I need to wrap up the Batton Thomas prediction contest from last week’s strips. Sorry I’m late, I’ve been busy touring with Weird Al Yankovic:
Anyway, I need to settle your plays, and “tally the sore”! And I plan to continue this game going forward. I will begin to standardize the game in this post.
I have named this project “Funkshi”, a portmanteau of “Funky” and the “shi” in the popular online prediction market Kalshi. (Don’t take this as an endorsement. I’m very pro-gambling, but I find “online prediction markets” vile. If you have a better name idea, I’m all ears.)
Let’s revisit the original offerings from this post, and get a ruling for each.
G1. When will the next week of the Batton Death March begin? The most recent installment began on May 18. In the future, the wager will offer the upcoming five Mondays as a choice.
G2. Will Skip start the week by making a comment about “continuing the interview”? Skip said “so you talked the last time about…” making this a Yes. The words do not have to be exact.
G3. Where will they meet? Dale Evans. Future bets will have a “field” option, which basically means “none of the above” offered options.
G4. What recording device will Skip use? Skip’s cell phone was visible.
A1. How many times will the
image be used? Once. (This image really needs a fan nickname.)
A2. Will there be a word balloon that is more than half the size of the panel? This panel was close, but no cigar:
The balloon was 403 x 125 pixels, or 50,375 square pixels. The entire panel is 438 x 281, or 124,108 square pixels. That is the standard it must meet: 50% of the entire panel. Word balloons and panels include the entire balloon (not just the words), but do not include the tail that indicates the speaker, or anything that extends beyond a border (like the Batiuk & Davis signature). The balloon was only 40.9% of the panel, which means the bet loses.
A3. How many flashback images will there be? There were three! It doesn’t matter if they’re real-life flashbacks, a fictional characters’ flashbacks, or Batton Thomas’ flashbacks, which are a little of both.
A4. Will a flashback image include a real person? This is a tough one to judge. One of those images was:
Are these real people? Are they fictional high schoolers? You could make a case for either. From now on, the offer will be Will a flashback image include an identifiable person? Also, I’m going to say that Batton Thomas himself doesn’t count as a real person, even if he is doing something Tom Batiuk actually did.
A5. Will there be a sideways strip? The above image was in the sideways strip. I rotated it back to vertical here. I’m not a monster.
A6. What early Tom Batiuk artwork will appear? Narshe confirmed this an early Tom Batiuk artwork, from the Chronicle Teen-Age Page, via Match to Flame 12 at the Batiuk blog. Again, we will add the word “identifiable” to the question.
A7. How many times will Skip smirk? I’m going to remove this one, because it’s too subjective to judge. How many of these are smirks?
I would say 6: all but the two right-most ones, which could just be regular smiles. As much as I would love to consider context, this is the Funkyverse, so your guess of the context is as good as mine. Note also that two of these images are identical.
A8. What intellectual property will be appropriated? None this week.
M1. Will Batton mention comic books? He didn’t explicitly, but “Harry Finkle being bitten by a radioactive band director” sounds to me like Spiderman’s origin story. (Or is it Arachnid Man’s?) In the future, Batton must say “comic books”, or name a comic book title.
M2. In which of the following ways will comic books appear? If it they appeared at all, it wasn’t in any of the offered ways. This is another one that will have a “field” option.
M3. Will Batton quote someone? He cites something Charles Schulz said during an interview, but doesn’t technically quote him. Going forward, Batton must repeat the exact words.
M4. Who will Batton name-drop? Schulz. Any explicit mention of a real person counts as a name-drop.
M5. Who will Batton bash? No one this week.
M6. Will Batton act like a complete jackass at some point? M7. Will Batton talk about doing actual work on Three O’Clock High or The Wrinkles? These are also vague, but they can stay because they’re jokey enough that the answer can be assumed. They also only pay .0001 point each. Take it and get out of here.
Consider this a “money line” bet on a ludicrously heavy favorite, like a bet that Ohio State will beat Kent State in football this fall. They don’t have to beat the point spread; just win the game. You can make that kind of bet at a real gambling house, but it pays laughably little when you win. I suspect it would be about -100000, which means “bet $1000 to win $1.”
