Son of Stuck Funky

No, Principal Nate, “Suggested” Means “Not Legally Enforceable”

After wasting a week on Dinkle and book signings, Week 2 of The Burnings begins with a huge exposition dump.

Before we get to it, a question: if Tom Batiuk hadn’t put out this puff piece in the Cleveland newspaper, would you even know last week was the beginning of The Burnings? Last week saw three authors, two of whom are nationally relevant, standing around smirking at each other during an unrelated book signing. Which is a very common story in the Funkyverse. The Act III links above show that Les alone did book signings in 2010, 2011, 2017, 2019, 2021, and now 2024. Most of them were multi-week arcs. Today’s strip feels like the beginning of the actual Burnings story.

ESPN 8 The Ocho Presents: The World’s Smuggest Man Competition

COTTON (Gary Cole): “Good evening, sports fans, Cotton McKnight here, coming to you live from Village Booksmith in Centerville, Ohio, welcoming you to the finals of the World’s Smuggest Man competition! Live on ESPN8, The Ocho. And with me as always, my partner in crime: Pepper Brooks!”

PEPPER (Jason Bateman): “Yo! What’s up, Cot? Fist bump!”

I Am The God Of Hellfire, And I Bring You…

FIRE!

Arthur Brown knew how to make an entrance! Tom Batiuk, not so much.

The Burnings have commenced! Both the Daily Cartoonist and Cleveland.com ran puff pieces in advance of the story, much like we saw ahead of the CTE arc. We’ve been wondering about the nature of The Burnings for months now, and these stories reveal some details:

Interview With The Vapid

Last week, I wrote about Tom Batiuk’s blog post, where he defended his use of what he calls “non-linear storytelling.” He said that he intentionally abandons stories and returns to them later. I thought this was a nod to the fact that 90-something Eugene wordlessly rowed into a lake a couple weeks ago, and his story abruptly stopped there.

Silly me. It turns out Batiuk wasn’t talking about Eugene. He was actually talking about his favorite subject. No, not comic books. Himself!

I will go through this week of Crankshaft day-by-day, because it deserves that much attention. But first, let’s take a moment to review the history of the Centerview Sentinel.

An Itchy Burning Sensation

I had just gotten in from checking the fall calving cows on Tuesday night (two widdle mini-moos so far!). I was squeaky clean from a shower, in my most hideous comfy clothes, sitting with my laptop, and all ready to pull out one of my stored up Classic Funky Winkerbean topics and snark together a little snack sized post. A bit of vintage sunshine to give us a reprieve from the endless ouroboros author avatar tumblebutt of Batton then Jeff then Batton we’ve been subjected to lately.

*Turns out, a little of Panel A, a lot of Panel B (minus girls of course.)*

I checked the comments first…