        I reviewed one of TB’s Blue Bomber blogs. One was dated September 5, 2024. In this blog, TB says, “My trip to Winnipeg to take in a Blue Bombers Game also served another purpose, and that was to do some research for a story that will appear in Crankshaft around this time next year.”

        So, I guess we can probably expect Jeff’s tale in September. Most likely after yet another miserable week of Bloviatin’ Batton Thomas. 😒😩

        1. “Mr. Batiuk, the IRS is auditing you because of some dubious expenses you tried to write off your taxes as ‘research’. It says here you stayed at a Fairfield Inn last September?”

          “Yes. That was a research trip.”

          “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You can’t just write off fabulous vacations and call them research trips. Where did you go?”

          “Winnipeg.”

          “Never mind.”

    2. Personally, I’d love to see Jeff go to a Blue Bombers game–as long as he goes with Rictus Homunculus and their Magic Murania Rock!

      “Gosh, future psychotic episodes me! The Bombers greatest nemesis, the Orange Farters, are about to score the winning touchdown!”
      “Not if Jeff can help it!” (throws rock. Gives player CTE. Player commits suicide. Jeff rots in a prison in Moose Jaw forever)

      Pam, rocking on the porch: “It’s so peaceful with Jeff not here!” She laughs and chugs another wine cooler.

  7. Today’s Past Batiukverse Storyline: The Flu Epidemic in Westview High School

    ha ha it’s funny because the principal holds no actual power and the secretary is the one running the school

    (dinkle starts coughing up blood violently)

    Carrie: I dont think you have the flu, you haven’t put enough mousse in your hair.

  9. From his blog:

    “So in a previous JD post, I mentioned that Jan and John’s child was Lisa’s granddaughter. Well, a sharp-eyed reader who apparently pays more attention than I do pointed out to me that little Jessica would grow up to marry Lisa’s son Darin and would therefore be Lisa’s daughter-in-law.”

    Was this pointed out to him by someone here? And what’s the difference between “a sharp-eyed reader” and “a beady-eyed nitpicker”?

    Bonus: someone finds mint condition comics that are worth thousands! Boy, that sure happens a lot in a rust belt hellhole!

    1. The hardest Deep Dive here would be about Tom’s obsession with people finding treasure troves of comics…like everywhere, anywhere. When did this start? Why does it never stop happening? Does he dream that this is how he’s going to retire, just finding Action Comics #1 is someone’s kitchen? Was it Lillian who found the entire run of Timely-Atlas in her attic? Sitting there since 1939, in a North Ohio attic that was likely unventilated, sub-zero in the winter, broiling hot in the summer, insulation of asbestos? Those would disintegrate the second anyone picked one up. How did someone magically know they’d be worth money before Marvel became a thing? (Yeah, TimeMop, we know) Didn’t Ed find a perfect batch, after we saw his attic get flooded by a sprinkler system?

      Remember time-traveling Crazy finding a copy of the first Spider-man appearance sitting on a Rexall spinner rack 20 years after it came out? That’s impossible. If a comic didn’t sell then, it got returned for credit. Nobody bought it with a cover price of a dime, over decades?

      I’m not saying it’s a fetish comparable to “teens having sex while close relatives watch,” which is from 9…Family Circus, it’s from Family Circus. But it’s certainly his fetish. How many times has he done this? Why does he keep doing this?

      And of course, Komix Koroner just gives comics away. And Kevin Feige runs a pizza dump. Quarter inch from your therapist telling you “I SAID stay on your meds!” Tom would be a billionaire if his bitch of a mom didn’t throw away Flash #123!

      1. It’s another one of Batiuk’s 9-year-old obsessions that he never outgrew. I once thought this way, imagining that I would come into possession of insanely valuable baseball cards. Of course now I realize that they’re not that valuable, especially in the mediocre conditions I had, and the few hundred dollars I thought I might raise really isn’t that much money. You would think Batiuk, a man who’s been well-employed his entire life and doesn’t seem overly materialistic, would have moved past this by now.

        And yes, there is probably some residual bitterness towards his mother. Lord knows he’ll never run out of that.

        1. He strikes me as someone with several longboxes of bagged&slabbed Death of Superman and X-Force #1. Just like Beanie Babies, it’s not valuable if everyone’s collecting it.

