Introducing: Funkshi!

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? Is this image an early Tom Batiuk artwork? Probably. 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: -2.9998

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.