beckoningchasm

Mr. Lucky

Greetings, folks, BChasm back in the control room. Many thanks to Comic Book Harriet for excellent guest hosting the last two weeks. Well done.

As for today’s strip, yeah, I do feel lucky. The last few hosts have had to feast on stupid comic book schemes, Les’ eternal book tour or Pete’s love life; today I get one of the few characters in this strip that I don’t want to strangle, Funky himself. (Though with Funky’s life outlook, he’d probably beg me to.)

Don’t misunderstand me, he’s not a good character, but compared to the rest of the cast he’s a positive breath of fresh Spring air. His main drawback is his insistence on viewing everything in the most negative light possible, which gets very tiresome, but at least he’s not coasting on a giant cloud of (unearned) smugness, convinced of the magnificence of his (nonexistent) talent.

Anyway, what do we have today? Holly wants to micromanage the Cory/Rocky wedding, and Cory refuses to comply. Myself, I thought they were already married but, considering that unless the subject is comic books or Les Moore, Tom Batiuk cannot be bothered, I’ll assume they aren’t.

I don’t seem to have much to say here. I guess I’m just too relieved that we’re spared more comic books and/or Les.

The Purity of Fandom is Never Tainted by the Coin of Commerce.

Link to today’s strip. Note: Comics Kingdom has finally awakened.

First of all, let me apologize for recycling a phrase for a blog post title, but I must confess I liked that phrase so much that I thought it deserved a bit of immortality. Surely, if Tom Batiuk can resurrect the moronic whimsy he concocted when he was ten years old, I can re-employ a phrase from just last week. Especially when mine is so much better.

Sunday’s strip was not available for preview, probably because it’s terrible and extra time would just mean extra critiques. My guess this time is that we’ll remain with The Story of Chester Hagglemore, Bounder and Cad, Volume Eighteen, but every time I guess at these things it’s like Bullwinkle trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Except Bullwinkle was funny. This strip…not so much.

So, here’s a nice painting of the seashore.

Speaking of funny, thus ends my time in the Cylinder of Despair; taking over, starting tomorrow, your master of ceremonies will be Epicus Doomus. His posts are guaranteed to be funnier than this comic strip. While admittedly that’s not much of a stretch, Epicus definitely brings the entertainment…while certain cartoonists we might name adamantly refuse to do the same. Hail Epicus!

Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Preview

Link to today’s strip.

Well, so far Pete’s learned absolutely nothing of value from John, which isn’t even a little bit surprising. I’m guessing that in today’s episode we learn even less, but as it wasn’t available for preview, we can all be disappointed together.

By the way, did any of you notice that Chester has a mutant super-power? I’m a bit red-faced that I only recently saw this. Observe:

He has the power to hitchhike whenever he wants!

Actually, let’s improve this.

Much, much better.

A couple of days ago, commentor Charles asked this:

“And why does it always have to be someone like Crankshaft and his daughter? I swear to God when I first made the observation that “There are 200 people in the Funkyverse and they’re all within two degrees of separation” I was joking.”

Many others have asked the same. (And it’s almost always Crankshaft characters appearing in Funky Winkerbean, rarely the reverse–though I do remember Les showing up the used bookstore. Les Moore? Double-yuck!)

My own theory is that Tom Batiuk is trying to create some kind of Funky Winkerbean Extended Universe; the idea being that someone reading this would learn of Crankshaft and think, “Wait, there’s MORE like this? Wow, I have to find that!”

Which is exactly the reaction he gets nowadays. Oh, except the word “find” is replaced by “avoid.”

The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter…Hey Wait a Minute!

Link to today’s strip.

Ah, so finally we know why Chester the Chiseller is considered pure, unadulterated evil.

He’s a success.

Why, the blackguard! How dare he!

If ever there was a “victimless crime,” this sure fits the definition. John said yesterday that Chester’s pilfering didn’t impact the store to any noticeable degree, so I don’t see any high crimes and misdemeanors here. And I’d almost be willing to bet that Chester made sure he did a lot of business with Danford, just to “show” his appreciation.

My question is this: in order to sell comics for “an incredible sum of money,” I would assume that Chester would have to have a lot of them, and they’d be more valuable if they were old. How many years did he sweep that floor? If he took ten a month (five to sell, five to his own collection), his yearly take would be sixty, and after ten years he’d have six hundred. That’s a lot of sweeping.

Secondly, how long does it take for a comic to become valuable? What would, say, Fantastic Four #1 or Amazing Fantasy #15 be worth ten years later in 1972 (again assuming a ten-year career in floor maintenance)? “An incredible sum of money”? Perhaps–but I’m thinking that any Batom comic wouldn’t worth nearly as much, fifty years after publication, except if the bathroom was out of toilet paper.

Things I Like Dept: Pete’s face in panel one is perfect. “What? Are you still talking? I’m trying to read, pal.” This is probably the only time I’ve liked Pete at all.

And look at Chester, too–happily enjoying ice cream while reading a comic book. First of all, the book isn’t sealed away, as I would suspect all his books to be, but out to be enjoyed. Given his reaction to Holly’s opening a sealed book, this is something I would not suspect. I would have thought Tom Batiuk would draw Chester admiring his collection through glass cabinets and pointedly not having fun; maybe the new guy slipped up.

Secondly, he’s going to eat ice cream in close proximity to a comic book. I have a feeling that John, Harry, Pete or Tom Batiuk would be shrieking if anyone brought ice cream into the Korner. “Get that out of here! What if it drips on one of the books!” And the offender’s face would turn ghostly white. Oh my God, I almost ruined a comic book!

How rare indeed it is to see someone enjoying himself. Happily and non-cynically, with not a smirk to be seen. It’s refreshing.

Quote Unquote

Link to today’s strip.

So, question for the group: Why the quotes around “save” in panel one? Let’s not beat around the bush, here…had this been a young John, or Pete, we’d be told how these comics were saved, no quotes, from destruction. Chester, however, has his actions quoted, implying that they weren’t saved at all. But we see him carefully putting them away in boxes.

Again, I’m not condoning petty thievery, but this seems remarkably harmless. I’m shocked that Batiuk didn’t have Chester’s actions bankrupt Danford’s store.

It’s exactly what a commentor pointed out here a couple of weeks ago–all of Tom Batiuk’s good characters are impossibly good, and all of his bad characters are impossibly bad, so even though they do the same things, those things must be judged “good” or “bad” on the actor, and not the act. Chester could save orphans from a burning building, and we’d be told how “naturally, after Chester ‘saved’ the orphans…” he was still a bad guy.

I don’t know what this is called, but “writing” it ain’t.