Son of Stuck Funky

Lucy’s Story

This week’s post will be an installment of This Week In Act IV, and also a historical deep dive into a past Funkyverse tale.

Crankshaft has been revisiting the Lillian-Lucy-Eugene love triangle. The week ended today with Eugene sailing a boat solo into the waters of Summit Lake, a real place in Akron. The story looks like it continues into next week, so we’re not going to cover it all today.

I say “we” because this post is very much a team effort between Comic Book Harriet and myself. There will be at least one follow-up to this post, even if the Crankshaft story ends at this point. (It’s hard to imagine how a story can end with an old man boating into a lake by himself, but Batiuk gonna Batiuk.)

We must also give an assist to Comics Curmudgeon guest host “Uncle Lumpy”, who made the definitive comment about this story 13 years ago.

Eugene, Lucy — this is not romantic, touching, or poignant. It is stupid, and you two deserve exactly what you got.
https://joshreads.com/2011/10/friday-post-3/

Eliminating the Obstacles

Taking a break from Batiuk’s little nonsensical trip down memory lane in Crankshaft sounds nice, right?

So how about continuing our little nonsensical trip down memory lane in Act I Funky Winkerbean, following the Sweet Polly Oliver of the arcade consoles, The Eliminator.

After the one-off strip in June 1983 that just rehashed the already broken-in joke of the arcade cabinets in Montoni’s being afraid of The Eliminator’s skills, we next get the weeklong Return of the Jedi arc I covered this May. So I won’t reprint it all here. But from July 26th to July 30th, 1983, we were treated to the little brat using her stolen helmet to budge in line for tickets and snacks. Probably ruining the experience for everyone around her by blipping in and out of the theater during the movie itself, like a proto-zoomer doomscrolling DoorDash during Dune.

*Did I ever tell you guys that I went to the Transformers ’07 movie five times in theaters? And even I find this excessive.*

Cup Holder Week Has Been Cancelled

I had so much to say about this week in Crankshaft.

Why did the week start with a holy war against cup holders and fancy armrests?
Why are fancy armrests an issue when you can simply ignore them if you don’t want to use them?
Who hates fancy armrests so much they’d choose a movie theater just because they don’t offer them?
Why are these the same seats the Valentine Theater had before it closed down, became a strip club, and re-opened? Was this some kind of 1940s strip club? (Knowing Tom Batiuk’s tastes, it probably was.)
Why did Crankshaft and Mary Marzipan enter the theater after Max and Hannah were cleaning it up, something you would do at the end of the night? What non-existent customers even made this mess?
Who did Ed and Mary pay for their ticket? Did they just walk into the theater?
Why are they on a date (confirmed by Mary) when she broke up with him in 2010? We haven’t seen Mary since her “bus driver PTSD“, at which time she and Ed were not depicted as a couple.
Who’s watching Max and Hannah’s small child?
Why is the theater down to two customers when it looked like this three weeks ago? How the hell is this theater viable?
Why have they already stopped showing Starbuck Jones III? Could they only afford one screening? Did it bomb harder than Rise of Skywalker?
How is this even a prank? Shouldn’t a prank confuse or mislead you? All he had to do was look at the sign.
Could Max and Hannah be any more boring, even compared to other couples in this boring universe?

Process of Elimination.

Heya all my beautiful Nitters of the Beady-Eyed Variety!

After a week that saw me travelling deep into the blistering inferno of drenching sweat, blinding sunshine, and endless Cracker Barrels known as the American Southeast, I’m back and ready to continue the deep dive on our favorite gender-nonconforming computer whiz, The Eliminator.

After their two week introductory arc that started July 12, 1982 (Happy 42nd Birthday Eliminator!), they pop up again for a Sunday strip on September 12, where the focus was still completely centered on Vidya games and pop culture.

The part where the hero saves the mainframe universe’s concept of a higher power by throwing a frisbee at a giant spinning face? My idea. Got it after an amusing incident where a Scientologist wandered into the St. Spires pancake breakfast.

Back To The Future

For the first time in awhile, this week in Crankshaft wasn’t straight-up Funky Winkerbean Act III. It starred Ed Crankshaft and his family, in a staple Crankshaft story: Ed’s barbecues causing a major disaster. But it was a great example of many things that are wrong with Tom Batiuk’s storytelling in general, and invites commentary for that reason. It’s going to be a cavalcade of TBTropes, some old and some new.

The week started with Mindy informing Pete that he’s “not really dressed for a grill-out” at her house. The suggested gear is, of course, protective gear against fire and explosions. Yuk yuk.

How does Pete not already know of Ed’s grilling misadventures? He’s been dating Mindy since 2017, and the “engagement tiger” incident was in 2019. They’ve been on multiple trips together.

On top of that, Ed’s grill-outs have resulted in criminal charges of destroying the earth! You’d think Pete would be aware of that incident. If the earth was destroyed, where would Pete get his comic books?