book signings – Son of Stuck Funky

Great Moments In Book Signing History

Some selected final panels of book signing-related strips, from as far back as 2010:

Notice how similar these all are, even though they’re different characters. Because they’re all here to indulge Tom Batiuk’s fantasy: that he’s an elite writer who attracts long lines at his far too many book signings. Then he laughs at his own unfunny/incoherent joke. And then he belittles you, because he’s a writer and you’re not. Next, please.

All of these were responses to perfectly reasonable questions or to harmless banter, from genuine fans. And they all got Bitter Les Face in response. Though it was kind of nice to see Les on the receiving end from Dinkle that one time. Look at his shocked, unhappy expression. You can almost see him thinking “wow, is this how I come off to people?” Of course, Les’ heel realization is never explored, because the Funkyverse can’t have that.

I get why an author might find book signings annoying, and mine a few jokes from the experience. But we’ve had several book signing weeks over the years, and it’s always this same collection of conceits: annoyance, self-aggrandizement, intellectual superiority, and the author’s rude dismissal of people who are fawning over him. And as is standard for the Funkyverse, not one of these fans ever responds to being insulted by someone they admire. If anything, they’re too dumb to even notice.

Which makes me wonder what Tom Batiuk’s book signings are really like for him. From the book signing pictures we see on his blog, I infer that he doesn’t get many takers. Which can also lend itself to comedy. But he never subjects his stable of writers to this treatment. “No one came to my book signing” stories tend to be discussions of things that happened off-panel, like in fall 2017.

Batiuk loves to control the narrative about his work. But he can’t make real-life convention visitors be interested in him. Especially when he appears at the same handful of local venues every year without fail; those venues are awkward fits for his audience; and he never sets foot anywhere else. He’s setting himself up to fail.

So what we get instead is a different kind of fantasy. “Batton” gets plenty of visitors, but they’re all mind-bogglingly stupid. Even though they’re flattering him to an absurd degree, like someone mistaking his work for Archie. And we’re the snarkers? It seems to me that Batiuk is venting at his fans for being idiots, when his real complaint is that there aren’t nearly enough of them.

If these stories are an accurate description how Tom Batiuk treats his fans, it’s no wonder he doesn’t have very many.

ESPN 8 The Ocho Presents: The World’s Smuggest Man Competition

COTTON (Gary Cole): “Good evening, sports fans, Cotton McKnight here, coming to you live from Village Booksmith in Centerville, Ohio, welcoming you to the finals of the World’s Smuggest Man competition! Live on ESPN8, The Ocho. And with me as always, my partner in crime: Pepper Brooks!”

PEPPER (Jason Bateman): “Yo! What’s up, Cot? Fist bump!”

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Make Second Rate Pizza And Eat It In The Parking Lot

I’m a little late with this spur-of-the-moment post, as this was from June 8th, but this The Komix Thoughts post amused me more than the entire run of “Crankshaft” AND all of Act III combined.

“At a book signing in Akron at Luigi’s (yes, the book launch was at a pizzeria. A sterling example by Susan Cash, who was the marketing manager for the Press, of thinking outside the pizza box.), they closed for the afternoon, and we spent the day with people filling the restaurant and the line spilling out the door. The generous folks at Luigi’s even took food and drinks out to the people waiting in line to get their books signed. When they finally had to open for the dinner hour, we moved my signing table to the parking lot and finished the book signing there.”

So essentially, they threw him out. The inner workings of this man’s mind are just endlessly fascinating. I picture a lot of non-Euclidean gears, wheels and ramps, all leading nowhere, with peculiar atonal melodies whistling in the background. It’s like he lives in another dimension that only he can perceive or access.

Not going to one of these book signings is a major life regret of mine. Mind you, I never wanted to openly harass the guy or anything, but what I really wanted to do was pepper him with increasingly obscure FW questions until he reached his breaking point…if he even has one, that is.

“So, Mr. B, sir. There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long, long time. Is Kerry Darin’s step-half sister, or is she his half-step sister? And how would Kerry and Summer be related?”

Things like that. And I’d have been all enthusiastic too, like I was a genuine FW superfan. I’d have worn a “Stay Funky!” T shirt, a fake Les goatee, and waved a homemade “Band Directors Make Better Music Together” sign, in the official FW font. And I’d have put tape on the corners, all haphazardly of course.

The rest of his post (you know where to find it) is pretty funny too, but man, that “Lisa’s Story” signing sounds like it was THE book signing to go to, like Jimi at Monterey or Van Halen at the US Festival. I’m sure all the other ones were, uh, “good” too, but that one sounds like it was a real barn burner.