M8. How many of the seven deadly sins will Batton commit? I will not offer this wager in the future, because it isn’t a good thing to bet on.
Batton always commits certain sins by his mere existence (Pride, Envy) and never others (Wrath, Lust). I ruled that Gluttony is largely a factor of if they’re at Montoni’s, and if they eat it. Greed comes into play if somebody finds yet another a priceless comic book lying around. As for Sloth, that one’s a bit meta. I think the mere presence of the A1 bet implies that Sloth exists in Crankshaft, at least in the creation of it. But I don’t want to reconcile layers of meta-content to judge these plays.
So who won the inaugural contest, and who lost on Jeopardy? Let’s judge now. The rules were:
Make choices, and score a total number of points based on the difficulty of the prediction. -1 point for any incorrect choice.
In the future, you can miss up to 5 choices before losing any points. But for the first week, we must honor the rules as they were written. Also, some of you made the bets that I have since declared too ambiguous to judge. For the first round, I will be very lenient about paying off winners. I’ll accept any bet that’s close enough, even if the offer required an exact match. In some cases, different answers to the same question can both win.
Y. Knott: A1. Two or more times (-1). A7. 7 (+1; close enough.) M3. Yes (+1; again, in the future it must be more specific, but I’m allowing it this time.) M4. (-1). M6. Yes (+.0001). M7. Yes (+.0001). M8. (+1; close enough). Total: 1.0002.
CSRoberto: G2: No (-1). G4: pen and paper (-1). A1: at least twice (-1). M6: Definitely so (+.0001). M7. No. (+.0001) M8. (+1). Total: -1.9998
Iansdrunkenbeard: G1 – May 18 (+1). G2 – Yes (+1). G3 – Sentinel office (-1). G4– cell phone (+1). A1 – 2 or more (-1). A2 – more than one (-1). A3 – 1 (-1) A4 – No (+1, because it’s could be either). A5 – No (-1). A6 – Pre Funky (+1; we don’t know what this artwork actually is, but I’ll count it). A7 – 7 (+1; close enough) A8 – DC or Marvel (-1) M1 – More than once (-1; even if you count Finkle’s origin story, it was mentioned only once). M2 – Writing for comic books (-1). M3 – No (+1; again, it’s ambiguous). M4 – Milt Caniff (-1). M6 – Yes (+.0001). M7 – No (+.0001). M8 – 6 (-1; he definitely didn’t commit Lust or Wrath, which eliminates 6 as a possibility). Total: -2.9998.
[o]: G1. May 11 (-1). G2. No. (-1). G3. Westview HS (-1). G4. None. (-1) A1. At least three times (-1). A2. More than one (-1). A3. Only one (-1). A4. Yes (-1). A5. No (-1). A6. FW Act 1 art (-1; it isn’t identifiably Act I art). A7. 5.(+1; close enough.) A8. None (+1. Even if Batton is referencing Spider-Man’s origin story, that’s not the same as “appropriating intellectual property.”) M1. No (+1). M2. None of the above (+1). M3. Flash Fairfield (-1). M4. Flash Fairfield (-1). M5. (+1, the band members in the sideways are depicted as dumb). M6. Yes (+.0001). M7. Yes* (-1). M8. How many of the seven deadly sins will Batton commit? Just pride and sloth. (+1; close enough) Total: -7.9999.
So the Week 1 champion is Y. Knott! Iansdrunkenbeard got off to a great start, but had too many misses overall. And, there’s a lesson here about gambling: four people gambled, and only one of them made a profit. Plus, as always, the house.
Son of Stuck Funky 
5-31 CRAPSHAFT: From one trope TB need to put out of its misery to another. Is Pmm concerned about much money her dad spends at that company? What sort of financial arrangement does Cranky have with her and Jff? Do those two ever care? Does TB? Cranky’s finances could be the engine for an interest storyline–at least if somebody besides TB were writing it!
Also, how did Ed go straight from a nightmare to buying more Bean’s End shit? Was he scared out of grilling, and sticking to gardening now (not that’s he’s any better at that)? Four empty panels, which Batiuk could have used to reconcile that question.
And he went straight to another trope he needs to let die: that damned letter story.
