Tag: Son of Stuck Funky

Reply to Toby

Below is my email to commenter “Toby”, who took exception to the negative comments. Toby’s comments can be read here, here and here.

Hi Toby,

Hope you don’t mind me emailing you directly, but I wanted to respond to your comments on Son of Stuck Funky, and if I post my response there, you probably won’t see it.

You said:

Wow! What a lot of nit-picking haters comment on this thread! If you all dislike the strip so much, why do you bother reading it?

A valid question. Not all the regulars at SoSF dislike the strip. Many, myself included, are longtime fans who take issue with how over 40 years (!), Funky Winkerbean has become an unfunny, self-serious soap opera.

Mr. Batiuk deserves serious credit for addressing the same-sex couple at the prom issue, regardless of how he develops his characters.

That’s debatable. The same-sex couple consisted of two hitherto-unforeseen characters about whom we know absolutely nothing except they want to go to the prom together. Batiuk didn’t even give these characters names. We saw them buy their tickets, nosey old Roberta witnessed the ticket sale and launched a protest, and principal Nate held an assembly, where he stated that there was nothing in the student handbook prohibiting same-sex couples from attending prom. Some defense.

By placing the issue in a nationally syndicate strip, Mr. B. does those kids a major service and THAT is the important aspect of this matter…

I hate to sound cynical, but Mr. B. also garnered a ton of press for himself (and for his just-published collection, The Complete Funky Winkerbean Vol. I). Meanwhile, he creates two cardboard “gay characters” who probably will never be seen again. He also (today and tomorrow) has another, closeted student thank the principal for making things “better” . The student speaks to principal Nate while obscured the whole time by scenery. In this way Batiuk scores himself some bonus points without taking a chance by “outing” an established character.

…one that seems to have gone right over the heads of the “oh this is all so ten minutes ago” phoney sophisticates who have been negatively commenting.

I have been running Son of Stuck Funky for over two years, and was a regular commenter on the blog that preceded it. I know and like the readers of my blog, and the vast majority are indeed sophisticated, especially regarding popular culture. Many of them recall that cartoonist Lynn Johnston featured an openly gay teenage character (nearly twenty years, not “ten minutes” ago) and handled the matter much more artfully than Batiuk could ever hope to do.

The vast majority of my readers are thoughtful, tolerant people. Some of my readers happen to be gay. What they are not is “phoney”.

Batiuk has been hyping Funky Winkerbean’s gay prom storyline since last year, and garnered plenty of attention, as he did with his Pulitzer-nominated breast cancer story. All my readers did was rightfully call “bullshit” where they saw it on his handling of a topic that deserves more thoughtful, less shallow treatment.

Sorry you didn’t enjoy your visit to SoSF. By the way, I doubt anyone really thought you were Tom Batiuk posting under a pseudonym, but it was just too good to resist. Anyway, you’re welcome to visit again and comment any time you like.

Thanks and best regards from a fellow Jerseyan.

TFHackett
Son of Stuck Funky

Thank You!

I will get around to personally thanking each and every one of you, but for now I want to express my extreme gratitude to everyone who donated to my “Save the Snark” fund drive!

I hope that calling it “Save the Snark” didn’t make things sound too dire…naturally, I was riffing on the “Save the Sports” arc from last fall. The snark wasn’t exactly in danger of going away. But with my current career status (unemployed), things were getting a little tight, and now that monthly web hosting fee is one less thing I’ve gotta worry about.

Even more than the generous cash donations, just the fact that so many of you responded at all was very gratifying. As I said when I made my appeal, SoSF really is an outstanding online community. My challenge is to serve up each day’s strip with my own spin…the post titles are probably the most challenging part (and between you and me, when someone gives me props for the title I do a little dance at my computer). Some days are more challenging than others; sometimes the snark writes itself.

I gather that the majority of regular SoSF snarkers are just like me: longtime readers of this comic (some of us since it began syndication) who, deep down, remember the affection we once had for Funky and his friends. The average snarker has wide ranging tastes, and is conversant in popular culture (particularly newspaper comics!) and sports.

The commenters on this blog are the ones who really provide the rich content; my daily posts are just a hook on which you guys hang the comedy gold.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks again for your generosity.

Please Help Support SoSF

Dear Readers,

Almost a year has passed since the near-Snarkpocalypse brought on by Batom and his lawyers. Thanks to the support of you loyal readers, as well as the comics snark community at large, Son of Stuck Funky still stands. I’m proud to provide this forum for the many kindred spirits who cannot look away from the train wreck that this long-running, once beloved, now excruciating comic has become.

