archive deep dive – 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/

WallyWorld Sprint Tour

When we last saw Wally Winkerbean in this retrospective, he was staring with longing grief and acceptance into the eyes of his ex wife Becky, after having a major meltdown flashback at the Girl’s Basketball Conference Championships.

Funky lets Becky know that, as the main character, he’s taking it upon himself to facilitate Wally’s recovery.

*Sure, does Wally Jr. have any recently doodled spaceship designs he’d like?*

I waited in line for six hours to see Revenge of the Sith…and I promise you, this is NOT a quote from Yoda from that movie. At best it’s a paraphrase from lines in Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

Poppin’ and Lockin’

Well, I’m back, from Outer Space (Seattle). I just walked in to see Cranky sitting there with that dumb look upon his face.

Specifically this one,

*NGL: This one got a chuckle out of me.*

And if Cranky seems unfazed to be haunted by the disembodied soul of a former coworker appearing to give him advice, well…

*Clutch Grinder, no relation to the late ‘Pop’.*

This isn’t Ol’ Ed’s first Dickensian Rodeo.

Once again, Tom is pulling an old running gag outta his tattered old gag bag. Treating us to an entire week of that famed Bus Barn mentor and legend, Pop Clutch. And giving me another opportunity to sit awkwardly on the floor of my kitchen taking pictures of Crankshaft trade paperbacks that I’m holding open and flat with my toes like some kind of spy gorilla.

*No idea who these two are. Early Crankshaft had some Bus Barn randos that never got names. The woman could be the principal, but this seems out of character for her.*

Picking up Speed

The Marvel Character Speedball circa 2006

An Engaging Response.

Did you know Tom has an email newsletter? Randomly, months apart and with absolutely no schedule, a little update from Tom Batiuk shows up in my email inbox, because of course I’m on the mailing list! I can’t miss an important update!

Such as,

So is it life imitating art or the other way around? Whatever, if you were following Crankshaft in mid-July, you saw Crankshaft’s granddaughter Mindy and his son-in-law Jeff at SDCC (that’s cool code for people who don’t want to write out San Diego Comic-Con), along with Mindy’s boyfriend and soon to be fiancé (oops spoiler alert… ignore that) Pete Reynolds who’s a writer for Atomik Komix and proof positive that Funky characters would indeed begin showing up in Crankshaft.

I can’t tell you all, just how absolutely vibrating with anticipation and glee your dear CBH is to see the LONG AWAITED proposal of Pete Reynolds to Mindy Murdoch.