WHAT ABOUT THE BIRD, TOM?
We’re all waiting on tenterhooks to see if Ed Crankshaft presses fat lips to cold beak and puffs Pam’s Christmas Cardinal back to life, and Batiuk just shifts gears to Pam and Minty redecorating a Christmas tree that should have been well and truly decked as of Thursday afternoon when Pam strung lights under the watchful eye of her blood red companion.
And all so Batiuk can, once again, flash us that hysterical landmark, 425 West Avenue, Elyria, Ohio. The starter apartment of Pam and Jeff, Ann and Fred, and Batton and his nameless Cathy Clone.
While the bird’s fate is unknown, a surprising, long memory holed, friend has emerged from the reference sheets. Appearing for the first time in the Davis era, on Wednesday we saw a feline resembling Pickles the Tomcat. Last seen on December 23, 2016, during Ayers tenure.
Wherever Pickles has been the last nine years, I’m guessing it included a short stay in the Pet Sematary. Since the mangy old feline debuted in Crankshaft’s first couple years, while Max and Mindy were still young.
Back in the glory days when Crankshaft still had the personality of a lime-encrusted sea urchin.
Save the Cat and Pet the Dog are tropes as old as time. A quick shorthand to show the true empathy innate in a character. If you want to show your character is a slimy fake, you have a seemingly ‘nice’ person kick a dog.
If you want to show that the grumbles, grousing, and belly aching of a cantankerous old coot are just the timid farts of an emotionally constipated man, you have him get a cat.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Or you get him a new cat when the old one dies. Ed’s had a cat so long, I can imagine an endless succession of gray tabbies.
Also, thanks for the reminder that Ed wanted to be unhappy all the time.
The entire Funkyverse is a 50-year exercise in misaimed Pet The Dog moments.
Westview is a cultish, insular small town full of snippy, unhappy people… but everyone’s obsessed with pizza, comic books and a public domain 1930s serial!
Crankshaft is an asshole baseball player… but he’s very pre-integration at a time when most white people weren’t! And he never got any pushback for it!
Crankshaft was later an asshole bus driver… but he spent his own money to help the Rough Riders go to college! Then he abandoned them when he couldn’t afford more than one semester!
The Westview covered up Bull Bushka’s suicide, completely undermining his reason for doing it… because they needed to protect his reputation!
Cindy Summers routinely bullied everyone in high school… then, at the final reunion, defined herself as a fellow victim!
Funky Winkerbean ran multiple pizzerias into the ground… but he bought a fleet of new cars so all his employees could go to Dinkle’s Christmas Messiah in a blinding snowstorm! Including Adeela, who was a Muslim! And he still had enough money to live in a huge house and retire to Florida!
When Montoni’s re-opened, the town brought back all the decor they bought the auction, even though they paid their own money, and some of it was valuable… but we haven’t seen any employees re-hired, or even Pete and Mindy doing any actual work!
Wally Winkerbean somehow survived years of captivity in the Middle East… and when he finally returned to Westview, he was treated as an annoyance!
Becky remained loyal to her husband John Howard after the love of her life Wally returned from the dead, and cited her as the thing that kept him sane… when they have no mutual affection, nothing in common, no children or business they have to stay together for, and don’t even seem to like each other very much.
Les Moore is by far one of the worst people on earth… but he’s ludicrously devoted to his long-dead wife! When he was too busy writing books to spend any time with her, or try to keep her alive!
And we’re supposed to admire all this, and forgive everything else these characters do. Ed Crankshaft having a pet cat is a light warmup exercise for Tom Batiuk.
But yet this old Crankshaft arc was nice. No preaching, no weird references. Just a cranky old man softening a bit, it won’t win any awards but it’s nice in its own way.
He used to be able to write mildly cynical stuff like this before he went nuts.
I meant to say “pro-integration.”
