This is the photograph Lillian is looking at in today’s Crankshaft:
Okay, it’s not exactly the same photograph. Today’s version has what appears to be entrance doors where the text appears in the above image. But it’s now obvious where this week’s heavily padded story is going. Lillian is going to notice the name of the bandleader, and connect it to her choir director/former Bedside Manor band director/former Westview High School band director/fascist dictator/World’s Greatest Asshole Harry Dinkle.
It also explains the cryptic, pretentious introduction from Monday’s strip:
We all spent a week wondering what the hell that could possibly mean, in the apparent context of a very old man being forced to move somewhere unpleasant. It means we’re going to explore Dinkle’s daddy issues!
Oh boy. Where to begin?
This is so obvious I’m embarrassed to write it. But one-time Putlizer nominee Tom Batiuk apparently doesn’t know it, so here it is: A very old man awkwardly telling a lifelong friend about “moving to a new place” is a serious topic. It is not a benign piece of information you use to fill space while you get to the more important matter of yet another found photograph of yet another dead person.
I’ve used the word “tonelessness” to describe Tom Batiuk’s writing, and this is another manifestation of it: not knowing what’s important to human beings and what isn’t. This week appeared to be setting up a “move to the retirement home” story. Which can be played for dark humor. But that didn’t happen here either. Nor is Tom Batiuk even remotely capable of this.
It was also unclear why this would have been a bad thing for Eugene. Bedside Manor is a recurring location, and is never depicted negatively. Not even when it should be.
But the uncertain future of a 99-year-old man is irrelevant. Or the reveal is being pushed to the end for some reason that makes sense only to Tom Batiuk. It’s a coin flip whether the story even bothers addressing the matter later on.
The story didn’t even need the tired “found photograph” mechanism, because Eugene’s sad little shoebox also contained this:
That appears to say “Sunrise Over Kilimanjaro by Larry Dinkle.” Lillian could have found this sheet music almost anywhere, recognized the surname, asked Harry about it, and the same story could have progressed from there. This also could have been done in two days, tops. (On a personal note: my first ever blog post complained about Batiuk using days to set up something he could have opened with. It’s filler all the way down.)
I have a lot more thoughts, but let’s take a moment and enjoy what we’ve got here: a genuine Funky Winkerbean Act III-style prestige arc! Have fun in the comments!
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:
Much like Weird Al, I’m white and nerdy. Because it’s all about the Pentiums, baby.
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.
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?
There was also a silhouetted Skip I forgot to include in this image.
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.
This is just the last panel of today’s Crankshaft strip, with the tail of the word zeppelin pointing where it should. (And with a ridiculous coloring error fixed.)
The GoComics version.
The artwork looks more like Keesterman should be speaking, doesn’t it? It’s practically a reverse angle of the May 19 strip, where Batton and Skip are the foreground characters. Which they should be, since they’re focus of the dialogue monologue. Today’s strip has the background characters doing the talking, even though they’ve been the focus characters this entire week.
This is such a grade school-level composition failure, that it looks like Tom Batiuk is passive-aggressively making a point to the “where’s Crankshaft?” crowd. “Oh, you want more Crankshaft? Fine! I’ll make him the biggest character on the page, while I continue talking about what I want to talk about!” I wonder how Mr. Batiuk, the young art teacher, would have graded this if one of his students submitted it.
Also: why do Ed, Ralph, and Keesterman all look like they’re talking? Only one of them should be talking. Ralph appears to be taking a bite. But his expression doesn’t match that action, unless that is the wryest piece of apple pie in culinary history.
When I made that Luann crossover parody, I spent a lot of time editing mouths, so that only the person speaking had their mouth open. And Tom Batiuk can’t put in that level of effort? Even when his entire comic strip can be built from Colorforms at this point? And when he’s getting paid to do this, and I’m not?
That insufferable jackass Batton Thomas is back to drone on about nothing while Skip pays rapt attention. Which means it’s time to evalulate the bets I solicited!
