It’s been over a month since Harriet promised you an epic screed from me, about the three weeks Crankshaft spent on three different book signings (two for Dinkle and one for Batton Thomas). I haven’t delivered it yet, because I said I wanted to make sure the arc was over.
It wasn’t over. It’s still not over yet. It may not be over for months. Continue reading “The Two Scariest Words In The Funkyverse”
Harriet promised you an epic screed from me about this week’s shenanigans. This isn’t that screed, but it’s coming. In part because I want to be 100% sure there’s no second week of this arc. So right now, this is a quick TBTropes entry about the finale of the arc about the festival of Ohio-related books. I refuse to give them any more free advertising space than Tom Batiuk already has. Continue reading “Jumped The Comic Book”
Today’s TBTrope is about power dynamics. This is a subject I’ve wanted to explore for awhile now.
All fiction runs on Like Reality, Unless Noted. When we are consuming a story, we assume that the story’s world is like our own, unless the story says otherwise. We use our own knowledge to fill in the gaps about how things work. When we’re watching a rom-com, Emma Stone doesn’t turn to turn to the camera to explain to the audience how dating works. We all know how it works, from our own lives. And so it is with interpersonal dynamics.
In a story, one character may hold power over another. In the funny pages, the mechanics of this are often very simple. Adult/child, boss/subordinate, older sibling/younger sibling, aggressive person/timid person, and so on.
Funky Winkerbean used to understand this. In Act I, Bull was a bully and Les was his victim. Harry Dinkle was a hyper-demanding band director, whose students had no power to resist his orders. The characters made sense, even in the comically exaggerated world of Act I. We recognized these situations from our own lives. We understood the power dynamics in play.
By Act III, though, a new paradigm had emerged. I call it By The Power Of Batiuk. “The character in control of any situation is the character Tom Batiuk thinks should be in control of it, not the character who actually would be.”
Continue reading “Fight The Power!”I humbly withdraw my earlier criticism that the landmarking of the sign was an “informed attribute.” I see that the whole process and the rationale thereof was shown, albeit nearly 30 years ago.
The Duck of Death, https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2023/12/06/sign-of-the-times/#comment-166678
Another fascinating memory-lane trip that shows how oddly selective the continuity callbacks in the Funkyverse are.
Andrew, https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2023/12/06/sign-of-the-times/#comment-166685
You’re both right. What happened with this Montoni’s sign is a common Tom Batiuk writing practice I’ve been meaning to elevate to a TBTrope.
Undue Weight is a Wikipedia concept. It means something is being paid too much or too little emphasis, relative to its importance to the overall topic. It’s not even about storytelling; it’s a form of bias. It’s something you want to avoid when contributing to an objective, non-fiction encyclopedia article.
So how does it figure into the Funkyverse? TVTropes’ Law of Conservation of Detail says:
There is a fine line between having good, rich Worldbuilding and rambling on about pointless details. Conservation of detail is all about filtering out irrelevant information to highlight the actual plot points or interesting aspects of the setting or character.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail
Hello again! I’ve commented in the past about something I call the Comedy Disconnect. The concept is from The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter. I want to promote this to a TBTrope. The book defines this as “trying to be funny rather than communicate ideas. Reality is sacrificed in a desperate attempt to get laughs at all costs… never sacrifice a character’s reality for the sake of a laugh.”
Continue reading “If You Make Sure You’re Connected, The Writing’s On The Wall”
Son of Stuck Funky 