TV Tropes uses the phrase Oxymoronic Being to refer to people like this. As by way of example, Cindy is too stupid to understand what she was doing to drive people away.
Also, it was Becky and John that have “no mutual affection” etc. Becky and Wally most certainly did. Which makes her decision to remain with John even more nonsensical. The O’Learys in Father Ted were a more loving couple than Becky and John.
It’s not nonsense to Puff Tommy. His view of women congealed into baffled contempt when a mean, selfish lady called Betty Friedan said his mother wasn’t put there to gush over him while he acted like a stupid, entitled snot who needs correction.
Great assessment!
The reunion arc was awful. Everyone sitting around frowning about how they didn’t fit in, instead of celebrating how far they’ve come since then. It’s one thing to recognize how awkward high school was, but to wallow in it 50 years later when most of the characters managed to have relatively decent lives and family was just too much for me. Even characters who had their struggles (Funky, Wally) achieved personal victories by overcoming them-struggles that were far more challenging than surviving high school awkwardness.
As far as Becky and John, I agree with others who have said that it was purely for shock value. Upon reading that plot point for the first time, I remember thinking “Now how in the hell did THAT happen?” Which is exactly what I think TB was going for. And I still don’t know the answer since it was never explored beyond Becky saying “I moved on.”
It is stupid to never get over high school but being stupid and whiny is humanity’s nation.
There’s a Sunday strip where Crazy Harry tells the others about Westview’s founding after reading about it on a plaque in the town square. The story as told is that a pioneer was headed for California when his wagon broke down. He never got any farther and decided to found a town called Westview, you know because he was looking towards the west.
Westview is literally a place where dreams go to die. Where one settles into a life of depressed mediocrity hoping to one day escape and move on to greener pastures even though most will remain stuck there forever, even in death.
The idea of fixing the wagon or getting a new one couldn’t occur to him because he was the prototype of the dimwitted defeatists that infest a one stoplight town full of gloomy quitters.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Now we’ve shifted from Pam And Her Cardinal to Jeff talking about the time he walked 12 blocks to get a music CD during a thunderstorm
She doesn’t know why he tells the bullshit story, does she?
This is, of course, totally not just another in the endless examples of Batty taking a banal story from his own life and placing it into the mouths of characters who are totally not just shallow self-inserts. Tom Batiuk definitely did not walk through a somewhat higher than average snowfall to buy a tire company’s Christmas album for his wife.
That’s no CD. Back in the days when Goodyear stores gave away collections of songs culled from other Christmas albums, they were pressed on good old used-tire vinyl! Of course, judging by the diameter of the box Jff’s holding, it’s not an LP, just a 78 rpm single!
Always appreciate these archival deep dives, taking us back to a time when you could see why people actually glanced at Batiuk’s stuff from time to time. This is mostly competent and sometimes mildly amusing! If you looked at everything on the comics page at the time and graded each strip, Crankshaft was probably in around the median or — on a very good day — maybe even slightly above it!
Even given an overall decline in comics quality, that would be unthinkable today.
It really does show that Batiuk once did quality work. And the comparison to today’s work shows that he has zero interest in ever doing so again.
Baituk is 100% committed to the fantasy world he prefers to live in. The one where his work is too sophisticated for jokes; where he’s a Bill Watterson/James Thurber/Joe Shuster-level literary figure in Ohio; where people line up for blocks to shake his hand and buy his books; where DC and Marvel’s refusal to hire him was a crippling error; where Lisa’s Story was a “Who shot J.R.?”-level cultural phenomenon; where Les Moore is an everyman Byronic hero; where that elusive Pulitzer is coming any year now.
I wonder what life is like for people like this. I couldn’t deal with that level of cognitive dissonance.
The trick is to be well and truly 100% committed to it — then it’s not cognitive dissonance at all. Any dissonant thoughts, ideas, voices, or informational inputs of any kind are filtered out long before they can clash with the “reality” you’ve built.