Thanks, BJr6K! I’m looking forward to spending my 1.0002 Batton Death March Points on the dazzling array of products available in the casino’s Batiuk Merch Store — perhaps the Lisa’s Story audiobook as read by James Earl Jones, or a used banner from Dinkle’s Rose Bowl Parade “appearance”!
That’s what I’ll call them: BDMPs. (Some localities, like Europe, actually have rules about what you can use currency signs for on the Internet. So all of my fun-only gambling games will be for “points”, not play money.)
And, like I said on the last thread comments: if $765 worth of autographed Funky Winkerbean books is enough to get someone a guest appearance in Crankshaft, I’m willing to drop that amount of money for a prize for the winner.
Someone mistook me for Chuck Ayers a few weeks ago, but he’s much taller than me. (But who isn’t?) IF TB drew a cartoon of Chuck it would be close to me; an omf with glasses and a gray beard.
Hold up. Why would anyone know what Chuck Ayers looks like?
Ayers lives in a neighborhood not far from me. He is pretty active in the community and gets in the paper occasionally. I don’t really know, but I would suspect that more people know him as a longtime illustrator and editorial cartoonist for The Akron Beacon Journal than for his work on Crankshaft. Heck, I saw him at least four times in the past year just by coincidence. He’s a good looking guy with nice glasses and a mighty beard. He’s a bit tall, though.
Lucid explanation. Thank you.
Yesterday’s Crankfuckery
Ed: I’m just gonna order Montoni’s instead.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Ed: I’m gonna order a chainsaw next!
Pam: Let me guess, you’re gonna use it to cut Harry Dinkle into pieces.
Ed: Correct.
It’s like nuclear war: even when you win, you lose.
On the “early artwork” thing, the one with the high school band is 100% early artwork. It’s from the comic Baty did that ran in his local paper prior to Funky Winkerbean, he’s posted it on his blog before. It’s not the first time either. He used another one back in Funky when Batton was talking about climate damage. It’s also one he’s posted on his blog before which makes me wonder if he only actually has a few of those.
I suspected as much, but usually this is more clearly spelled out.
Here’s a link to Match to Lame entry with the exact cartoon. The only difference is the flashback piss filter in the added to the Crankshaft version.
OK, so it’s confirmed as a local newspaper gig for Batiuk.
I believe Rappin’ Around was a weekly feature, and it only ran for about a year. So there aren’t that many of them to have kept.
Great! I’m in the hole. I better pay up before VitoJr6K comes to collect.
No worries! Negative scores will not be preserved going forward. Y. Knott will enter Week 2 with 1.0002 points. Everyone else, whether they played Week 1 or not, will be at zero. Going forward, you can get up to 5 choices wrong without incurring any negative points. (PRO TIP: Limit choices to about 5-8 total, in hopes of avoiding too many L’s.)
Whew! I was afraid I wouldn’t even be able to make the vig.
Don’t tell me how to gamble! Go big or go home!
Thanks for doing this. I’m enjoying the creativity of the things we can bet on and the handicapping.
I am playing your game as more of a quiz than a parlay ticket. I want to bet on everything and see how I do. When I played mafia football parlays I only bet on three scores or o/u and I hardly ever won.
6/1: So, we’re back to the stupid mess with wussy idiot Eugene and malicious idiot Lilian Lizard. This promises to be a war crime.
“Eugene, what a nice surprise! You could have called me or written a letter…letter, did I say letter? I never saw any letter from you to Lucy! And I didn’t hide your proposal letter from her so she couldn’t answer! In fact, what proposal letter? I never saw it, and you can’t prove I did! Leave me alone! I have a best-selling novel to write!”
Are we all nestled in for this week? I know I am.
yeah really. Does Eiugene even know what Lillian did?
That’s the thing, isn’t it? We talk about his passive gutlessness and not about her cowardice. Everything she did she did because she’s got no backbone.
I look forward to how this week is going to mess up this awful story even more.
It’s a warped sense of anticipation, isn’t it? It’s either going to be way out there or a whole lot of nothing. And probably annoying regardless.
Feel free to reference Weird Al anytime you please. His tour will be my way by summer’s end, and I can be with my people once again.