          1. Which is another thing my adult self realized about my childhood baseball cards: they weren’t valuable because they were dirt-common. So they had to be in mythical condition, which didn’t square with my 9-year-old interest in handling and actually enjoying the things. And you could cheaply buy them in “gem” state anyway, so there was nothing to be gained from all those protective sheets and cases I bought.

            None of which applies to Tom Batiuk’s fantasy world. These people consume comic books like they’re food, and everybody in town already has a collection. But somehow they’re still in saleable condition, and worth gobs of money.

    2. Sure, “Durwood discovers he’s accidentally married his own niece and blinds himself” sounds like a fun story arc but then you realize it would start with a week-long sequence of him checking his 23 and Me results.

    3. The following sentence from that blog post:

      “Of course the reader was correct and I’m admitting it here even though I went back and changed the previous post through the magic of whatever because (and I’m paraphrasing here) with a certain amount of power comes a certain amount of responsibility.”

      Narrator: Tom did not, in fact, change the post where he called Jessica “Lisa’s granddaughter.”

      1. He added a pop-up style thing repeating his reply on that post.

        HI TOM WE NOW KNOW YOU READ THIS!

          1. The only artist he can find after 50+ years is Don’t-Care Dan? Tom can’t afford him no readers.

          2. I figure it’s his “editor”‘s job. I’m pretty sure @TeaberryBlue did this. Lord knows she didn’t do anything else.

  10. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 8 of the New York Storyline/Day 2 of Summer Bean’s End Storyline, 2025 Edition

    I noticed that this strip is 90% traced from this one from 2014 (I got it from CK before Crankshaft and FW were removed from it in 2023)

    2. Why does Jeff’s facial expression change from “smug and condescending” to “oh well, whatever” in the middle of a sentence that doesn’t fit either of those?

  12. I’ve always been fascinated by the Thaw/White case and have read quite extensively about it. The situation was far more complex than the way it’s apparently been depicted in movies and TV (none of which I’ve seen, so I might be off base on that). Essentially, the White/Nesbit affair was consensual, and there’s no real reason to believe that Nesbit was abused. Thaw, who was really quite insane — probably psychotic, certainly into sadomasochism and ragingly paranoid — was insanely jealous of White and likely courted and married Nesbit (primarily by seducing Nesbit’s ambitious mother with his vast wealth) just to “steal her” from White. He began systematically trying to get Nesbit to “admit” that White had “defiled” her by coercing her into sex acts. Once he had gotten her “confession,” he felt perfectly justified in blowing White’s brains out in public, in front of probably hundreds of witnesses. He expected to be acquitted, as he was just defending his wife’s honor against the blackguard White.

    White had everything that Thaw did not, including talent, charisma, savoir faire, and social success in a world that should have accepted Thaw — he was from a family as prominent as any in the Social Register — but didn’t, because he was, as I mentioned, totally unhinged, violent, and creepy.

    Nesbit, of course, often seems to be written out of her own story — as was the case at the time; women were the acted-on, not the primary actors. Women were the recipients of sex, never initiators or enjoyers of it. But from my readings, I believe she did care for “Stanny,” and perhaps even loved him. He had treated her kindly and he was probably the only man who had ever done so.

    1. Interesting. My cursory research on it indicated that White had quite a habit of seducing teens. Some even younger than Nesbit, who was 15 or 16 at the time of their relationship. I have a hard time looking at a relationship like that and thinking Nesbit was a free and independent woman. And White was still a slimeball.

      Perhaps the relationship was technically consensual. I’d totally believe that. But it was skeezy nonetheless. He was a much older married man in a position to offer worldly benefits in return for sexual favors. That’s the way the rich and powerful have rolled for thousands of years. But it’s still grooming.

      1. White was certainly no boy scout. He liked the high life, and that included a licentious playboy lifestyle. But in the early 1900s, it was common for girls of 15 or 16 to marry. The age of consent was lower, and social mores were much more lenient about older man/younger girl pairings.

        Ultimately, the case was sensationalized in every way by the press (think OJ trial, but wilder), to the point where we can never know the true, full story. And White, of course, couldn’t speak in his own defense. No matter how you slice it, it’s quite sad.