It’s not uncommon. You can probably think of people in the news to whom this model would apply.
True, but some things can’t be filtered so easily. If you regularly rent space at to sell books and autographs, and very few people are interested, eventually your annual income will not be as high as you were expecting.
I question whether these trips even pay for themselves. Especially if the business model is “he buys the book from Kent State Press and re-sells it,” which I suspect it is.
I would bet a substantial sum of money that these trips don’t pay for themselves … if I could find someone foolish enough to take the bet.
Tom tells himself that the trips are worth it, of course. “You should have seen the last one … lots of people there! I think it was the last one. These sure are fun, though. I’m in with all the comics people! This one’s a little slow right now, but the people passing by the booth are getting the Funky Winkerbean brand impressed on them … they’ll be on Amazon later buying some books for sure! This is great. I love talking to all my fans. Sure glad it’s slow right now, though … don’t want to strain my voice too much! But this is why real comics creators attend comic-cons — to interact with the people! Like I interacted with Gurf Thripnavel over there, the assistant colorist on Flash issue #421. And getting his autograph for $10 was a real deal! He seemed real interested in hearing about Lisa’s Story … too bad the line behind me to see him was so long, and that the booth attendant had to ask me to step aside. But he’s probably coming by later to pick up a few copies! But if he doesn’t, it’s only because his booth was so busy! He’ll probably be another one of those Amazon buyers! Boy, look at how clean and pristine my booth is. You don’t want to pay all those exhibitor’s booth fees and then watch the booth get all messy with people’s handprints, or them picking up books and putting them back improperly! People passing by my booth are obviously impressed with how untouched everything is! It was such a good idea to come here…”
Some years back I remember reading something by a well-known sci-fi author (sorry I can’t be more specific, but I am almost 72 years old) who said he was giving up on conventions. Not giving up on going, just giving up on paying for a table, lugging along books and posters, sitting at his table rather than mingling with fans, and packing up and lugging away his stuff at the end of the event–instead of doing what he wanted to do, which was to mingle with the fans and have conversations and generally enjoy himself. He said that most of the time he didn’t sell enough autographed copies to cover the cost of attending, he didn’t enjoy himself, and so… he stopped.
And this was a guy who was probably a lot better known than Batty.
@Hannibal The difference being that your sci-fi author wanted to mingle with fans and have conversations. Tom Batiuk absolutely does not want to mingle with his fans. He wants his fans to line up, drop their money, take his autograph, look at him in awed reverence as he insults them, and leave. Just like in every book signing story that’s ever been in the Funkyverse.
At least he almost knows the meaning of common expressions. Lynn Johnston thinks ‘takes the cake’ is a good thing.
How do we know the cat was the same one? Perhaps it was actually a cerain French-speaking, some times sexy woman, depression tulpa having been passed on to Ed and/or the Murdochs after Les’s appearance during The Burnings.
Related: how do we know the cardinal is the same one? It’s romantic of Pam to imagine that she’s being visited by her “Christmas cardinal,” but cardinals are rather common. No reason it couldn’t have been several different ones.
Because this is an extremely weak thing to build an emotional connection on, if Batiuk really is trying to remake Calvin’s dead raccoon. We saw Calvin try to nurse that raccoon back to health, and how invested he was in the little animal. Pam gives it a name: cut straight to the overwrought drama.
Also, wouldn’t this artsy-farsty color scheme have worked better if it didn’t start until the bird got injured? As if the color change represented imminent death, or something.
I also wonder what Petco would do if you brought it an injured cardinal for treatment. I suspect they would laugh at you.
I’m amused that out of the handful of comics I regularly follow, two of them currently feature oddball bird stories. At least the Mary Worth one is so ridiculous it’s entertaining.
I’m loving the current MW story line, and what’s more, I’ve come to realize: Ian Cameron has a lot in common with Les. Both teachers, both pompous, both impressed with what they believe is their great erudition and cultural literacy, both crotchety, both married to improbably hot women, both totally un-self-aware.