Oh, I love Weird Al. Doesn’t everyone? The guy’s a legit Hall of Famer, and they really should let him do the Super Bowl halftime some year. “Sports Song” would be the obvious centerpiece. Every scholastic marching band in America should know how to play that song by now. Light-years better than anything Harry Dinkle ever did.
Mela,
My vote is on a whole lot of nothing.
I know you will enjoy Weird Al and his Banana 6000 synthesizer. Or as he would say:
🧿💠”It’s all about the potassium, baby!”💠🧿
He’ll find a way to make it stupider.
How about the 4-S: smug, self-satisfied smirk?
Eh, that could describe almost any smile in the Funkverse. My best idea was “The Groana Lisa,” but I don’t want to use that name for anything other than Dead Lisa Who Died And Is Dead Now.
The ONLY way this week of Lillian and Eugene can possibly be interesting in any way is if Eugene is there to mentally torture a guilty Lillian. Or kill her, I guess, that’d be interesting too.
Has Batiuk used a narration box like this before?
I mean, yes, it’s awful and it’s smarmy and it’s terribly written and I hate it. But I have to give him credit for finding fresh ways to suck.
It screams “look at me, I’m a prestige arc!” As does the fact that Batiuk went to the trouble of rescuing Eugene from the middle of that lake after a year and a half.
Perhaps Lillian intercepted the letter because she thought Lucy was illiterate and didn’t want her to be embarrassed. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Thank you so much for taking the time to measure all points up, Banana. I’m sorry to have had such a poor showing.
A scan of the GC comments for 06/01 as of 830CST doesn’t look too promising for a rapt audience. A very low engagement count in terms of likes and comments at present, and the only people who don’t know the backstory and are bothering to comment are just a few people who have no idea who Eugene is. Things aren’t looking too good for the Dear Writer here.
6/2: He has no idea that he’s making her feel guilty because he’ll never know what she did.
Oh, I think that’s the point. Batiuk is priming the pump for Lillian to finally confess her misdeed to Eugene. And if she does, there’s only one thing for Eugene to do.
Kill her.
If Eugene, who is at least 99 years old if he fought in World War II, somehow* finds out for the first time what Lillian did, and why, he would have uncontrollable levels of anger. He’s trying to share his last memories of Lucy with the sister who destroyed their love, drove Lucy into a mental institution, and kept both secret for 80+ years. It would be the most justified, non-premeditated murder in history. The newspapers would have a laugh; they’d call it “Murder In The Ballroom” or something like that. (The real newspapers; Skip and Doublemint Twin #2 would be trying to write a “Hix Nix Sex Pix” headline.)
And Eugene is capable of murder. He was in the military, so he received some training on how to kill. The last thing we saw him do was row a boat into the middle of the lake. You have to be pretty strong and fit to do that. Strangling Lillian would be trivial. As would pushing her down the stairs, and telling the police it was an accident. Those lightly-charred wooden steps are probably still there; they’ll help. Or just find a way to pin it on Ed Crankshaft. Go grab an unopened Bean’s End box off Pam and Jeff’s porch, and beat Lillian to death with whatever’s inside.
If Eugene went on and finished off Ed Crankshaft to avenge Pop Clutch, he’d replace Dead Lisa as the town hero. Which would infuriate Les, and set up the central conflict of Act V!
Oh, so that’s why Eugene says he “won’t have room to keep all this stuff at the place I’m moving to.” He already knows, and he realizes that–after he’s found guilty of strangling Lil–he won’t be allowed to keep a box that big in his jail cell. The joke’s on you, Eugene; no Westview jury would convict you.
It would serve her right to get dead for her stupid and cowardly act of malice.
Don’t stop with them! There’s a smirky moron yapping about a boring comic strip that needs to die!
If only Eugene knew. Scenes we’d like to see:
Eugene: Happy moving day to me, Lillian! Since I’m downsizing, I thought you’d love this handy little box of the lifelong happiness you utterly vandalized. Consider it a souvenir from the alternate universe where you didn’t act like a parasitic, joy-sucking monster. It must be exhausting carrying around eighty years of bitter, pathetic jealousy, so I figured I’d give you some physical baggage to fill the rotting void where your soul used to be. Die mad about it, you absolute ghoul.