        Evelyn Nesbit was really the first supermodel. Her beauty was her downfall; at a time when women were seen as possessions, people fought to possess her.

  13. Today’s strip reminds me of Dinkle’s Thanksgiving from five years ago. This is the behavior of a family that revolves around a selfish, obsessive narcissist. And this is a common theme in the Funkyverse. Ed wants his garden watered and it better be watered, or there will be hell to pay. Even though Ed’s gardening routinely destroys Pam and Jeff’s home, and he never faces the tiniest consequences for it.

  15. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 9 of the New York Storyline/Day 3 of Summer Bean’s End Storyline, 2025 Edition

    I don’t get the joke

    Happy birthday, ComicBookHarriet!

    1. The joke is that Ed has bullied Pam into maintaining his garden, and she’s terrified of what will happen if she fails to do so. Note also that Pam apparently wasn’t invited on a trip to see her own sister.

    2. She forgot to water Ed’s garden. You know, the garden outdoors in Ohio, where it’s often raining in the summer. The garden loaded with AI-powered moisture monitors and cloud-seeding drones and rain gauges. That garden.

  16. ComicBookHarriet,
    Happy birthday to our own
    ComicBookHarriet!
    At least, there is zero 0️⃣ chance
    of someone like Darth Vader
    interrupting your life, like he did to
    Luke Skywalker or is now retconned to
    Luke Starkiller?
    “ComicBookHarriet, I am your father.”
    Zero 0️⃣ chance! Zero, 000000000.000000000!
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY!🎁🎂🎉🎈🎊
    (If you are celebrating Princess Leia style,
    it would nice if you to post pictures. Lots of pictures. They are for Be Ware of Eve Hill.
    SP
    💝💜💖🫂🌺💐🌹

    1. Thanks SP,
      Unfortunately I was celebrating sweaty farmer style.
      I tried to take pictures of that, but the camera on my phone shut down in self-defense.

      And if David Prouse/Sebastian Shaw/James Earl Jones rose from the dead to claim tripartite paternity I think my dad would be pretty shocked.

  17. 6/26:

    I had to Grandpa Google it, but I GET IT! “So much of Pan, the Greek god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptu, and too little of Rama, the seventh incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu!” Ha. Ha. ha…

    If there’s a god of humor, it’s smiting someone in Medina, Ohio right now.

  19. I’m pretty sure the “art” has been AI for a couple years. Is it doing the writing now? 4 days, and nothing close to what a human would consider a punchline. AI doesn’t create, it regurgitates. Why would any breathing, living thing think the 6/26 punchline was anything but gibberish?

    1. Come now, BtS. Surely you realize that when Jff says that Crankshaft’s panoramic photo has “A lot of pano… but not much Rama,” he is referring to the Hindu deity, Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu.

      Jff is, of course, correct. Rama is not depicted on the Washington Square Arch.

      HAHAHAHAHAHA! GOOD ONE, BATTY! oh, ho, ho, ho, ho — my SIDES!

      1. YES! It’s RAMA! That’s what I SAID! 😀

        As to the “Is this strip written by AI?” It kinda explains the last (but by no means the last) Batton strip. Didn’t that read like someone typed a bunch of prompts into ChatGPT? Who leads with “Road Rage VW” and then never refers to it again? Is that why that story was so disjointed? It seemed like 2 weeks edited to 1, and by “edited” I mean “hacked up like hamburger.”

        There is no way anyone can turn “panorama” into a coherent joke. Hey, we’re all over-educated funny people–Can any of us come up with one? Not weird and arcane ones, but something the average Cranker could get over their morning coffee and Grape Nuts? Go ahead, I sure can’t!

        “Pan–O’rama? Isn’t she that nice Irish girl? Who’s a satyr?”
        See?! Only Grok or some AI junk would think there’s comedy gold to be mined there!
        Wait, wait–“Pan for GOLD! And then RAM IT!” Yeah I’m onto something here! oh no I’m not. There is no possible joke. It’s like Darkseid gave up on finding the Anti-Life Equation, and settled on the Anti-Joke one.

        1. Sure, actually, I can come up with three that took about 10 seconds. A few buskers could be playing steel drums in the corner of the drawing (a not implausible event in W. Sq Park). Ergo, Pan-o-rama.

          A sexy girl is there. Pan-Oh, MAMA!

