In my last post, I said comic book week could have been a charming little throw back to Act I, and that Tom Batiuk should do this kind of thing more often.
I take it back.
Last week’s “bus driver shortage” arc in Crankshaft was a perfect example of why Tom Batiuk shouldn’t try doing Act I-style stories anymore. They miss everything that made Act I arcs good.
What did those stories have that last week didn’t have?
There were actual stakes. Les was facing criticism, and possible termination of employment, for what his magazine published. Westview faced threats remove to popular video games. The Eliminator was tampering with Crazy’s grade, War Games-style.
A bus driver shortage should have serious effects on a high-school centric world, even if it’s just “hey, none of us have to worry about getting fired for awhile.” That should push Ed and the crew into even more extreme behavior, which is a staple of the strip. Here, of course, there are no stakes, no implications, and nothing that even escalates existing stories. Speaking of which:
There was an actual story. In all three examples, any gags were part of a larger story which the strip took time to unravel. For example:
The two strips are jokes, but they’re good ones, and they flow naturally from the story. The strip had spent a good week talking how the literary magazine had offended the community, which drove the easily-upset Les to having nightmares, and the feckless Fred Fairgood into making an actual decision. Then the story moves forward.
Bloom County was good at this:
This is silly as hell, but it was actually a small part of a long, complex story about Oliver Wendell Jones’ hacking misadventures. Which itself was also a longrunning theme in Bloom County. The story supported the joke, and the joke supported the story. Berke Breathed had a talent for writing insane stories, but also making them make sense in context. Which is exactly what’s not happening here:
The bus driver shortage isn’t a story, but just a premise to be restated at you over and over and over. It’s another form of “What are you doing, Dad?” Which as it turns out, Pam doesn’t actually say that much. It’s the Funkyverse’s answer to “beam me up, Scotty” or “play it again, Sam”. But you know what I mean: it’s the stand-in phrase for an overused trope. Even if Pam doesn’t say those exact words, she might as well be.
Those stories weren’t contrary to the reality of the world. The literary magazine arc in particular was very consistent with Les’ established personality, Roberta Blackburn’s personality, and the general spinelessness of school leadership in the face of obnoxious citizen critics.
Here, we were treated to a joke about how the school board was so desperate it was forced to hire a Hell’s Angel as an elementary school bus driver. A Hell’s Angel would probably be a way better bus driver than Ed Crankshaft is! They do Toys for Tots, so they must have some degree of altruism, and ability to interact with children. Ed Crankshaft and the other drivers certainly don’t, considering how they routinely blow off children at bus stops, and cause traffic jams to amuse themselves.
The jokes were aimed at the right targets. Les’s worry, Fred’s spinelessness, Roberta’s Karen-ness, and the public’s excessive squeamishness about the tiniest hint of sexual content were all on the receiving end of the barbs.
Here the victim is – to the extent there even is one – this Hell’s Angel who did nothing more than show up and apply for a job. Ed gets no guff for being an awful bus driver. Lena gets no guff for making bad hiring decisions. The school system gets no guff for managing its resources so poorly that it gets into this state. The “Tucker Twins”, who’ve never been mentioned before and probably never will be again, get no guff for bullying a grown man out of a job. (Can they please be assigned to Crankshaft’s bus?)
This is more evidence that the “good” characters can never, ever, ever be in the wrong, not even in the tiniest way. Even unseen “main “good” characters.
There isn’t much to say about this week’s “If Amazon drove your kids to school” arc, even though it progresses naturally from a “bus driver shortage” arc. Yeah, the jokes are lame, but a week of formulaic jokes isn’t worth talking about. It’s well above the level of awful that makes the Funkyverse fascinating.
What is worth talking about? The Burnings! And I haven’t forgotten that I owe you all the next installment of the reimagined Burnings story, so that is coming soon!
Comic Book Harriet here! Taking the wheel one final time while this strip is still running, gently guiding it as it peacefully coasts to its final resting place.
As everyone has been saying in the comments, this arc has been monumentally bad. The sort of Aldo Keltrast, dog-in-the-corner while Margo smiles, Rey Skywalker, bad that will stand the test of time. Even if, for the last couple weeks, we get an abbreviated version of the kind of treacly Funky and Crew ending we all pretty much expected, the chance to make that ending a real story with a beginning, middle, end, goals, stakes, and conflict is pretty much over. It could have been as easy as Funky losing the keys to Montoni’s, or Les getting locked in the high school after dark. Any of us could pitch an ending more keeping with what this strip tried to be. Many of us HAVE pitched sci-fi endings more interesting than this.
But naw. Why don’t we have three weeks of emotionless, conflictless, exposition instead. Talk about what HAS happened and what WILL HAPPEN without any chance of it changing. Have two characters, one we definitely don’t care about and another we barely even know anymore, spout tensionless word zeppelins into the air, placidly; describing time travel and mind rape with the sort of bemused detachment I expect from people talking about a drizzly day.
I’ve heard more interesting descriptions on how to order from the Secret McDonalds Menu.