Oh, how I loathe and detest Lillian.
It was all because he had standards so, yes, she should have to write about her being a jackass.
Didn’t she admit it to someone though? I seem to remember her telling the story to someone and sobbing on a couch over keeping the letter, but it definitely wasn’t to Eugene. Or maybe no one was in the room.
In 2003, Lillian told Mindy the story of her hiding Eugene’s proposal letter from Lucy. (The story has been revisited on occasion since then, but I don’t know whether it involved Lillian telling someone.)
Yes, but she never admitted it to Eugene or Lucy, the two people who matter. She did retell the story to Mindy, as Joshua K. said.
There was also the 2011 story where Lillian made a big show out of delivering the hidden letter to the under-demolition ballroom, as if this was going to accomplish anything. Much like a certain other Famous Author who cruelly destroyed a loved one, Lillian loves assuaging her own guilt with big, empty, ceremonial gestures.
Just adding on to what Joshua K. and Banana Jr. 6000 wrote.
The original story arc where Mindy Murdoch discovers the hidden proposal letter, and Lillian McKenzie confesses her decades-long secret, ran in Crankshaft from July 14 to August 2, 2003.
Lillian decides to sell her home to pack up and move. Mindy (then a high schooler), comes over to help her pack boxes in the attic. Mindy stumbles upon an old, unopened World War II-era letter addressed to Lucy. Lillian breaks down and confesses the dark truth.
Obviously Loathsome Lil didn’t end up moving away. She didn’t because the entire premise of her packing up her house was a narrative misdirection by Batty to get Mindy up into that attic to find the letter. Once the letter was discovered and the truth about Eugene and Lucy was out, Batty’s reason for Lillian running away vanished.
It was almost like Lillian wanted Mindy to find the letter. Someone who is moving, getting help from neighbors, and has things they need to keep secret, wouldn’t have left it lying around in a drawer like that.
One of the many times TB has pulled the “Montoni’s is closing, no really fer real guys it is… PSYCH!” move.
Thanks Joshua K, Banana Jr, and Eve for the review! I knew she revealed it to someone, but of course, not the people she should have told. I vaguely recall the ballroom delivery story.
I have some thoughts on where this story might go. Feel free to add your own:
And though Banana Jr’s murder option probably isn’t happening (although we can certainly hope) , it’s way better than anything than I’ve guessed.
Like I said about “Rolanda”, this would be news I couldn’t even process. How do you respond when you learn a trusted friend betrayed you, and her own sister, that much? And for that long? We’re talking 80+ years at this point. Most people don’t even live that long.
You often hear about Watergate that the cover-up was much worse than the crime. Same here. Yes, Lillian did a bad thing, but she had decades to undo it. That’s her real misdeed: being so ashamed of herself that she preserved the secret, rather than admit what she had done. Even after it put her sister into a sanitarium! Apparently Lillian considered that an acceptable loss to preserve… whatever she thinks she preserved.
Which, by the way, makes it insanely implausible that she’d confess it now. Especially after she already did that phony-baloney act of delivering the dead letter to the remains of the ballroom.
But that’s what makes Lillain a true hero of the Funkyverse! She chose to suffer in silence, rather than fix an easily-solvable problem! Give her a book contract, a stack of awards, and a pointless redemption arc that redeems nothing!
Again, the only response to this admission is to murder Lillian in cold blood, and tell the police, judge, and jury exactly why you did it. Especially when you’re 99 years old, on your way to some kind of assisted living, and don’t have much time left anyway. Come on, Eugene, break bad.
I always hate to predict Batty’s stories because I’m wrong ten out of ten times.
We know Eugene is not going to drop off the box and run because he’s still there on a roll, telling terrible jokes. You’d think giving someone a box of memorabilia of a deceased girlfriend/sibling would create a melancholy atmosphere, not an opportunity to bomb on open mic night at the comedy improv.
I would be incredibly surprised if Lillian broke down and admitted to stealing the letter. We’d like to see it, which means it will never happen. Batty has been milking this silly story for decades. Why stop now?
