Category: Son of Stuck Funky

My Snark Will Go On

Not to sound too dire, because I don’t know how this will turn out…

This week King Features Syndicate finally wised up, and went to some kind of dynamic coding scheme that generates a crazy, non-human-decipherable link to the FW strips; replacing the old format in which a human could easily edit the date string to view past, present, and next weeks’ strips.

The old format allowed me to preview each week’s story arc, and write and schedule each days’ posts in advance, scheduling them to go live each day (ok, the night before each day; maybe that was asking for trouble).

I don’t think this affects the availability of  FW strips already on the web. However, it’s likely that the daily strips will now “go live” only at midnight or even later every day. I’m going to have to post “on the fly”, and that’s not going to be easy, what with having to be at my real job every morning.

In order that the snark may still have a home, I will continue to schedule a “placeholder” post each day. You all collectively create the bulk of the content here anyway (as well as the funniest). I’ll add my own daily observations as time permits. On the bright side, my newspaper carrier delivers my Sunday funnies with my Saturday Bergen Record, so even though I won’t be able to link to the strip, I can lay eyes on it first.

So this kinda sucks, but SoSF is still my favorite place on the web, and hopefully one of your favorites as well.

Thanks as always, and stay Funky!

TFH

Oh Lord, Not Again

Look at the bright side: hopefully this week will serve as Pete’s swan song. Once again he’s faced with a deadline, and once again he is utterly and totally seized with writer’s block. Meet the guy entrusted with the world’s most iconic and beloved superhero…

Hopefully too, perhaps after this week TB will retire the creepy “Lord of the Late”. Not only is TB plagiarizing this earlier arc, he’s recycling the art as well: compare today’s panel with this Sunday strip from 2008 (or just see below).

Kili-Krankshaft Krossover

Has Coach Bull already abandoned the “project” of whipping Les’ sorry ass into shape? He’s nowhere to be seen today. No matter: here comes motivation in the form of none other than Ed Crankshaft! Yes, it can be no one else; just peep this Crankshaft comic from July 2009:

The above strip is from that weird flash-forward arc where Crankshaft becomes unstuck in time, leaping Billy Pilgrim-like between scenes of his present-day, younger and older selves. This appearance lends support to the theory that Crankshaft, while also set in Ohio, takes place ten years in the past.*

Note to Cayla: if the prospect of being left to plan your wedding on your own, while your fiance goes off with his daughter to climb Kilimanjaro, doesn’t convince you that you’re making a huge mistake, well, you’re on your own.

*…while the Crankshaft strip from September 11, 2011 disproves this theory.

Reply to Toby

Below is my email to commenter “Toby”, who took exception to the negative comments. Toby’s comments can be read here, here and here.

Hi Toby,

Hope you don’t mind me emailing you directly, but I wanted to respond to your comments on Son of Stuck Funky, and if I post my response there, you probably won’t see it.

You said:

Wow! What a lot of nit-picking haters comment on this thread! If you all dislike the strip so much, why do you bother reading it?

A valid question. Not all the regulars at SoSF dislike the strip. Many, myself included, are longtime fans who take issue with how over 40 years (!), Funky Winkerbean has become an unfunny, self-serious soap opera.

Mr. Batiuk deserves serious credit for addressing the same-sex couple at the prom issue, regardless of how he develops his characters.

That’s debatable. The same-sex couple consisted of two hitherto-unforeseen characters about whom we know absolutely nothing except they want to go to the prom together. Batiuk didn’t even give these characters names. We saw them buy their tickets, nosey old Roberta witnessed the ticket sale and launched a protest, and principal Nate held an assembly, where he stated that there was nothing in the student handbook prohibiting same-sex couples from attending prom. Some defense.

By placing the issue in a nationally syndicate strip, Mr. B. does those kids a major service and THAT is the important aspect of this matter…

I hate to sound cynical, but Mr. B. also garnered a ton of press for himself (and for his just-published collection, The Complete Funky Winkerbean Vol. I). Meanwhile, he creates two cardboard “gay characters” who probably will never be seen again. He also (today and tomorrow) has another, closeted student thank the principal for making things “better” . The student speaks to principal Nate while obscured the whole time by scenery. In this way Batiuk scores himself some bonus points without taking a chance by “outing” an established character.

…one that seems to have gone right over the heads of the “oh this is all so ten minutes ago” phoney sophisticates who have been negatively commenting.

I have been running Son of Stuck Funky for over two years, and was a regular commenter on the blog that preceded it. I know and like the readers of my blog, and the vast majority are indeed sophisticated, especially regarding popular culture. Many of them recall that cartoonist Lynn Johnston featured an openly gay teenage character (nearly twenty years, not “ten minutes” ago) and handled the matter much more artfully than Batiuk could ever hope to do.

The vast majority of my readers are thoughtful, tolerant people. Some of my readers happen to be gay. What they are not is “phoney”.

Batiuk has been hyping Funky Winkerbean’s gay prom storyline since last year, and garnered plenty of attention, as he did with his Pulitzer-nominated breast cancer story. All my readers did was rightfully call “bullshit” where they saw it on his handling of a topic that deserves more thoughtful, less shallow treatment.

Sorry you didn’t enjoy your visit to SoSF. By the way, I doubt anyone really thought you were Tom Batiuk posting under a pseudonym, but it was just too good to resist. Anyway, you’re welcome to visit again and comment any time you like.

Thanks and best regards from a fellow Jerseyan.

TFHackett
Son of Stuck Funky