SosfDavidO here! And we’re kicking off this week’s arc with a mysterious stranger! Who could it be in today’s teaser? More importantly, does anyone care? It could be any one of the 21,836 characters that have popped into Westview in the past 40+ years or it could be a retconned character pulled out of thin air. Les’s brother Stanley! Sure, why not?
Starring Crankshaft as Pennywise
As usual, Sunday’s strip was not available for preview. Who knows what it might be? Comic book cover, obliquely referencing Pete and Mindy. who will be stuffed into a corner speaking utterly irrelevant idiocies? Funky and Les jogging? Someone vomiting at Montoni’s? Les hawking the new Lisa book? (Never has the term “hawking,” in it’s alternate spelling of “hocking,” and meaning “spitting up phlegm,” been more appropriately deployed.) I can’t think of any other irons that Tom Batiuk has in the fire, though his capacity to surprise–in the most disappointing way–is beyond my ability to predict.
In the real world, the new movie based on Stephen King’s It is projected to take off at the box office–it has already sold something like 20-odd million pre-order tickets, which is pretty rare for something whose title doesn’t begin with “Star” followed by “Wars.” The film is projected to break box office records for a horror movie.
The film will certainly dethrone Starbuck Jones The Movie at the box office, but this is hardly surprising given Jones‘ performance. With a first weekend gross of $42 million, Jones debuted respectably for the most anemic Labor Day weekend in over a decade, but subsequent box office returns have seen the film plummeting disastrously–forecasts have it earning just a little over $1000 total for this weekend, at over 2500 theaters (this figure includes children’s matinee showings, oddly enough almost entirely attended by the elderly). Cable Movie Entertainment spokesman Mason Jarre says the studio is proceeding with the sequel nonetheless, and adds that he feels the upcoming China opening will boost the film’s profile and profits. His optimism flies in the face of Chinese film commissioner Wong Wei Feldman’s repeated assertions that there are no plans to open the film in China, and that in fact, the Chinese want no part of Starbuck Jones The Movie. “I have seen stills assembled by someone named John Howard,” Mr. Feldman has stated, “and it looks like garbage…garbage set on fire, and dumped into a vat of sewage. And we have plenty of that here.” He then waved off reporters and jumped into his auto-gyro (“The Spirit of St. Louis” emblazoned on the side) and shouted that he was late for his engagement in Wu Hu.
And that, my friends, is my last posting on this go-round of Son of Stuck Funky. Oh, as Ahnuld said, “I’ll be back,” but in the meantime please give a warm SoSF welcome to the fantastic DavidO, who becomes the new Number Two starting Monday, as I slither back under the storm drains.
Skin Flakes, Phlegm and Excrement for Color
So, everyone wanted to see Crankshaft, probably in the futile hope that his demise would be depicted onscreen.
Well, here’s Crankshaft. He looks like a plastic bag filled with pus trying to decide if gravity is worth resisting any longer.
Tom Batiuk keeps trying to shove Crankshaft down our throats. And it never works. No one cares about Crankshaft, it has never generated any interest in anyone to watch it unfold. I suspect it’s a very low performer, newspaper-wise, and perhaps Mr. Batiuk is trying to shovel his legacy over there now that he has destroyed Funky Winkerbean. But that’s like trying to choose between a burning building and a sea full of sharks.
And to be honest, the fact that Mindy seeks the approval of the Old, Unplaceable Odor makes her a truly terrible person. At least Pm N Jff recognize that Crankshaft is something to be tolerated, not cultivated.
But The Grandfather
Pete looks utterly distraught in that last panel–Oh, my God! She’s making me meet her grandfather! Well, this relationship is over…too bad, I thought it might have worked, but no, she’s gotta bring in the grandfather….
I can’t think of any other explanation for the expression oozing off his face–unless he once had a dream that he would die at the hands of some girl’s grandfather, and all of this is exactly like that dream….
The point is, he sure doesn’t look happy at all about this, and it’s worrying him to the point where he doesn’t even notice Mindy’s transformation into a 1960’s toothpaste advertisement.
Re-Pete-I-Tion
I find the most reasonable explanation for Mindy’s attraction to Pete is the one offered by a number of commentors–she’s hoping to sleep her way into some of those Starbuck Jones/Cable Movie Entertainment millions so she can buy her way out of this strip. That’s surprisingly cynical for a strip like this, but, let’s face it–Pete is otherwise a repellent character, who has no attractive features of any kind, and only an insane/desperate person would find him worthy of affection. I mean, he and Mindy had two remarkably stupid conversations, and suddenly she wants to divert from the airport to Bedside Manor? (To meet He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Strip, of course.) I’d find it more plausible if she was driving him to some remote field where she’d force him to dig his own grave before gifting him with a bullet.
Pete is one manifestation of the Ultimate Batiuk Form–the Whiner. If Mindy is serious about wanting to be with him, she had better get used to endless whining about how hard he has to work at what would otherwise be his dream job. Because those who exist in the Funkyverse without constant complaining don’t truly exist at all.
Of course, the sleeping-to-the-top theory falls down when you realize this would mean a female character has drive and ambition–and those things are not directed toward bringing milk and cookies to her comic-reading man. Sorry, everyone.
It does remind me of the old Hollywood joke–this one comes from the 1930’s I believe, so it’s right there on Nostalgia Boulevard. “Did you hear about the aspiring actress? She was so stupid, she slept with the writer!”
Son of Stuck Funky 