I predict Loathsome Lil and clueless Eugene will talk about the box of memorabilia for the rest of the week. There will be plenty of smiles and smirks, but no tears. If I’m wrong and the story arc continues into next week, the silver lining is that it won’t be yet another bloviatin’ Batton Thomas week.
Bonus prediction: I predict the title ‘In the Name of the Father’ in the 6/1 Crankshaft strip will have absolutely nothing to do with the story and will never be mentioned again. ‘In the Name of the Father’? Wasn’t that a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis? Man, that Batty steals whenever he can.
Lillian gets dumped, most likely for the first time in her life, then goes over the edge and destroys three peoples’ lives. Then lies about it for eighty years.
There’s your hero, kids. Only in the Funkyverse.
@BWOEH: Lillian didn’t even get dumped! Eugene wanted to dance with her at first! She turned him down, he asked Lucy instead, and we all know what happened next.
Lillian cockblocked herself. She tried to play “hard to get” and it backfired. Or she lost her man because she couldn’t overcome her own shyness. Every single part of this story – from that pre-WWII trip to the ballroom to today – was 100% Lillian’s own fault. One. Hundred. Percent.
Which makes her worse than Les. Les was selfish and incompetent, but he tried to help, or at least put on a show of trying to help. And Les didn’t give Lisa the cancer. In this story, Lillian is the cancer. And she needs to be removed.
That is exactly bloody it. The woman is a bloody coward terrified of admitting having played her cards horrendously.
@Banana Jr. 6000 (apologies for hijacking your comment, Mela)
Oh, sir, you are preaching to the choir. Crankshaft was one of my favorite comic strips until Batty decided to make Loathsome Lil a writer of mysteries around 2016. Those story arcs were the equivalent of the Batton Death March. Week after week, sometimes a full month was dedicated to Lillian’s dull as dish water exploits of becoming a writer. Lillian opens a bookstore. Lillian sets up her workspace. Lillian buys a typewriter. Lillian battles writers block. Lillian finishes her book. Lillian finds an agent. Lillian finds a publisher. Lillian attends the Ohioana Book Festival. A mind-numbingly dull narrative. Who demanded to read that?
It was at that point my dislike of Lillian turned into full blown hatred. How could Batty decide to attempt to redeem this vile creature after what she did? DEEP HATRED!!!!
Considering what Lillian did, she doesn’t seem very bothered by it, does she? She had a breakdown telling the story to Mindy, but it seems that was all she needed to get it off her chest. Not a drop of remorse for anyone but herself.
Lillian is a classic Asshole Victim, just like Les Moore and Ed Crankshaft. If they were characters in horror movies, they’d be the first person the audience wants to see die. And the entire Funkyverse is built around these people being heroes. Christ.
Both Yesterday and Today’s Crankfuckery
(ZZZZZZ)
6/3: For someone who’s dying, he sure takes his time saying so.
As Weird Al once sang, “I’ll be mellow when I’m dead.”… and so Eugene may already be.
Whatever is happening is bound to be as stupid as what’s happened before.
If only TB dared to be stupid instead of just kind of sliding into it.
Tom Batiuk could learn a lot from Weird Al Yankovic.
For starters, Al doesn’t even do parodies if he doesn’t get the artist’s permission. Batiuk will rip off high-end intellectual property, real people’s image and likeness, and children’s artwork hanging in comic book stores without so much as telling them. Al can do complex work sometimes, but he doesn’t refuse to do fun stuff because he’s a Serious Artist. Al doesn’t demand to be given awards or recognized as a genius. Al is widely liked, and has very few disputes with anyone, which is amazing considering the nature of his work. Batiuk can’t get along with his syndicates, artists, fans, other cartoonists, his own mother, or anyone who doesn’t tell him exactly what he wants to hear at all times. Al also isn’t hosting a fucking book signing every other week, begging for attention at some venue that has nothing to do with most of his work. He’s not hanging around tapings of Jeopardy! trying to connect with people who remember his one good song from 1982.
We’ve no idea where he’s moving so, yeah, sliding into stupid is kind of what’s happened.
