Did Sunday’s strip ring a few recognition bells in long time Crankshaft readers?
Well, it should have.
The Crankshaft/Murdoch family has flip flopped on real vs artificial trees a few times over the last couple decades.
The late aughts were an era of live trees at great cost.
2007
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Then…in 2014, an arc on an artificial tree.
This all ended with a strip with some VERY FAMILIAR artwork.
I guess a couple years later, in 2016, they’d reinvested in fake.
And early in the Davis era, in 2018, another new artificial tree. And Pam is the one who throws a fit over fakery, despite a few years earlier championing the idea. I’ll let the continuity error slide this time, as the jokes in the arc are at least smirk worthy.
But I guess nostalgia won out again by 2020.
I’ve gotten a real tree ever since I moved out on my own, usually white pine, though I’ve also paid top dollar for some frasier furs. My mom has a three piece artificial tree she’s used ever since my sister scored a husband allergic to pine.
Happy holidays to everyone in the SoSF community! I’ve enjoyed another year with all of you. I am honored that people continue to visit this strange little corner of the web, and read and comment about the even stranger world of Funky Winkerbean. I’m amazed that this community continues to thrive four years after the strip ended.
In the penultimate year of 2021, most of March was devoted to Dinkle answering an ad to become the new choir director at St. Spires Church in Centerville.
At the time, I used this story to make a parody Photoshop story of Harry Dinkle accidentally becoming a porn star, and posted it in the comments. It was well received. I recently realized that a lot of our visitors may never have seen it. So we decided to reprint it here, to have some new content that isn’t about dead birds or pizza box-wearing entities. I hope you enjoy it too.
NSFW Warning: The story contains lots of sexual content… in the same way late-night Cinemax movies did in the 1980s. In all seriousness, discretion is advised.
We’re all waiting on tenterhooks to see if Ed Crankshaft presses fat lips to cold beak and puffs Pam’s Christmas Cardinal back to life, and Batiuk just shifts gears to Pam and Minty redecorating a Christmas tree that should have been well and truly decked as of Thursday afternoon when Pam strung lights under the watchful eye of her blood red companion.
And all so Batiuk can, once again, flash us that hysterical landmark, 425 West Avenue, Elyria, Ohio. The starter apartment of Pam and Jeff, Ann and Fred, and Batton and his nameless Cathy Clone.
While the bird’s fate is unknown, a surprising, long memory holed, friend has emerged from the reference sheets. Appearing for the first time in the Davis era, on Wednesday we saw a feline resembling Pickles the Tomcat. Last seen on December 23, 2016, during Ayers tenure.
Wherever Pickles has been the last nine years, I’m guessing it included a short stay in the Pet Sematary. Since the mangy old feline debuted in Crankshaft’s first couple years, while Max and Mindy were still young.
Back in the glory days when Crankshaft still had the personality of a lime-encrusted sea urchin.
Save the Cat and Pet the Dog are tropes as old as time. A quick shorthand to show the true empathy innate in a character. If you want to show your character is a slimy fake, you have a seemingly ‘nice’ person kick a dog.
If you want to show that the grumbles, grousing, and belly aching of a cantankerous old coot are just the timid farts of an emotionally constipated man, you have him get a cat.
I miss the early days of the Internet. It was devoid of toxic social media, and full of goofy creative stuff. If you’re not familiar with the primitive brainrot the title refers to, you can see it here. (WARNING: It will burrow into your brain like those Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan worms. If you do recognize the title, it probably already has. Sorry about that.)
This week’s cardinal arc reminds me of Badger Badger Badger. There’s a cardinal, and… that’s it. It exists as part of a larger work that defies any narrative sense. It’s practically trying to be a meme.
I know I’ve joked about the cardinal being Lisa’s ghost, and that’s still the favorite on the odds board right now (-500). But now, dragging out Lisa’s corpse for the millionth time seems too straightforward for Tom Batiuk. He seems to be veering into the avant-garde. As evidenced by this week’s Ingmar Bergman coloring. (NOTE: I initially missed that this effect was borrowed from Schindler’s List. Thanks to Y. Knott in the comments.)
I say this because I was baffled by the December 13 strip that ended “Pizza Box Monster as Santa” week. He gets paid by Lillian, shakes her hand, and then this:
What on earth was Tom Batiuk aiming at here?
Yes, that’s the building where this week’s proceedings occurred, but what is the point of sticking it at the end of the story? The second panel, PBM saying “Pizza on earth!”, is the kind of thing Batiuk would normally use for a punchline. It’s almost like he drew this panel and forgot to use it, so he stuck it here.
Sometimes you can end a story just by pulling back and putting it into its larger context. Like in A Streetcar Named Desire (the stage version, not the movie) or Cameron Crowe’s Singles. But that’s not what’s happening here. This isn’t a scene of people wandering around, enjoying Christmas, or anything else that would lend weight to the story. Not that there was much of a story to begin with.
I think Tom Batiuk is trying to mimic visual effects, and heartwarming endings, he’s seen in movies and TV shows. But he has absolutely no idea how to execute them, or why. That’s what I think we’re getting at the end of this week: an ornately staged, but confusing, ending.
UPDATE (December 19): And with this morning’s strip, Batiuk’s true intentions are revealed:
I didn’t mean for that last post to be a poll, but it’s revealing how many individual Jump The Shark moments posters were able to identify in Funky Winkerbean. Here’s a compiled list, in roughly chronological order (because, as you know, Timemop).
Act I (1972-1992, ends with the original class’ graduation)
John Byrne’s guest stint permanently alters the artwork (2003)
Sadie Summers – not because she was a bad character as Tom Batiuk thinks, but because she was under- and mis-utilized
The post office bombing (USA!)
Lisa’s cancer returns in 2006, because of a hospital error
Lisa’s death (October 4, 2007)
Act III (2007-2022, ends when Funky Winkerbean ends and its characters move to Crankshaft)
Tom Batiuk skips ten years after Lisa’s death, throwing away a gold mine of story ideas. Which also prevents Les Moore (and Batiuk) from ever moving past Lisa’s death, when that was the stated reason for the time jump
Son of Stuck Funky 