Through the Wood Chippewa

Yes, yes, I haven’t posted in forever, many thanks to Banana Jr 6000 and Narshe etc etc…

More importantly what the hell is going on this strip?

That is NOT the Starlight Ballroom in Chippewa Lake Park. THAT is an amalgamation of two different comic panels drawn decades apart, one of which included a different fictional band leader and band.

And the other, is a panel from Lillian’s imagined afterlife for Lucy. So don’t ask me how Eugene was able to pull a photograph from purgatory itself.

What unites the two, other than the copy pasting work of some poor computer intern posing as Dan Davis? They’re both supposed to be in the Wisteria Ball Room at Summit Beach Park!

This:

Is not Eugene and Lucy dancing at Chippewa Lake. Because it’s them at Summit Beach.

A location established as so important to Lucy that in the throes of dementia she somehow found her way there!

A location established for decades and decades. 30 years at minimum!

Now it’s pretty obvious, with only the barest bit of research, that Summit Beach Park was always based on the real life Chippewa Lake Park in Ohio, just south of Medina, which closed in 1978 after a hundred years of operation.

The grounds sat abandoned, the play place for vandals and urban explorers, slowly being consumed by nature and burned by arsonists for more than 40 years, providing reference photos for Batiuk to pass on to Ayers.

The ride track in the foreground was the Tumble Bug. Only one ride of its kind remains in operation at Kennywood.

I will say that the Wisteria Ballroom and the Starlight Ballroom don’t share much resemblance on the outside. Artistic license perhaps? After all ‘arcade’ literally means a whole bunch of arches. Wisteria looks more early 20th century amusement and looks less like a two story Village Inn.

Inside The Starlight Ballroom looked like this:

Until it looked like this:

And then in 2002 it looked like this:

(The Wisteria Ballroom was confirmed burned down in strips dating back to the 90’s btw. Did the Crankshaft strips inspire an arsonist? Was the arsonist Batiuk himself? Questions!)

Still, the most important question remains, what the heck is going on here?

A few possibilities.

1.) It’s an error. Batiuk is going senile, and is mixing up his fictional locations with the real world locations they’re based on.

But in Sunday’s strip we get those stupid ticket stubs in the title panel.

Lovingly copied from an Ebay listing photo.

Seems pretty specific and high effort to have ‘Davis’ pulling up. So what is going on? Gleeb over in the GoComics comments section may have figured it out.

So I’m putting my money on gleeb’s notion that Batiuk is choosing to muck around with 30 years of continuity and water down Summit Park as a place of importance to Lucy and Eugene in order to crowbar in a current local Ohio event. Banana Jr, put me down for betting that this whole stupid arc ends with Harry Dinkle directing his choir/band of geriatrics at the opening of the new Chippewa Lake Nature Park. Eugene will shed a single wistful tear as he watches on TV from the comfort of his prison or nursing home or anchorite’s cell or desert island or wherever he’s going.

Funny that Batiuk would look back so fondly on The Starlight Ballroom. That is where, in 1937, Lawrence Welk made his first radio broadcast. And Batiuk’s relationship with Welk is…fraught.

Funnier still that Ed Crankshaft is acting like he’s never heard the name Larry Dinkle before. Because his best friend for life, Ralph Meckler, played trumpet in his band.

lol