RE: Today’s 6/3 ‘Shaft:
“Not far…but light-years from the life I’m living now. That’s right, Lillian…I’m moving to Delaware.”
So, yesterday Eugene said he won’t have room for the photo box “at the place I’m moving to.” What are Lillian’s first words today? “You’re moving?” Sharp as a tack, that woman.
Now the question is “how many days will it take Eugene to spit out where he’s going?” You don’t open a conversation with “the place I’m moving to” and then get coy about what it is. Unless you’re a hack cartoonist, and stalling is the only technique you know to turn one line’s worth of drama into a week’s worth of comic strips.
Where could you be moving to that couldn’t fit a small box? The only place Eugene could move to that would be that cramped would be a coffin. Oh, I shouldn’t even say such things. I don’t want to get everyone’s hopes up.
He’s moving to the rowboat. He’ll just spend the rest of his life out there on that lake. Where he won’t have to deal with anyone from Westview or Centerville ever again*. Living the dream!
*(Except for ordering Montoni’s, which will probably be handled via drone or something. Or maybe the killbot that takes over Lillian’s bookstore in the future will deliver it?)
I like that idea. At least it would explain the “can’t bring a small box of photographs with me” problem. And it’s definitely something Batiuk would write.
It’ll all be set up so he can move to Bedside Manor which gives Lilian an excuse to travel to Westview to see him and Batty can then renew nobody’s favorite ship: Lyin’ Lil and Moldy Morton. Maybe they’ll be able to visit Futue Crankshaft there as well.
Great minds…
“I got evicted, so I have to live in this box now. I need to clear out my new bedroom.”
Eugene the Jeep may be moving but this storyline sure isn’t.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 3 of Eugene Week
Lillian: Where are you moving to?
Eugene: Ed Crankshaft’s house.
(Lillian then GMOD ragdolls out of shock)
6/4: Starting to think that maybe Eugene doesn’t want to ask if he got gypped.
William Frawley is back!
WHERE’S HE MOVING, BATIUK?
Today’s pivot from “where is Eugene moving” to yet another found gallery of dead people is a perfect example of “tension builds.” Phil Negoda– er, Tom Batiuk — certainly thinks he’s building tension, but all he’s doing is teasing a story point and then ignoring it. This doesn’t build tension; it annoys the audience. His every attempt at drama is a shaggy dog story.
Eugene’s destination should be the first question that gets answered, and the rest of the story should be based on that information. Or, the story should be about Lillian getting the information out of him. But on Planet Batiuk, the bad news *is* the entire story. Eugene’s going to spend two weeks telling us he has cancer. That’s my Funkshi bet.
Where he’s moving to isn’t important to Batiuk so we’ll never know where we went.
Why does flashback Eugene never resemble modern day Eugene?
To be fair, most 99-year-olds don’t resemble their 20-year-old selves.
Geez, Banana, I was hoping to invite snarky comments on the matter. Play along, will ya? 😉
To be unfair: In a past story arc featuring the Wisteria Ballroom-era Eugene, someone in this discussion remarked that he resembled George Keesterman much more than the modern-day Eugene.
In a past story arc, a commenter in the GoComics forum suggested modern-day Eugene was a copy-and-paste of Ed Crankshaft with different clothes, glasses, and a fedora. As you like to say Dan Davis’s artwork is highly reminiscent of Colorforms®. I submit for your approval, Davis is playing with his Ed Crankshaft paper dolls to create modern era Eugene (whose last name I forget).
I hope you weren’t one of the bananas Weird Al smooshed. That looks like it would have hurt. BTW, here’s my favorite Weird Al tune. Highly reminiscent of 1970s Aerosmith to me.
Sorry, I missed your cue. I think my favorite obscure Al song is “Dog Eat Dog”, which is a Talking Heads pastiche about having an office job. Complete with a riff on “this is not my beautiful wife.” “Mission Statement” is up there too.
“Dog Eat Dog” is definitely one of his strongest pastiches. “I’ll have some coffee with a… carcinogenic sweetener” is a great example of the kind of lyric that Al seems to so effortlessly spin that leaves you wondering how he managed to both fit it to the tune and make it funny.
