The ass-lathering continues today as Kablichnick steps up to the plate. The normally dour and cranky science teacher positively gushes about how Starbuck Jones inspired him: “Follow our hearts”? “Do what we love”? “Succeed“? Teacher, please. When it comes to unbridled contempt for one’s students, Jim Kablichnick makes Les Moore look like Mr. Chips. The only thing he loves about his job is the opportunity it provides for him to spout his views on climate change, interspersed with painfully unfunny “jokes.” Cliff expresses his surprise at meeting someone gullible enough to have bought his line of hokum. And we all know about the Ovaltine, but do the Junior (hah!) Spacemen of America employ some kind of secret handshake? It looks like the ol’ Commodore greets his fans by grasping their clenched fists.
Author: TFHackett
In Soviet Russia, the Buck Saves You!
Pity the readers of Funky Winkerbean whose newspapers do not also run Crankshaft (okay, go ahead and pity all FW readers, regardless). Of course beady-eyed, nitpicking hate-readers understand that the rapt little kid is the same one whose ghost we saw peering creepily back at Jeff from the attic window of his childhood home a couple weeks ago. And we know that the old geezer awkwardly shaking Cliff Anger’s hand is not Funky with glasses but is that same kid, now grown old. So Jeff finally achieves closure for his mommy issues, albeit in a different comic strip and ten or twenty (and one or two weeks) later. And if his gushing pronouncement sounds familiar, peep this 2011 Batiuk interview:
Interviewer: Some of the memorable storylines of that [first time jump] era, at least for me, were Lisa’s cancer and the comic book store obscenity trial that was mirroring the Jesus Castillo case. I still have Crazy’s witness stand testimony of how, when he was in high school, “…superheroes did what they did best… they saved me.” tacked up on my wall.
While he understands fuck-all about how modern motion pictures are made, and has long since abandoned any notion of continuity and character development, Batiuk maintains his laser focus on spreading the gospel of old comic books and movie serials.
Baby I’m a Star(buck)
billytheskink
June 8, 2016 at 1:05 am
Mason shooting for Les Moore levels of schmuck-ery here…He provides Cliff with no schedule or itinerary and then makes him get into full costume on set, Cliff surely assuming he would be shooting his scenes for the film. Nope, Mason springs the news of an immediate photo shoot at some restaurant with zero relevance to anything on a wholly unsuspecting Cliff and then shoves him through a dingy Cleveland alleyway into a decades-old limousine.
…which would have been undignified enough if all this was just to surprise ol’ Cliff with an Ovaltine toast. But today Cliff is pressed into service autographing pictures or posters or some crap, and he approaches this task with the same disdain for his admirers that book-signing Les Moore has for his. No doubt book-signing Tom Batiuk at some point encountered one of his own fans who, overcome with excitement in the presence of greatness, forgot his own name.
Cliff: “Some things haven’t changed in fifty years, have they?” So now this 1950’s style Starbuck Jones serial film dates back to 1966. Help me out here, boomers: maybe Saturday matinees were still a thing in the midwest, but here in Jersey, we were getting our superhero kicks watching Batman. On TV.
Sunset Blowhard
HeyItsDave
April 15, 2016 at 7:51 am
Characters just seem to vanish without a trace in this arc. First Jessica disappears after the movie, and now Cindy and Mason seem to have ditched the Dorknamic Duo in Westview on their way back to California.
Jessica’s whereabouts are still unknown, but today Darin, Pete, and Funky are replaced by Mason and Cindy (or “MaCin” as they must be know in the tabloids) and Holly at Montoni’s counter. Mason the actor bemoans how fickle Hollywood’s rejection can result in “the actor’s story” ending in obscurity and despair; probably not wise to bring this up with his fiance sitting right next to him.
Anyway it’s been a fun few weeks celebrating this blog’s sixth anniversary! Thanks to each and every one of you for reading and commenting and being such a wonderful online community. SoSFDavidO jumps into the driver’s seat tomorrow!
Auctioneer-ring
Rusty
April 15, 2016 at 8:05 am
So….what’s happening with the decoder ring? Why show that yesterday?
Well, I guess it was so he could show it again today, being sold (and bought) on “Fleabay”, which, as it turns out, exists in real life and appears to be a desperately poor man’s eBay–it’s a dot net, not even dot com for cryin’ out loud. A more puzzling question is, with his rent paid for a year and any financial problems likely resolved for the rest of his days, why must Cliff continue selling off his last few Starbuck Jones mementoes?
Son of Stuck Funky 