G1. When will the next week of the Batton Death March begin? May 18. One point if you got it right.
G2. Will Skip start the week by making a comment about “continuing the interview”? Skip said “so you talked the last time about…,” so that’s a Yes. One point if you got it right. He doesn’t have to say those exact words.
G3. Where will they meet? Not 100% confirmed, but it looks like Montoni’s, which is worth half a point. I’m sure Mindy will be by on Wednesday to drop off the pizza. (TUESDAY UPDATE: The presence of Ed, Ralph, and Keesterman in the background suggests they are at Dale Evans instead. And maybe that Batiuk is feeling some pressure to at least pretend Ed Crankshaft is still the main character.)
G4. What recording device will Skip use? Skip’s cell phone is visible. Half a point.
A7. How many times will Skip smirk? Wow, twice already, and it’s only Monday. We’ll count again at the end of the week.
M4. Who will Batton name-drop? Nobody yet, but I’m going to make a ruling that it has to be a real person. His “band director character” is obviously Dinkle, but that’s not what I’m looking for here.
M6. Will Batton act like a complete jackass at some point? Of course, he already has. Take your .0001 point and get out of here.
M7. Will Batton talk about doing actual work on Three O’Clock High or The Wrinkles? He mentions Bizarro Dinkle becoming popular, but that’s not the same as doing actual work. So not yet, but it could still happen this week.
M8. How many of the seven deadly sins will Batton commit? I’m counting today’s strip as Gluttony. Batton has spoken at so many potluck dinners that he got Tupperware poisoning, implying that he must have consumed a massive amount of the food there.
Also, I’m going to make a general ruling here: simply meeting at Montoni’s counts as Gluttony. Dale Evans, by itself, doesn’t count as gluttony, since they have some non-gluttonous offerings. Even if they’re just things Ed Crankshaft orders to do one of his stupid puns.
That’s everything I can evaluate so far, because the others are weeklong totals, or they are for events that can still happen later this week. By the end of the week (including a possible Sunday), this post will be a complete list of all the wagers that were offered. And I’ll tally up a winner of those of you who made selections.
That’s 2.5001 points! And some of his other plays like “7 smirks” and “6 deadly sins” look pretty good so far.
After this week, I’ll calculate the totals, and standardize the set of offerings going forward.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: We have a sideways panel, and some early artwork. That would fulfill the following:
A5. Will there be a sideways strip? 1 point, of 5 if there is a second one later this week.
A6. What early Tom Batiuk artwork will appear? This appears to be real-life pre-Funky Winkerbean artwork, which is worth 1.5 points if we can confirm it. Let me know if you can, or there’s a blog post explaining it.
THURSDAY UPDATE: Today we learn that “Harry Finkle” will straight-up commit murder, Crankshaft-Pop Clutch style, to sell band candy. Surprisingly, this doesn’t violate any new deadly sins. It’s not Wrath, because it’s not motivated by hatred. There doesn’t seem to be a deadly sin that covers what we would modern law would call “criminal negligence” or “involuntary manslaughter.”
Which makes me question whether the 7 Deadly Sins bet is viable. Batton either breaks them constantly (Pride, Sloth); never breaks them (Wrath); or are things Tom Batiuk would never have one of his own “good” characters do (Lust). Gluttony is largely a function of where/what they’re eating. Greed only manifests itself in the Funkyverse in the form of highly valuable comic books. As for Envy, Batton doesn’t commit this sin so much as he inspires others to commit it. The encounter with his wannabe rockstar neighbor right after he got his cartoonist gig is a perfect example.
I’ll honor the wager for this week, but I don’t think it’ll be part of the game going forward. (And yes, there will be a game going forward.)
FRIDAY UPDATE: We have the Batton face! That hits the easiest target on wager A1.
SATURDAY UPDATE: That word zeppelin isn’t quite big enough to fulfill A2. Will there be a word balloon that is more than half the size of the panel?