Only Karen Moy, unlike Puff Batty, realizes how ridiculous her character is and invites us to share the joke and laugh at his antics. Puffy thinks Les is a paragon to be admired by all.
And at least Toby gets to be a character all her own, with her own wants, needs, and desires that aren’t just a shadow of her husband’s. That’s more than CauCayla ever got.
As much as I want to feel bad a little bad for Ian, I can’t because the bird’s “pompous azz” was spot on!
What makes it fun is that there’s actual conflict. And you can empathize with Ian a little here. Tobi brought a pet into their home without discussing it with him, and that pet has been suspiciously laser-focused on insulting him and destroying his stuff. It almost feels like Tobi using this bird to passive-aggressively display her unhappiness with the marriage.
https://imgur.com/a/R49pnB4
Oh, totally. Toby is a total ditz, who’s got a near-sexual obsession with this random bird. Toby and Ian are both ridiculous, *and* Moy is in on the joke, *and* she’s leaning into it for comedic effect.
The problem is, of course, that Puff Batty is totally unaware of how abrasive/whiny/pathetic/pompous his “hero” characters are. He used to know — Les was a nebbishy loser, Dinkle an arrogant blowhard — but he somehow forgot in Act II/III.
That’s right…..cardinals aren’t exactly rare. Monday’s cardinal is probbly okay. It’s Friday’s bird that needs a rehabber.
I prefer to think that it’s Bingo, who found that life with Lillian and Dinkle in St Spires was sapping his will to live, so one night he jumped in Crankshaft’s car after choir practice and made himself at home chez Cranky. Addle-brained Ed calls him “Pickles,” but it’s all good as long as he never has to hear Dinkle bellowing and Lillian screeching ever again.
When cats try to bail, the situation is not good.
12/22: “I’ll make sure a bird with a broken wing can’t fly out of your death trap.”
“Yes, let’s trap the bird in a 170-degree oven to keep it from flying away, when it probably can’t move at all because its not-very-durable spine is broken in half.” I joked about them taking it to a fried chicken restaurant; they might as well have. I guess they’re eating in tonight instead. Which is probably better than Montoni’s.
When I worked in an (newly built) office building, we used to find dead birds in the entrance that had bashed into side of the building since yesterday afternoon. Our poor receptionist was tasked with removing their corpses before anyone important saw them.
If he thinks this is Calvin caring for the baby raccoon, he’s daydreaming in Technicolor.
I realize now that they just placed the injured bird in the warmer to hold it, not keep it warm. They didn’t heat the oven. But this is where Tom Batiuk’s awful staging and love of unnecesary details comes into play. The bird could have been placed in a drawer, box, or almost anything they had handy. And it wouldn’t have primed the pump for snarky jerks like me to mock a story Batiuk wants us to take seriously.
The box could have had a picture of a cardinal on it so there’s a missed opportunity there.
“Looks like it’s straight to the blue tent for him!” Does Crankershaft think the bird is a French Fries quarterback?
Shoutout to yesterday’s John Darling Sunday strip on the blag, Batiuk actually put in a brief ancedote about Christmastime strips where he… *checks notes* talks about how happy he was when comics “acknowledged and honored the holidays” and he made it a proud gesture to do the same in his strips with content like this gag of newsanchors getting sick of the local news doing their own “acknowledgements and honors”. I’m picking up some mixed messages here, and somehow the very low-key/weak-noodle Schultz birthday tribute comic makes more sense.
Also as CBH showed us last month this guy has left Thanksgiving strips out in the scrap bin more often than he’ll admit.
I saw that. Find me the comic of that era (or earlier) that DIDN’T “acknowledge and honor” Christmas. Even B.C. — where the title literally lets us know that this comic is set in the time Before Christ — still somehow annually acknowledged and honored Christmas.
