Son of Stuck Funky – Page 53 – Son of Stuck Funky

T.B. Tropes

Most works that are infamous for being bad – The Room, The Eye of Argon, Big Rigs Over The Road Racing, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Crown Royal – are bad in ways that are easy to explain, and apparent to anyone who consumes them.

Funky Winkerbean was an awful comic strip, but in ways that are difficult to quantify.

My usual go-to resource for this kind of analysis is TVTropes. A trope is a “narrative device or convention used in storytelling or production of a creative work.” TVTropes catalogues them all, and catalogues works in all media by the tropes they use. Most importantly, it gives us a language we can use to talk about what’s good or bad about creative works. It’s one of the best things the hive mind of the Internet has ever come up with. If you’re not already a reader, go check it out, but be warned that TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life.

I view tropes as the atoms of storytelling. Every object in your home, at its most fundamental level, is made up of atoms. Water is two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom. Salt is sodium and chlorine. If you look up your favorite book/movie/TV show/record/comic strip/video game/Bible story/anime/whatever on TVTropes, you’ll get a list of the tropes it’s made of. It’s a way of breaking down your favorite story into its most basic elements, and discussing what does well or badly.

Tom Batiuk’s writing is so bad that it defies this model.

Picking up Speed

The Marvel Character Speedball circa 2006

Keeping up with The Johnsons

First of all, though many of you had criticisms of the few Crankshaft strips, I’ve been stunned that the last three (THREE) strips each at least got a smile outta me. From Granny J showing a bit of ankle, to Sunday’s supremely tolerable goose call, I can’t remember the last time I was able to give my stamp of “So Okay It’s Average!” to Crankshaft three days in a row. YMMV, of course, but I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t find it amusing.

However, of note this week was this little exchange,

Was this strip funny? No, not really.

But it was a call back to a 35-year-old running gag, from the very beginning of the strip. Except it wasn’t the mother chasing the bus, it was the poor little tyke herself.

How do I know? Well I shelled out to get the first couple Crankshaft paperbacks a few months ago. I even had to buy the first one twice, because it shipped to my parents’ house. I noticed my parents’ laughing over it a few weeks later, and it’s disappeared into their stack of bathroom reading materials. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

Because I’m genuinely wondering. Are these funny? Are they cruel? Are they somewhere in between? I am interested to hear your thoughts.

An Engaging Response.

Did you know Tom has an email newsletter? Randomly, months apart and with absolutely no schedule, a little update from Tom Batiuk shows up in my email inbox, because of course I’m on the mailing list! I can’t miss an important update!

Such as,

So is it life imitating art or the other way around? Whatever, if you were following Crankshaft in mid-July, you saw Crankshaft’s granddaughter Mindy and his son-in-law Jeff at SDCC (that’s cool code for people who don’t want to write out San Diego Comic-Con), along with Mindy’s boyfriend and soon to be fiancé (oops spoiler alert… ignore that) Pete Reynolds who’s a writer for Atomik Komix and proof positive that Funky characters would indeed begin showing up in Crankshaft.

I can’t tell you all, just how absolutely vibrating with anticipation and glee your dear CBH is to see the LONG AWAITED proposal of Pete Reynolds to Mindy Murdoch.

Stuck In The Middle (School) With You

“When I was in middle school and creating my own comic strips and comic books, I called my comic book “company” Batom Comics which was a play on my name.”

“Back when I was in middle age and doing regular daily posts at SoSF, I called Tom Batiuk “Batyam”, “BatBrain”, “Batty”, “BatHam”, “BanTom”, “Batty-Bat Bat Bat” and “Tommy Two-Shirts”, which were plays on his name.”

How fascinating! Why, I’d never made that connection before! Sigh. If these blog posts of his were any duller, you could use them to spread jam on toast. Just like the vast bulk of his work, it’s difficult to believe that he actually spent time on this post, or put any thought into it at all. He even makes his dearest passions boring.