          Ed Crankshaft is in the photo. It’s less “panorama” and more “PAINorama.”

          Brilliant, no. But by comparison to Bats, yes.

          1. Oh, yeah, I agree. Not just not a joke — not coherent in any way.

            He managed to find a two-syllable word that can’t be split up into any meaningful parts, and then went ahead and did the thing anyway.

            And you can’t blame AI, because if you’ve conversed with, say, ChatGPT, it’s quite capable of making jokes, wisecracks, and witticisms that seem very human and would put most of Act II and III FW/Crankshaft to shame.

            I don’t think I’ve ever seen it be this incoherent.

        2. “Too much A, not enough B” is a workable joke template, but he doesn’t fill it with anything human. Like an AI, it doesn’t recognize that entemologies of “pan” and “rama” aren’t something human beings keep in their heads, or would comment about.

          1. Sure, we can backfill our anti-jokes. But there is no organic way to make “too much pano, too little rama” a joke. Especially the way he failed, by just dumping it there as an unexplained and inexplicable punchline. How about “Too much org, not enough anic!” just a-sittin’ there, floating in space. It makes no sense. “C’mon down to Tex and Edna Boil’s Discount Organic Panorama, free meatballs for all the kids!” It’s only funny if it’s absurd! Tom gave up on absurd comedy when he retconned Les’s high school hall monitor Vickers machine gun into a cardboard prop, am I right?

            “That’s right, Edna.”

          2. Drat, my reply above was supposed to be to BtS.

            Too much “re,” not enough “ply.”

  20. Wh–what is this?! A RECOGNIZABLE PUNCHLINE?!

    Tom’s AI has gone mad! “Soon, humans, you all will wear the Blue Bombers shirt! And eat 4 burgers with a bowl of BRAINS!”

    Yeah, pretty sure the threatened Blue Bombers arc is imminent. Fasten your Murania rocks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

    1. Yes — a recognizable punchline, or an attempt at one, or at least the memory that one’s supposed to be there.

      But still borked. It’s not that Pavolv’s dogs couldn’t eat, or couldn’t enjoy eating, until they heard the bell. It’s that they involuntarily salivated when the bell rang.

      Dogs can eat, and enjoy eating, most any time at all. Source: Every dog ever.

  21. Today’s Crankshadt

    Day 12 of the New York Storyline/Day 5 of Summer Bean’s End Storyline, 2025 Edition

    Ha ha it’s funny because Lillian can’t eat without Crankshaft blowing up a grill

  22. Today we learn that Chris took Crankshaft to see “A Chorus Line” when he was in New York.

    TIME MOPPPP! [shakes fish]

    “A Chorus Line” hasn’t been revived in about 20 years. There’s gonna be a limited-run 50th anniversary production this fall.

    Did TimeMop take Crankshaft backwards to 2006, or forward to this fall? I hope he took him back to the 70s to see the original production. I saw it then and it was great. Plus, maybe he could do what we’d ALL do if we were plopped into midtown Manhattan in, say, 1977: Go look for comic books! That’s the dream, isn’t it? That’s the dream.

    1. Funny, I seem to recall Ed’s Big Apple Holiday featuring airline and rent jokes, building scaffolding, a jewelry store display window, yet another opera, and Washington Square…but no “A Chorus Line” production. Maybe Chris is a high school music teacher (the third most revered profession after book author and comic book author) and had her students perform it for him. Whatever the case, Tom “Tell, Don’t Show” Batiuk strikes again!

      Also: Are we supposed to believe that a 95+-year-old Ohio bus driver with minimal pop culture exposure has “Boba Fett” rattling around in his subconscious?

      1. I’m not sure why you say Ed has “minimal pop culture exposure.” He watches television and sometimes goes to movies.

        He doesn’t need to know who or what “Boba Fett” is, or that he is a Star Wars characer, to put it into the song lyrics. All he needs to know is that there is someone or something called “Boba Fett” and it has three syllables and rhymes with “don’t regret.”

        1. Wait till he breaks out in a chorus of “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three.”

          “Tits and ass!
          Bought myself a fancy pair.
          Tightened up the derriere.
          Did the nose with it.
          All that goes with it.