But I mean, wow, Tom, you found a way to mention Christmas in your strip too! That’s awesome, buddy! You must have worked super hard on that! We’re gonna put this right up on the fridge beside your awesome Flash drawings!
The funny thing is that he says that but holidays are rarely acknowledged in Funky Winkerbean. Like I can really only think of Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and New Year’s that really get super acknowledged and then then half the time it’s more that a strip just happens to take place on or around those holidays than being specifically themed around or acknowleding it. When I read through the comic, I actually go the complete opposite impression of what Batty claims for exactly that reason. There’s so little real acknowledgment that it feels as if any time he does it it’s mosly perfunctory “I guess I should do this,” stuff. Like he doesn’t want to put the jokes (Act I) or story (Act II and III) on hold just to have to acknowledge that it’s Valentine’s Day or something.
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that either as I don’t really want to read schmaltzy, empty Christmas comics either. I just find him claiming one thing while his actual work shows another funny. Besides, who needs to worry about holidays anyway when there were better uses for shilling things the comic could do? Make sure to buy the Lisa’s Story Trilogy and contribute to the cure.
Holidays are celebrated in the Funkyverse all the time!
They’re not just the same holidays human beings celebrate.
I don’t know whether to blame his “work a year ahead” insanity or his “the strip takes place in real time” madness (the latter dropped either far too soon or far too late).
He thinks putting a decal in a window is enough.
It’s odd that Batiuk would imply that it’s unusual for comic strips to acknowledge Christmas. It makes him sound like a Fox News commentator concerned about the “war on Christmas.”
I looked in the Google Newspaper Archive to see the comics in some newspapers for Christmas Day from 1959 to 1962 (when Tom was 12 to 15 years old) as well as in 1972 (the first year that FW was in syndication). Not all the strips made reference to Christmas in their Dec. 25 strips in any of those years, but quite a few of them did.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 7 of Pam And Her Cardinal Storyline
Pam, What if you turn on the oven by mistake?
WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN TO THE BIRD THEN
YOU MIGHT AS WELL GO TO MUNCIE, INDIANA AND HAND OVER THE CARDINAL TO GARFIELD
They do the next best thing by having Jfffff being really bad at cat-proofing the house.
12/23: And we’re headed for the inevitable collision between overreach, disdain for competence and training and self-pitying stupidity. IT’S A FESTIVUS MIRACLE.
PLOT TWIST: It’s Le Chat Bleu, taking a break from tormenting Les and come to visit another TB Gary Stu.
Maybe it’s Barney, the cat that knows when someone is about to die!
I sure hope it’s here for Crankshaft! (Though Jeff or Pam would be fine too.)
More evidence that the new syndicate’s colorists for Crankshaft just don’t give a shit if they mixed up one cat for two like that.
It’s fun to laugh at but it’s honestly a little sad that Comic Kingdom-era Crankshaft daily strips’ colors may be lost media and are being subbed in by these half-assed efforts. Gotta wonder if int he eventuality Tom starts on the Complete Crankshaft books he’ll be using these instead of the original colorings.
Jfff is positive he closed the basement door but is he For Imprint Certain?
Pickles confirmed! Suck it doubters!
Don’t know why any of you are surprised that a cat alive from 1988 to 2016, give or take a time bubble couldn’t survive until the earth is merely a barren rock in the shadow of red and dying star.
With the damage done to the time stream, it’s a wonder he isn’t talking.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 8 of A Pam And Her Cardinal Week
(Pickle opens the oven and notices the cardinal)
Pam: (running in slow motion as Ave Maria plays in the background) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s about the size of it.
It’s the way he always honors the holiday season: by ‘defying expectations’ and presenting us with cheap heartache and preventable loss.
12/24: And here we are, watching Batiuk honor Christmas his way: being needlessly downbeat. At least we’re not waiting for a blog entry sneering over people who peg Ralph for the suicide risk Batiuk depicts him as.
Santa Claws is coming to town.