I have a request to make of you, the reader, and it feels a little awkward: I’m asking for small donations. Ack. I said it.

Admittedly, the overhead around here is not great: after WordPress shut me down, it was a matter of moving SoSF to a paid web host, and registering and renewing annually the sonofstuckfunky.com domain name. The biggest investment is my own time, spent staring at each week’s worth of strips, racking my brain to come up with something new to say (even when TB doesn’t): a riff, a commentary for each day which I then share with this amazing group of readers, who proceed to have at it and collectively provide the real entertainment value via the comments. You people have made SoSF the funniest, smartest, friendliest online community I’ve ever participated in.

I wouldn’t be shaking you down for a few shekels if I didn’t need it. Yours truly has been out of a paying full-time job since last October. It’d be nice to not have to worry about scraping up the hosting and domain renewal fees as they come up.

It’s a free-will donation, totally voluntary. To the very excellent few who have contributed in the past: you’ve done your bit, you’re off the hook. You other guys, if you like what you read here and if you have it to spare, please consider clicking on the PayPal “Donate” button. Send even a buck; it adds up.

Hey, Comics Curmudgeon throws two begathons a year (not that I consider SoSF to even be close to Josh’s league) and they run paid advertising. SoSF is ad-free (for now), mainly because I haven’t figured out a way to monetize. So, just for this week, I’m passing around the tasseled Peruvian knit hat.

Thank you, everyone, for reading and sharing, and thank you in advance for any support you can provide.

Stay Funky,

TFHackett
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tfhackett

References available upon request.

 

Tom Batiuk responds to Funky blog take down order at The Daily Cartoonist

Tom Batiuk responds to Funky blog take down order The Daily Cartoonist

Let me tell ya, snarkers, it’s not as dramatic as the headline makes it sound, but TB is officially on the record regarding last Friday’s legal action, with a rather terse, two-sentence comment. It’s linked above, but I might as well share this bit of intellectual property right here:

“When asked why he felt he needed to take legal action to take down the blogs, Tom [Batiuk] responds:

‘I fought a lawsuit to regain ownership of my creations and, as a result, I take my intellectual property rights including trademark and copyright very seriously, and will enforce my rights when I find them being infringed. That includes someone reprinting the work in total without permission or compensation.’”

The man has spoken. And without admitting any guilt on my part, I will say I respect and understand what TB (and his lawyers) have to say. This whole affair has been quite an education for yours truly. At the Daily Cartoonist site, comics luminaries including Comics Curmudgeon’s Josh Fruhlinger and My Cage cartoonist Ed Power have weighed in, with most of them (Ed excluded, bless his heart) have come down on TB’s side. “Caricaturist” Dave Stephens, whose work includes a cartoon of JFK getting his head blown off, calls me a “bad egg”.

A number of folks are following this turn of events and wondering if this may have a “chilling effect” on other comics blogs. I hope it will not, and I don’t expect that it will. It’s time to get back to the business of snarking. Let me offer my thanks once more to everyone who has voiced their support for Son of Stuck Funky: most especially Sgt Saunders for his intellectual property expertise, and to David O for covering the cost of the domain name, and everyone who emailed me when the heat came down. Lastly let me welcome those who’ve discovered this blog as a result of all the fracas! Stick around and enjoy Westview through our eyes.

Stay Funky, y’all!

TFHackett

Cease and Desist

Read it and weep. I did. Click to enlarge

Well, now we know why sonofstuckfunky.wordpress.com (and stuckfunky.wordpress.com) got the plug pulled. Here is the letter that Batiuk’s lawyers sent to the WordPress.com folks. They are not happy with the “unauthorized use of the Funky Winkerbean name, trademark, or comic strips” on the site. They go on to ask the WordPress people to provide them with my name, address, and email address.

I’m still reeling from having the plug pulled, then was feeling great about being able to move the blog so quickly. Now I’m feeling pretty anxious. I don’t have a lawyer, I (obviously) don’t have a deep knowledge of copyright, and really don’t need to get sued.

This turn of events ought to tell you everything you need to know about Tom Batiuk’s sense of humor.

I will collect my thoughts and decide on the course of action going forward. In the meantime, thank you, friends, for your support.

Stay Funky.

TFH