Some of Al’s pastiches are really deep cuts, and I’ve learned of a number of artists I’ve come to like through hearing Al’s take on them first. Tonio K and Hilly Michaels, for example. “I Was Only Kidding” is basically a PG version of Tonio K’s wonderfully crass “H-A-T-R-E-D” while “I Remember Larry” is a fun twist on Michaels’ bouncy new wave flop “Calling All Girls” (a well regarded tune that Michaels used as the lead single to kick off his disastrous solo career after leaving his role as Sparks’ drummer).
His nose morphed from a Bob Hope-like “ski slope” to an Ed Crankshaftesque “top bump” and his chin became more pronounced, the latter the opposite of what often happens as one ages. Oddly, the one feature that usually changes most over the years–the ears–appear to have stayed the same.
I’ve got to say, though, I agree with Freddy Fedora. This “Eugene pops up every year or so to mope about losing the gal he wrote a proposal letter to and never bothered to check if she read it, and Lizard Lil never has the backbone to confess to him that she hid the letter” is indeed “getting old.”
They’re an odd couple, that’s for sure. The Idiot and the Harpy.
And yeah, it really is true that a man’s ears and nose keep growing as he gets older. I always think of that Deep Space Nine episode with Wallace Shawn as the Grand Nagus. They really leaned into the Ferengi aging thing, huge bumpy nose, ears like sagging mudflaps, and enough ear hair to knit a sweater. It cracked me up, even though it was kind of gross.
Anyway, while I’ve got your attention, I’ve got to salute your dogged perseverance posting on the Comics Kingdom. OpenWeb over there is held together with duct tape and hope. I can’t even upvote twice in a row without the comment box vanishing. I finally gave up when trying to edit a comment kept making the whole popup disappear. It’s like trying to write on a soap bubble. Oh, Disqus… I miss you.
I saw a couple of commenters saying they’d heard CK was planning to replace OpenWeb. Have you heard or read anything about that?
Thanks for the kind words, eve. Believe me, when I wake up in the morning one of the first things I do is look in the bathroom mirror to see if my ears got longer overnight. It’s a depressing enough spectacle as it is. Like Harvey Pekar once said in American Splendor, “Well, there’s a reliable disappointment.”
I saw Wallace Shawn many years ago at the Public Theatre, co-starring with Louise Lasser in a play he wrote, “Marie & Bruce.” My only knowledge of him at the time came from the film Manhattan, but my dearest friend and soulmate Melanie was with me and filled me in on the background. I could write so much more about her, but I don’t want to sound like an old man carrying around a box of memories.
As far as CK’s comments, I have enough trouble just getting them to load. One of my computers allows it, but the other doesn’t. My tech expertise is just a notch or two above Amish, so I make do as best I can. I’ve not heard anything about them fixing things.
Inconceivable!
You know, most men (and women) have had their hearts broken at least once. But you know what? We move on. We find a new love, and we’re so happy that we did.
But Eugene here is emotionally paralyzed and never did anything to help himself. So screw him. No sympathy. He gets what he deserves.
This is the kind of comment that doesn’t get much love as it should. It is a laser strike on what’s wrong with this whole story, and only needs a handful of words.
I don’t feel sorry for any living person involved in this omnishambles.
6/5: Forget the sentiment, you hack. Where’s the incurious old soak moving to that says he can’t keep a shoebox of photos?
The storytelling priorities… just wow.
Watch him pull something stupid out of his hind quarters about how Eugene is already dead.
I don’t think so. If he was doing that, he would be using a lot of “10 minutes ago” indicators, like one of Crankshaft’s ice carving fiascos.
We will never know where he’s going because it’s not important to Batiuk.
Both Yesterday and Today’s Crankfuckery
Days 4 and 5 of Eugene Week
WILL LILLIAN JUST CONFESS TO EUGENE ALREADY
That or Eugene just tells Lillian where he’s moving since he hasn’t revealed it yet (this Crankshaft week just stinks)
6/6: At least spending next week reminding her that she did what she did for nothing isn’t the Batton Death March.
Sat. 6/6 C’Shaft’s Missing Final Word Balloon:
“Oh, my stars and garters, that’s a long one! Now I finally understand what Lucy saw in Eugene!”