This past week of Crankshaft was so bad, I had to write two posts about it. The first post was here. This second one will focus on the alleged joke-writing. Beware, the comedy disconnects are everywhere.
A comedy disconnect happens when a writer sacrifices reality and ideas in pursuit of a laugh. Tom Batiuk doesn’t really sacrifice reality and ideas; he never introduces them in the first place. We’ll soon see how.
Continue reading “Do Explain The Joke”Pop quiz! What’s happening in this panel?
A. They’re reacting to one of Ed’s awful puns.
B. They’re reacting to Ed doing $80,000 worth of damage to their house.
C. A stranger just asked them if they’ve ever heard of Lisa’s Story.
D. Something about comic books that everyone just instinctively knows.
E. The grocery store is out of those exotic English muffins they like.
F. The last Walkman on earth just broke.
G. They’re deeply in love with each other, and just re-lived a major moment in their lives together down to the last detail.
On July 20, thwarted lover Eugene rowed into the middle of a lake for reasons unknown, and hasn’t been seen since.
On August 11, Tom Batiuk explained on his blog what happened to Eugene. It’s called writing. Let’s dissect:
I take flack now and then from fans(?)
I didn’t put that (?) there. Tom Batiuk did. This may be the first time he has acknowledged the idea that his readers might not be “fans” in the traditional sense. Though I think he’s implying that anyone who would question his writing is not actually a fan. All criticism is a mortal offense to Tom Batiuk, and he makes you guess what he’s upset about. No wonder he likes Les so much.
who are perplexed and flummoxed by the fact I deliberately try not to engage in linear storytelling.
I’m mostly perplexed by this sentence. The man is simply incapable of saying anything straightforwardly. Try it with me now: “I consciously avoid linear storytelling.” When your writing is so bad I have to decipher it, it doesn’t matter how linear or non-linear you are.
Continue reading “Match To Lame”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/
Not long after I posted about last week’s arc about a real-world eclipse, regular poster J.J. O’Malley compared it to a Peanuts arc from June 15-20, 1963, which also coincided with a real-world eclipse. Several other posters also chimed in about the comparison:
Oh, if only I had faith that TB was funny enough to just rip this off completely…
billytheskink, https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2024/04/03/total-eclipse-of-the-old-fart/#comment-169174
Well, he did rip it off completely. The rest of it, not so much. Continue reading “Tom Batiuk Stole A Punchline. He Forgot To Steal The Premise.”
Son of Stuck Funky 