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).
As this week of filler comes to a close, Funky’s regression from little old lady to annoying child is complete.
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.
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
I gave myself a migraine trying to decipher the tin-eared dialogue in today’s strip. “There’s a couple of tick-tocks before class starts”? This is bully-speak? Sounds like baby talk. “Kick your butt off“? “Off” doesn’t follow “butt” in this construct, unless I’m “kicking your butt off the team”, or “off the bus”, etc. Never heard of anyone getting his “butt kicked off”. Oh, I see: this is setup for Cody’s retort: “No problem, I’ll just share yours.” Share his butt? ‘th hell?!?
And what skinny teenage nerd confidently cracks wise in response to a verbal threat, however clumsily it’s worded? This is the same tactic that teenage Les used with teenage Bull. Of course now we know that that wasn’t real bullying at all. Mr. Black Shirt Hatchet Face appears to be serious. Given his renown for “tackling serious real-life issues”, you’d expect that TB would at least attempt to treat bullying a little more thoughtfully. Instead he goes for “funny” but it just comes out “wrong”.
Son of Stuck Funky 