I will post a final tally after Sunday’s strip. (Sunday strips count, if the strip is related to the Batton Thomas interviews.)
I went to all the trouble of setting up a Batton Thomas betting pool, with options like “Will Skip start the week by making a comment about continuing the interview?” And the prick just rudely shows up on a Wednesday, hijacking a harmless week at Komix Korner. And re-uses that same smug drawing we’ve seen a dozen times by now.
How on earth did I fail to offer the option “yet another smug, insufferable book signing and not the actual interview”? In retrospect, that should be a standing offer in this wagering house. The Funkyverse is an endless parade of book signings for books no one would ever ready, by people who are incapable of writing them. My joss paper theory seems more plausible by the day.
(To make a house ruling: this week will not count as a Batton Death March week. So none of those wagers will be evaluated until the next fully-focused Batton Thomas interview week.)
If Tom Batiuk fulfills any promise to his readers, it’s the meta-promise he inadvertently makes to us snarkers: that his unhinged storytelling choices will be bizarrely entertaining. Who could forget Zanizbar, the talking, cigar-smoking murder chimp? Or Darrin’s decision to make a child’s toy of the handgun that killed that child’s own grandfather? Or Cindy’s late-life pregnancy, which was never resolved in any way? Or that this tiny town would have two people with almost-identical amputations, and no character would ever once comment on that? Or Timemop, and “humanity is our nation”?
But this kind of crazy is becoming less and less frequent. I often compare the Funkyverse to the infamous movie The Room. Crankshaft now feels more like 2010: The Year We Made Contact. Stanley Kubrick’s original 2001: A Space Odyssey could be dense and tedious at times, but it was also memorable and trippy, and told a strong story if you put the effort in. The sequel lost all the weird stuff, and told a straightforward, So Okay It’s Average story about interstellar Cold War cooperation, 20 years after the Soviet Union ended in real life. (The John Lithgow space walk scene is outstanding, though.)
The Funkyverse seems to be undergoing entropy. Its internal structure, what little there ever was, seems to be breaking down. I’ll tell you what I mean.
On June 1, 2024 – almost two years ago now – this blog made the decision to continue publishing, on grounds that Crankshaft was looking like a continuation of everything we that made the Funkyverse so compelling. And sometimes, it lived up to that meta-promise. The Burnings was probably the high/low point: an overhyped story about an out-of-date controversy, that did little more than demonstrate Les Moore’s complete immunity to the tiniest amounts of pushback.
But Batiuk has not been fulfilling that meta-promised. He has left certain tropes, like Atomix Komix and even Dead Lisa, mostly in Defuncty Winkerbean. Narshe recently gave an updated rotation of the frequent topics in Act IV Crankshaft:
– Batton Death March week – Ed malapropisms week – Jeff as a stand-in for Batiuk to lament something related to his interests week – Montoni’s week – [Emily and Amelia] manager for [Lillian] week – Dinkle week – Idiots at a book signing week
That’s pretty accurate, though I would add two more to that list. The first one is a category I call the Legitimate Crankshaft Week. These are weeks that were just like what this strip contained before Funky ended. “Ed malapropism week” is the most common of these, making it a super-category to one of Narshe’s categories. But even native Crankshaft stories are less creative than they used to be. They’re usually propping up some lame premise like “bus driver shortage” for another milking.
The other new type is the miscellaneous week. These used to be rare, happening mostly at year’s end. But we’ve seen more and more weeks of generic, unrelated gags. And weeks that simply don’t adhere to the traditional Monday to Saturday schedule. The recent “Ed tries to scam eclipse observers” story ended on a Monday.
On a related note, I’ve been updating the “Act IV” menu that summarizes each week of post-2022 Crankshaft. And there’s barely anything to write anymore. If I can describe a week of this comic strip as “unrelated gags,” is the whole thing even worth talking about anymore? Is the entire system breaking down too much to be recognizable, even by our own definitions of what is entertaining about it?
Son of Stuck Funky 