Banana Jr. 6000

The Cartooning Commandments (Revised)

Oh goody, a needless vertical strip. To do an exposition dump on some tedious comics-related administrative process that happened 50 years ago. And wank over New York City some more.

Tom Batiuk speaks often of the “Cartooning Commandments.” Despite his assertions they are well-known and can be found on the Internet, they don’t seem to exist anywhere other than his blog. A lot of them don’t even make sense, or just reflect Batiuk’s own sensibilities. “Thou shalt only do funny comic strips. Your characters shall never grow up.” Nobody thinks those things but you, Tom.

Most importantly: they’re not helping. Tom claims he was given these guidelines to follow when he got started in cartooning 50 years ago. To the extent he’s following them at all, they’re not reducing any of the glaring problems in the strip. Sometimes they’re even counterproductive.

With that in mind, I want to write some new cartooning commandments. Commandments that, if followed, would actually help Funky Winkerbean be better. If I’m going to criticize something, I think it’s also my job to be constructive about it. And I can think of a lot of simple steps that would start to pull Funky Winkerbean out of the dull, self-indulgent abyss it’s been in for all of Act III. To keep the tone friendly, I will call them the Cartooning Suggestions.

Most of these suggestions will be in the form of “No more…” something. Because “Thou shalt not” is needlessly pretentious. One of my suggestions will be not to talk this way anymore. I’ll get to that one. But for right now:

No more vertical strips.

Vertical comic strips can be used to good effect. It was done once in Bloom County, in an arc where they made a flying machine by attaching balloons to Cutter John’s wheelchair. For the big reveal, the drawing was rotated 90 degrees, to show this tall, thin object in detail. It was the readers’ first look at something that drove a months-long arc. And it was a strange object that needed to be explained to the audience. This was a perfectly good reason to draw a strip sideways. And I think Berke Breathed only did it one or two other times.

Vertical panels in Funky Winkerbean are used to indulge Tom Batiuk’s worst tendencies as a writer. They’re used to make space for word zeppelins, author rants, pointless info dumps, self-indulgence, and worst of all: Sunday comic book covers. All of these things need to go. A blanket ban on sideways strips in Funky Winkerbean would be a great way to start improving it. If an idea can’t be expressed horizontally, it probably doesn’t need to be expressed at all.

Today’s strip is a shining example. This is strip #8 of the arc, including Sunday, and it’s the fourth one that could have been omitted entirely. It’s all been transactional talking, and a “witty” Sunday joke that’s only witty if the other character is a complete blithering idiot.

Phil Holt’s life makes even less sense now. After he quit his Batom Comics job and stole their property in the process, he… moved to one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world? To do what? That needs more for an explanation, not 23 words of “I heard Prince Valiant needed a new artist” when we already knew that.

And: it’s apparently vital you know this happened in New York. Nope, Phil’s definitely not in Hollywood, that empty place of vacuous people!

Philholtian Legend

How gullible is this woman?

Today’s strip uses a real location to tell a cock-and-bull story. This “cartoonist hangout” is the Palm Restaurant in New York City, a real-life location. As commenter Gerard Ploude pointed out in the comments, Tom Batiuk announced this place would be part of an upcoming story. The entrance we see Phil go into is identical to the photo Batiuk showed on his blog:

The original Palm in Manhattan has since moved a few blocks, and now has locations in about a dozen major cities. They also have a tradition of artists (not just cartoonists) drawing their works on the wall instead of paying the tab. Sadly, the original location has since been remodeled, and the drawings are gone. I hope they archived them somehow.

Kitch believes this ridiculous yarn, and Phil leans back in his chair to smirk about it. This is one of Funky Winkerbean‘s most infuriating tropes: a character congratulating himself for his wit, when he hasn’t done anything remotely witty. I say “him” and “he” because it’s always a man. Women aren’t allowed to be witty in the Funkyverse.

This Goes To Eleven

Today’s strip forced me to choose between the Spinal Tap reference and the Spaceballs reference. Tough call.

Having said that, the Spinal Tap reference in this strip offends my improv sensibilities. We call this “being too jokey.” Today’s strip tries to force a joke, in a way that undermines the reality of the scene.