I don’t know how I feel about it. Because the part of me that is the nicest to Batiuk of our general crew. The part of me who confessed on a video chat with at least 10 other Batiuk haters, that a Crankshaft strip had made me cry. The part of me that chuckled at Vintage FW. That sappy part of me wants something better for the end, something to put a penlight (not a spotlight) on the B+ material this strip was occasionally capable of.
But the part of me that sat with a grin on my face through all of Rise of Skywalker. The part of me that laughed with glee when Phil Holt came back from the dead, and when Skyler blithely played with his grandfather’s murder weapon. The part of me brimming with self-righteous artistic indignation at every missed opportunity of this entire fictional universe. That nasty little gremlin inside is like…YES! THIS! LET IT END LIKE THIS! NOT IN GOODNESS! NOT IN THE GLORY OF A DUMPTER BLAZE! BUT IN THE REFINED PLATONIC IDEAL OF EVERY ONE OF BATIUK’S SINS! HIS DULLNESS! HIS LONGWINDEDNESS! HIS BLAND CHARACTERS! HIS AVATARS! HIS EGO! HIS NOSTALGIA! HIS OBTUSE LOGIC! THIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS
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Great Moments in FW Arc Recap History: May 8, 1985. Les and Lisa on the bleachers.
Hannibal’s Lectern went off on a great tangent yesterday, talking about Harley Davidson motorcycles, and how the company wildly lies about the past to sell the present.
For those who are not familiar, H-D (the motorcycle company) trades heavily in “heritage,” its position as the world’s oldest motorcycle company. And they retcon that “heritage” like the old Soviet Union. How they do it is a lesson for Batiuk: they just do it. If the factual history doesn’t match the narrative they want to sell to their current customers, they just recite the narrative as if it were factual. No explanations. No acknowledgment of any inconvenient facts. No discussion.
Hannibal’s Lectern. Published author, gentleman (?), and motorcycle enthusiast.
Hannibal suggests that Batiuk should have done that kind of retcon when bringing the timelines together. I disagree, I think he should have explained it with a single strip at the end of the Crazy-Harry-Time Travel arc. ( Crazy: “I guess it was all an off-gassing mind trip, if I had gone back in time…things would have changed in the present!” *Crankshaft walks by*)
Hannibal and I are united in our assessment that three weeks in a janitor’s closet is NOT the way to do it.
But Batiuk is no stranger to Stalinist revisionism, with disappearing children edited out of families like murdered Politburo members from photos. Batiuk describes Les and Lisa’s year long Act I relationship like this on the blurb to Lisa’s Stoy: Prelude:
Introduced to readers of Funky Winkerbean in late 1984 as she experiences SAT test anxiety, Lisa becomes Les Moore’s best friend and a pivotal character. Les and Lisa go to the prom, begin steady dating, and then break up. Over the summer, Les realizes how much he misses Lisa.
In his Match to Flame, he’s even more vague about the nature of their dating relationship.
While all of this was going on, that girl from my sketchbook had begun little by little to insinuate herself into the strip. In my mind, the students in the strip had reached their junior year and as such the junior/senior prom was looming. Les needed a date for the prom, and this new girl seemed to be the perfect candidate. Along with Les I learned her name—Lisa. They went to the prom together and continued to date. They followed the typical bell curve of a high school relationship and eventually broke up with Lisa transferring to another school. Nice story, that. The problem, however, is that I had really grown to like Lisa and I missed having her in the strip almost as much as Les seemed to. It turned out that my journey with Lisa was only starting. Twice I would banish her from the strip and twice she would return with a new story to tell.
From The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume Five
What did that ‘typical bell curve’ relationship really look like?
Well, in early May 1985, Les Moore is busy litigiously harassing women while on his love quest.
I don’t know if this Cindy is THE Cindy. I don’t think so.
He is as charming and suave as ever.
Are you a boyfriend-free girl?
In our sanitized, censored, edited Act III, Batiuk presents Les getting up the guts to ask Lisa out, as if he already admired her.
March 7, 2017
When in reality, he didn’t even know her name. Like Billy The Skink pointed out in 2017, he was asking her because she was the last girl he hadn’t asked…and he had to psych himself up because he’d been rejected all day.
Apparently, a dance party has broken out in the gym after lunch?
The dance goes well. He asks her to prom. Prom goes well. They kiss. Les crashes his car on the way home.
His first gift to her? Funeral flowers.
Credit for this strip pic goes to the Sale into the 90’s blog. Because Toledo Blade Microfiche is DUMB.
Silly Les! Daring to be happy before Act III!
I guess they start dating. Though in the summer of ’85, Les is still openly oogling other women.
There is an entire week in August of ’85 dedicated to Les getting his braces stuck on Lisa’s sweater while they were necking. But that’s all we see of Lisa for the summer.
An entire WEEK of this, folks.
When school starts again, as a show of devotion, Les gives her a his pocket protector. Then he gets a horrible perm for the Homecoming Dance and freezes Lisa’s corsage…which does…something to her… off panel…
I didn’t see the pocket protector at first…and this came across very creepy.
Sorry for the strip quality and content. In every respect.
