If You Wannabe Be My Writer

Yesterday’s discussion of exactly just how Rip Tide: Scuba Cop goes about scuba cop-ing understandably exhausted our tedious twosome, and they take a well-earned coffee break in today’s strip.

I suppose that now that they are living the life of 1950s-ish Batom Comics writers, Pete and Durwood no longer need to daydream about being 1950s-ish Batom Comics writers. Naturally, they have channeled most of their energy into finding new ways to procrastinate… though shuffling down to the struggling coffeeshop on the corner earns them no points for creativity.

Nevertheless, today’s strip is not without educational value. I, for one, learned that the key difference between Los Angeles and Northern Ohio is that no one has dreams or ambition in Northern Ohio.

Today’s Log Post

Hello SoSFers, billytheskink back for another two weeks steering this runaway bus. Lucky me, today’s strip shifts back to Pete, Durwood, and their adventures at the City of Cleveland’s newest employer. Now that Chester has acquired the remnants of Mort Winkerbean’s life savings, I guess Atomik Komix’s bankruptcy has been postponed… and that, sadly, means we have to peek at the Batty Atom Bullpen’s “creative” process.

Durwood is the star of this one for sure, offering one of the few reasonable explanations for the existence of the last decade of Funky Winkerbean. On the other hand, Pete is being Pete… that is to say, useless.

Dread Head

Link To The Sunday Strip

How sad. Mort’s successful attempt to (ahem) cheer Crankshaft up is apparently bringing the old coot no joy or pleasure at all, as in today’s installment he laments the inevitable death of the universe and…oh, I see. It’s actually Funky. For a second there I thought we were seeing a FW character displaying a secondary emotion beyond their default one and I became all disoriented. Plus it’s, you know, tough to distinguish between Funky and his old man these days. One of them is a frisky, vibrant old guy who’s experienced miraculous health and well-being gains over the last few years and the other one is Funky.

Anyhow, it looks like Funky’s neck experienced a “big rip” of its own there in panel four, the one featuring his aborted attempt at drinking from a glass. It could explain his posture in panel five as well. I would assume that Funky would probably welcome some sort of apocalyptic scenario. Like maybe an asteroid strike or something, but the total atomic collapse of the universe would work too, plus there’d be no chance Les could somehow survive that.

But alas, no. He’s just complaining about it, as usual. No wonder he’s such a wildly popular and universally beloved title character who everyone’s heard of, there’s something about that hilariously morose-yet-whiny demeanor of his that really strikes a chord with so many tens of people. You can easily imagine that weird reclusive neighbor of yours who never leaves the house cutting this one out and displaying on the refrigerator door, you know?

billytheskink heroically throws himself on the FW grenade beginning tomorrow!

While Visions Of Garden Hoes Danced In His Head

Link To Today’s Strip

There’s Ed’s name…right there on the wall next to his door. Who’d have thunk it? Talk about wrapping things up with an anti-climactic thud. I get the feeling that they could have given Ed a Chinese restaurant menu or an old orange rind and it’d have made no appreciable difference (and it might have saved Funky a nice chunk of change too but that’s just speculation). Normal people might be amazed that a nationally-syndicated comic strip creator needed TWO daily strips to spin a yarn about an old gardening catalog but regular FW readers know this is more or less par for the course. In fact I’m sort of surprised that John Darling wasn’t somehow involved too.

Coming soon: A health aide at Bedside Manor mistakes Ed’s precious life-affirming gardening catalog for garbage and tosses it, prompting Mort to convince Dinkle to hijack a WHS school bus and take “the gang” to the local municipal landfill for a good old-fashioned scavenger hunt.

That Almost Imperceptibly Grinning Guy From Room /Z/

Link To Today’s Strip

Crankshaft’s fondest-ever possession and the one thing he secretly pines for the most…an old gardening catalog from the 1950s. Such a deep and complex character, no wonder BatStrips felt he merited an entire spin-off strip to himself. I like how Mort and Funky are completely indistinguishable from one another now, which will make things a lot easier for Batom in the long run, continuity (guffaw) be damned.

One can easily imagine a young Ed huddled in the attic with his catalog, some cookies and a glass of milk, engrossed in comparing rake prices and marveling at the innovations in wheelbarrow technology that made the entire post-war boom possible. Or one could continue to ignore Crankshaft, as I prefer. Whose heart is warmed by this drivel? Who’s been waiting years to see Ed crack a dreary dying grin? Do people who read Crankshaft but not FW even know that this is supposed to be Future Ed? Are FW readers who don’t read Crankshaft trying to figure out why Funky is in a nursing home and/or what the f*ck is going on here?

One can safely assume that Funky is eventually footing the bill for this idiotic gesture, probably without even knowing about it too. Funky essentially paid for the SJ collection Cory later pawned (and he’ll be paying for and hosting the wedding too, bet on it) for Rocky’s engagement ring, then he financed the Dick Tracy collection that’s keeping the Korner afloat. And now he’s buying Chester’s already-flailing comic book company some time via his dad’s impulse purchase which also impacts Pete, Darin, Jessica and little baby Skyler. Plus he supplies the town folk with pizza. The guy is the backbone of the entire Westviewian economy and he doesn’t even know it.