Phil is right to be annoyed with Kitch here. He’s an accomplished artist. Auditioning for a comic strip is well within his ability, and it’s insulting that she’s so surprised at this. “Dial back your incredulity” is enough to make that point. If he just said that, without the tacked-on “goes to eleven” joke, it would have been much more effective.

And there’s the universal Funky Winkerbean problem of awkward dialog. Try saying this aloud: “Maybe you could dial your incredulity back from eleven just a bit.” Now say “Maybe you could dial back your disbelief a little.” That second one sounds much more like a real person talking, doesn’t it?

On top of that, “tried out to draw” is a very clunky way to say “auditioned.” Is this an Ohioism? When I was in school, people only “tried out” for a sports team, or maybe a play. The first time I read today’s strip, that phrase struck my mind as “tried to out draw,” as if Phil Holt had challenged Hal Foster to a cartooning duel at high noon. Which would have been much more fun.

I’m kind of shocked this wasn’t another comic book. It’s a comic strip, which isn’t exactly the same thing. But as usual, Tom Batiuk tipped his hand about this plot twist:

The comics that interested me the most were Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, and of course the ineffable Prince Valiant by Hal Foster (shoe drop alert—the significance of the strips I’m mentioning here will drop later on, so hang with me and all will come out in the shoe store). Especially Prince Valiant, wherein classical Renaissance figures, rather than being frozen in time, came to life and moved from panel to panel.
https://funkywinkerbean.com/wpblog/match-to-flame-176/

Ugh, that’s terrible writing. But we can infer that this is going to be another love letter to something Tom Batiuk likes that hardly anyone else cares about. Fine by me. I’d much rather have a week of Prince Valiant than a week of The Phantom Empire. Or of Funky Winkerbean.

Cut!

Here’s another complete waste of a strip. Kitch Swoon found something in Phil Holt’s studio, but she’s not going to tell us what it is yet. Like Monday’s strip, this one should have been left on the cutting room floor.

If you missed any of the five strips this week, here’s everything relevant that happened:

That’s it. There have been 13 panels so far, and these three are all you need to know. Everything else has been aimless talking.

“We need more Roy Lichtenstein prints! I’m going to Atomik Komix! Hey, it’s Kitch! Hi, Darin! Hi, Kitch, I want more money! Sorry, Darin, I need to speak to Phil! He’s over there! Hi, Phil, I want your old comic book pages, even though I said I came over here for Roy Lichtenstein prints! The comic book pages are at my house! Okay, can we go to your house? I’m sorry, my house is such a mess! That’s okay, I wish I was a real estate agent! And what’s this? It’s nothing! No, it’s definitely something!”

Good Lord, get on with it!

Funky Winkerbean loves its needless conversation. Especially in Tom Batiuk’s publishing stories, where he re-creates his own fantasies for his own entertainment. He’s far more concerned about meticulously outlining every single step of his ego wank, than he is in telling a story anyone on Earth wants to hear.

Tomorrow, we learn what Kitch found. Maybe.

Why Is There A Raccoon’s Ass On Your Shelf?

Link to today’s strip

I don’t know why Phil’s bringing up that anecdote about Picasso moving rather than cleaning his studio. Apparently he moved to Ohio less than a year ago, and his new home has become this cluttered in that little time.

One of Tom Batiuk’s favorite tropes is on display today: elderly men acting like teenaged boys. Phil Holt is ancient, and he’s also an analog to one of Batiuk’s real-life comic book heroes. And this is how he gets portrayed? Like a 15-year-old who’s had a girl show up at his house unexpectedly? But of course, she thinks it’s cute and endearing. Ugh.

This doesn’t feel right for either character. Phil seems more like a neat freak to me. Like he stores all his pencils in the box they came in. Kitch runs a highfalutin’ art gallery. She might be used to the eccentricities of artists, but she wouldn’t find them charming. This is a great example of how all 300 characters in Funky Winkerbean are all the same person, differentiated only by gender.

Seriously, though: why does Phil Holt have a raccoon’s ass on his shelf?

That’s not a cat or dog. Phil doesn’t seem like a pet owner anyway, and he’s certainly not Ace Ventura. It’s the kind of detail that doesn’t belong in a quarter-inch-from-reality strip. If you want to make Phil messy (and ignore all the problems with that I already mentioned), then he should be messy in ways that make sense for his snippy personality. A random raccoon is the kind of detail you see in Animal House, to show how bonkers the frat party was. Or in Bloom County.