As a couple, Les and Lisa barely show up from Prom of ’85 through to about March of 1986. Much much much much more time is dedicated to Dinkle fundraising, Coach Stropp losing, people smirking at puns on TV. In all those months, I could find only a strip or two other than this. I think Batiuk didn’t know how to handle hapless Act I punching bag Les in a normal relationship. But then, in March, things take a turn.
Very niche reference, but big Mikasa Ackerman vibes here.
Is her machine gun cardboard too?
The relationship goes toxic. And it goes toxic because LISA becomes jealous, crazy, manipulative, clingy, and physically abusive.
That. That is assault and battery. That is assault and battery played for laughs.
Les, being his extremely flawed Act I self, is no pure victim in this. But his forgetfulness and distance almost could be read as dissociation from the moment, as he tries desperately to cling to the validation of having a girlfriend even if that same girlfriend becomes someone he can’t handle.
Tip to any single guys. Do. Not. Check Phone. While on Date. Unless you’re pulling up Dank Memes to share.
“If you’re not back in love by Mondaaaaay, you can’t say you didn’t tryyyyy…..”
Les finally gets up the nerve to break up with Lisa. By standing in a place both public AND where she can’t physically reach him without breaking taboos.
Just wait, you’ll be very productive your senior year…
This one got me. Score one for Act I actually being funny.
And then she took that gun…and melted it down…and made a car…
And their first round of dating ends like it began. With a creep threatening legal action.
Les pines for Lisa all summer long. And it is so typical of Funky Winkerbean that more strips are dedicated to Les moping around whining for Lisa after they broke up, than were spent on the what I assume were the happy times in their early relationship. And we have no clue what Les liked about Lisa in particular. He’s not missing Lisa, he’s missing the idea of being pair-bonded.
Multiple WEEKS of this, folks.
OH MAN A ZIPPER!?! I FRIGGEN LOVE ZIPPERS!!!!!! (no lie)
When school starts, he is determined to ask her out again. But…
Just wait…Les…those cruel plot twists just get better and better.
I know that was a LONG archive dive. Even for me. But I wanted all of you to see this. Glorious Dead St. Lisa was not immaculately conceived sinless from the author’s pen. For a short while there, she was WORSE THAN LES. Batiuk has built up Les and Lisa’s relationship as a lynchpin to his universe. But the couple he puts up on a pedestal as the parents of the savior of humanity, had an utterly toxic beginning. That first year, they were two desperate, awful people that clung to each other for a while not out of any real deeper attraction or connection, but out of the self-centered desperation to be in some kind of relationship with anyone.
And now we know, it was Harley the Timeline Custodian who made it happen.
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During the group chat last night (which was SO FUN,) it was announced that we will be doing a 2022 Funky Awards in January. I am currently accepting nominations for Best Strip, Worst Strip, Punchable Les, Panel of the Year, Storyline of the Year, and also suggestions for additional categories.
Today’s strip was shot in Kodachrome… despite being set even further back in time than this past week’s sepia-toned historical revision. Really sets the mood for imagined fiery death, doesn’t it?
You would (not) be surprised at how often TB goes to the well for Holly’s Act I flaming baton trick. It wouldn’t shock me if it has appeared as a gag in Act III more often than it ever actually did in Act I. But hey, after this past week, I’ll take some Sunday Funky-Holly filler, even if it involves flaming batons.
And with that, I cede the podium to Comic Book Harriet, a master of both Batiukverse history and the entertaining anecdote. I expect we will enjoy a good bit of both from her in the coming weeks.
Today's strip still has
That chair jammed in the ladder
And also two shmucks
So what's with the chair?
Is that really going to
Keep folks off the dive?
Les can dish it out
"Memory lane is now closed"
But he can't take it
Not some great mem'ry
Les scared to jump off high dive
A weak Act I gag
More memorable
Was Les and the climbing rope
A low bar to clear
Les and the rope, though
Had the off chance that he might
Wind up hung to death
Today’s strip recalls one of the very last things that ever appeared in Act I… and uses it to mourn the death of print media? Look, I dunno what’s going on in the last panel, but I can tell you what happened in flashback panels.
After bumming everyone out with his awful valedictorian speech, Les just… hung out in the auditorium until everyone left, sulking in the unfulfillment of getting a high school diploma.
This would have been a perfect time for “Mooch” Myers to burn the school down.
Then he headed out to the “Student Council Graduation Party” in the middle school gym, as seen in today’s flashback, finding the place deserted aside from Coach Stropp.
Be glad Les doesn’t narrate his life any more.
Why was the Student Council Graduation Party a dumb idea? Why was the party deserted?
You couldn’t draw Coach Stropp’s resplendent jacket in today’s flashback, Ayers? For shame…
Yep, Cindy held a huge graduation party at the mall that everybody attended… including MTV VJ Karen “Duff” Duffy and some poor souls who entered an MTV contest to win a free trip to Westview.
Les, however, sat in the middle school gym with his free copy of the yearbook, reminiscing about the good times he had with his friends in high school rather than going and actually spending time with him. After a week’s worth of strips of this, Act II began…
I do not know if next week will time warp us into Act IV or not, but I do know I will be leaving this site in the skilled hands (and mind) of ComicBookHarriet. Godspeed.
Son of Stuck Funky 
