Tag: Jeff

Valium-tine

While Jeff Murdoch apparently violates Twitter’s character limit in today’s strip, Director Martin Johns violates general decorum by thinking Jeff’s tweet is worth reading out loud to these Hollywood types lounging about in wicker chairs.

Prescient SOSFer erdmann hypothesized yesterday that this would lead to the premiere of Starbuck Jones at “that damn Crankshaft theater”. Today’s strip all but confirms that, and I can tell you that the next several strips will not dispel the idea. If you consider this to be a spoiler then you haven’t read Funky Winkerbean for very long.

In other news, Cindy has lost her right foot. Oh, and Jeff Murdoch is apparently both old enough to have seen and remember original-run Starbuck Jones movie serials (before Cliff was blacklisted sometime in the early 1950s) and young enough to have also been attending Kent State in 1970 (on a John Sebastian impersonator scholarship, apparently). To be fair, there is a window of time in which that works, but it is narrower than Crankshaft’s mind.

Ham Handed

The ass-lathering continues today as Kablichnick steps up to the plate. The normally dour and cranky science teacher positively gushes about how Starbuck Jones inspired him: “Follow our hearts”? “Do what we love”? “Succeed“? Teacher, please. When it comes to unbridled contempt  for one’s students, Jim Kablichnick makes Les Moore look like Mr. Chips. The only thing he loves about his job is the opportunity it provides for him to spout his views on climate change, interspersed with painfully unfunny “jokes.”  Cliff expresses his surprise at meeting someone gullible enough to have bought his line of hokum. And we all know about the Ovaltine, but do the Junior (hah!) Spacemen of America employ some kind of secret handshake? It looks like the ol’ Commodore greets his fans by grasping their clenched fists.

In Soviet Russia, the Buck Saves You!

Pity the readers of Funky Winkerbean whose newspapers do not also run Crankshaft (okay, go ahead and pity all FW readers, regardless). Of course beady-eyed, nitpicking hate-readers understand that the rapt little kid is the same one whose ghost we saw peering creepily back at Jeff from the attic window of his childhood home a couple weeks ago. And we know that the old geezer awkwardly shaking Cliff Anger’s hand is not Funky with glasses but is that same kid, now grown old. So Jeff finally achieves closure for his mommy issues, albeit in a different comic strip and ten or twenty (and one or two weeks) later. And if his gushing pronouncement sounds familiar, peep this 2011 Batiuk interview:

Interviewer: Some of the memorable storylines of that [first time jump] era, at least for me, were Lisa’s cancer and the comic book store obscenity trial that was mirroring the Jesus Castillo case. I still have Crazy’s witness stand testimony of how, when he was in high school, “…superheroes did what they did best… they saved me.” tacked up on my wall.

While he understands fuck-all about how modern motion pictures are made, and has long since abandoned any notion of continuity and character development, Batiuk maintains his laser focus on spreading the gospel of old comic books and movie serials.

OverTwee

Link to today’s strip

Playing with decoder rings

And Starbuck Jones related things,

Ovaltine and front porch swings…

Those were the days.

And you knew where you were then

The matinee began at ten

Mister we could use a man like Clifford Anger again.

Didn’t need no cell phone flicks

With comic books we got our kicks,

Although it sure repelled the chicks…

Those were the days!!!!!!

I really like how everyone in FW has the exact same childhood memories, regardless of when they were actually born. What, was Ovaltine running that SJ promotion for three or four decades? Honestly though, wading through week after week of BanTom’s plodding nonsensical SJ mythology and annoyingly uninteresting childhood nostalgia has me feeling like I’ve been beaten with a pillowcase full of padlocks. Batiuk has spent WAY more time on his old comic book memories than he spent reading the damn things in the first place, unless he hung out in that attic until he was thirty-five or so, that is.

And on that note I happily turn over the wheel to our fearless leader TFH, who’s courageously tacking the rest of this decoder ring arc and whatever else BanTom manages to dredge up from the musty old depths of his comic book-addled mind. Shudder.

 

Maybe I’m Amazed…Then Again Maybe I’m Not

Link to today’s strip

Not much to see here today, folks. Yet another Starbuck Jones cover (is this the first real look at Jupiter Moon?) and an utterly pointless reality bubble featuring those two Crankshaft jerks everyone hates. Even in the middle of an arc about a modern SJ movie he’s managed to find a way to wallow in 1950s pop culture nostalgia. Makes you wonder why he bothered or what the point is, doesn’t it?

That really is quite a, uh, “provocative” cover for a child’s coloring book though, isn’t it? No wonder Jeff is still obsessed with it, I would imagine it led to some, uh, “interesting” moments during puberty. And on that note…..