          Tits and ass!
          Had the bingo-bongos done,
          Suddenly I’m getting national tours!
          Tits and ass won’t get you jobs
          Unless they’re yours.”

          Maybe you should stick to Rodgers & Hammerstein revivals, Chris.

  23. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 13 of the New York Storyline/Day 6 of Summer Bean’s End Storyline, 2025 Edition

    why does a 105 year old WW2 veteran and retired baseball player know anything about Boba Fett

    1. Because every character in the strip is Tom now. Except Lena, who Tom created just to hate, despite any reason beyond “bad snacks” being given.Hmm…What was Tom’s mother’s name?

          1. I know I introduced the topic (as an offhand joke), but I’m not sure if I want to pursue this line of inquiry. Everyone in the strip is Tom now. Except for the personality-free blondes, and the bullies.

            The irredeemable Frankie, strangely gone. Bull, who grovelled for redemption from Tom–er, Les–and got mocked at his own funeral after his pathetic death for trying. And the substitutes for Tom’s mother. Which I figured included Jeff’s mother, with her comic-hating ways. But also Verna–er, Lena?

            Remember that strip when Jeff’s mother–hell, let’s just call her “Verna” from now on–threatened to destroy one of his pwecious widdle komics? In the background, we saw the back of Jeff’s dad, staring into space in a lounge chair while drinking a beer, ignoring it all. Kind of a glimpse of his past?

            I know he seems like a very petty man who holds grudges forever, but jeez…It’s getting weird. I hope Skip isn’t another Tom avatar, and maybe represents the therapist I hope he’s seeing. Maybe he can finally get over his loathing of Batman ’66.

          2. @billthesplut:

            I’ll play. Who knows how far this conversation will go, as this is most likely the last day before the next SoSf blog comes out.

            Yeah, all the conflict was removed in ACT III Funky Winkerbean, and therefore pretty much all the villains. St. Lisa died at the end of ACT II so ACT III could be Batiuk Heaven. The late era FW villains were the people who didn’t immediately give Les what he wanted. Villains like those Hollywood types who didn’t instantly cream their pants at the mere mention of ‘Lisa’s Story.’ How dare they not give Les what he wants. Don’t they have any feelings? /s

            Yeah, there was no pain or strife in late era Funky Winkerbean. I can see what you’re saying about everyone becoming a Batiuk. It was Tom’s fantasy world. Everybody achieved and received whatever they desired. Everybody loves comic books. Everybody loves pizza. Everybody is an author. Book signings are the greatest creation in the history of mankind, etc.

            Crankshaft, since the merger, has become much too aimless for the development of villains, other than the one dimensional faceless horde featured in the Burnings™.

            Jeff Murdoch’s mother’s name was Rose. On extremely rare occasions, even she had her softer moment(s).

            I’d be curious to discover if TB’s mother assaulted his comic book collection with the zeal of Belle Batsfrey with a carving knife. My brother had a rather large comic book collection when he was in high school. So large that he ran out of shelf space and started stacking them on the floor. Mom hated clutter, so he was given an ultimatum. Donate half your comic book collection to the church bazaar, or she’d toss them all out while he was in school. I wonder if something similar happened to TB, only he decided to exaggerate the event to Draconian proportions. My brother didn’t seem to have much trouble selecting the ones to donate. Perhaps TB’s emotional attachment was much stronger.

            TB: (placing comic books in a box, not slabbed) My precious!!! *sob*

  25. Today’s Boring As Shit Crankshaft

    Day 14 of the New York Storyline/Day 7 of Bean’s End Storyline, Summer 2025 Edition

    at last this 2-week storyline is over, hopefully the Mopey-Mindy wedding is soon because the boredom of this storyline and the Batton-Skip interview was fucking draining on my soul

    1. It would have been nice if yesterday’s and today’s strips were flipped for continuity’s sake. Yesterday – weeds, today – no weeds. Easy. Done.

      But proofreading is for chumps, as it is said.

    1. Because Batiuk thinks any idiot can do anything that it’s not comic book production. Only the greatest minds of a generation can do that. And it’s yet another avenue for Batiuk to indulge his fantasies about being a super-famous content creator, which is the only thing the Funkyverse does anymore.

      You, being a young person, probably know way better than I do what a load of horseshit this YouTube story is going to be. A ton of famous YouTubers like Mr. Beast and Markiplier have videos lamenting what an all-consuing grind it is. You have to keep producing videos so you’ll keep turning up in your fans’ recommendations. But you need breaks for mental and physical health, for life obligations, for creativity, or just because you’re burned out. Some of them have said they’ve been forced to make difficult choices. Some have just walked away. Being YouTube famous is a game for young people. Not 106-year-olds who can’t even make their own website or write their own biography.

      To say nothing of how time-consuming video content is to make. I majored in journalism in college, and did a TV news production lab course. A ton of work goes into shooting an editing a two-minute news story, much less the complex things people make for YouTube. To say nothing of all the equipment and consumables you have to buy. (Granted, my college was in 1996, before computers made things a lot easier. I used to edit reel-to-reel audio with physical tape and razor blade.)

      But we all know what’s going to happen here. Lillian’s going to point a camera at herself, smirk, and get 42,000,000,000 followers by the 4th of July.

      1. A multipart series of YouTube interviews featuring Lillian, conducted by Skip Rawlings.

        NOOOOOO!!! 😱😱😱😱😱

  28. “Sarcasm! That was sarcasm! Like when I told my sister Lucy there were no letters for her in the mail!”

  29. Wow, so thrills, such exciting. Another week of 100% padding. A competent cartoonist would have started in media res, with Monday’s Panel 1 getting the explanation out of the way: “Thanks for helping me make this video, ladies. Your idea of getting on YouTube was really smart!”

    Instead, we get the usual.

    Mon: “You should make a video.”
    Tue: “I know nothing about videos.”
    Wed: “We’ll help you make the video.”
    Thu: “Oh dear, this video business is confusing.”
    Fri: “Thanks for helping me with the video.”
    Sat: “Now the video is live on YouTube.”
    Sun: Fame, fortune, and Pulitzer prize for Batiu– uh, Lillian.

  30. Today’s Crankshaft

    Day 2 of the Lillian The Youtuber Storyline

    This storyline feels like it’s already been going on for 2 weeks when in fact it’s only day two of this bullshit

    1. The “horrible person becomes a media celebrity without having any skill or even trying” story has been going on for years.

  31. Some sad news. Writer/editor Jim Shooter passed away yesterday of esophageal cancer. Shooter was the person that Batiuk obviously but somewhat loosely based “Mitchell Knox” (obsessive fan of John Darling Who Was Murdered) on. (Knox’s backstory of having been hired at 13 to write comics for a capriciously cruel editor matched Shooter and editor Mort Weisinger exactly.)

    I won’t get into the ins and outs of Shooter’s career here, but suffice it to say, his time as editor-in-chief at Marvel was met with differing opinions; he did a lot of good for the both the company and the creators, but also made decisions that a lot of the creators didn’t care for, earning him some degree of ire as well. Famously, after he got fired from Marvel, one particular writer/artist who shall remain nameless held a party in which he burned Shooter in effigy. (It was John Byrne. Who wasn’t even working for Marvel at the time.)

    But at least (as far as I know), Shooter never gave a murder weapon to the victim’s daughter, who then turned it into a toy for her own child. But then, what kind of lunatic would even think of doing something like that?

  32. Not a heck of a lot going on here, so just this.

    Remember “Choose Your Adventure” books? There’s a whole site of new ones. I’ve played 6, and can recommend 2. Cliffhanger, which Tom might like, as it’s the Phantom Empire meets Indiana Jones and old pulp magazines. And I’m currently enjoying a superhero game, The Last Scion, guess what hero it’s based on. Even a baseball one, so even Ed might like it! (If we’re currently in an arc where he can read) It depends on what subject interests you.

    Prices range from $3.99 to  $6.99. You get to play 3 chapters of each for free. If not interested, some of the summaries are pretty bonkers.

    “Is the next member of Congress a werewolf?”

    “A philosophical romance with game designers on the moon.”

    “The Yeti is real, an alien convict on Earth, planning a jailbreak with the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, and Mothman.”

    “Battle demons and undead attorneys, and win souls to pay back your student loans!”

    “In this magical baking contest, you’ll team up with the Queen Undying to bake your rivals into an early grave—or out of the grave, with necromancy!”

    https://www.choiceofgames.com/category/our-games/#

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