TheDiva
May 16, 2013 at 11:23 pm
PROTIP TO TOM BATIUK: The phrase "talking out of the side of one's mouth" is not meant to be a physical description.

Yeah, Darin's smirking so hard in panel 3 that his mouth appears to be trying to escape to the back of his head.

Charles
May 16, 2013 at 6:32 pm

All this has taken place this week, and yet, what's the result?

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: No.

(After this week of treading water and worthless strips, reinforcing negative impressions of both Darin and Jessica):

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: Yes.

Gyre
May 16, 2013 at 4:06 pm
"Give bio-dad a call"? "bio-dad"?

I get that they were trying to save space, but if that's all then why not just have Darin refer to him by his actual name. That would be a great way to show the distance between the two of them.

Or how about this: have "Bio-Dad" refer to Darin by the wrong name, thus tipping off the reader (if any still need to be tipped off) that Frankie's motives are less than altruistic? Such a slip-up might be plausible if Frankie called him "Derwin" or "Aaron" or something that has more in common with his real name than just the first initial. Not to mention that Frankie seems to have gone to the trouble of learning everything about everybody in town: it's unlikely that he'd carelessly misremember the name of his mark.

Looking on, of course, is Lenny, Frank Pierce's partner in whatever scam they're trying to run here.

April 2008

Again today we have Blonde and Blonder acting like a couple of newlyweds when we've got proof, proof, people, that these high-school sweethearts tied the knot eleven years ago. It feels not so much like a willful retcon as it does that Batiuk settles for just making his puppets dance and say cute things and calling it "storytelling".

I've "remixed" panel 2 to suggest a more natural dialogue between two people who've had 11 years to get used to the realities of "marraige" [sic]:

To make a long story short: I've made the difficult decision to step aside after three years as your genial host. Snarking on Funky Winkerbean has been lots of fun, but it does consume quite a bit of time that I really need to be devoting to my family and my career.

The SoSF community is the wittiest and friendliest online community I've ever had the pleasure to be involved with, and I would hate to turn you all loose with no place to snark. To that end, I am looking for a successor. I feel that there are more than a few of you reading this whose ability to rip Tom Batiuk a new one on a daily basis far surpasses my own.

I'm hoping that I can turn over the proceedings here to a new master (or mistress) of ceremonies. In addition to a knowledge of Funky Winkerbean canon, the ideal candidate should have experience with WordPress and access to a web hosting service (preferably not GoDaddy, but that's up to you). I would be handing over all assets: the sonofstuckfunky.com domain, the @sonofstuckfunky Twitter account, the last three years' worth of posts, and help with the transition.

So give it some thought; do be advised that maintaining a blog like this can turn into a time suck (hell, just reading Funky Winkerbean can be a waste of time, let alone analyzing it). I will entertain any questions in the comments below, or you can contact me directly using the "Contact SoSF" form in the right sidebar of this page.

Thanks for reading and, for the love of God, stay Funky!

Your pal,

TFHackett
Son of Stuck Funky

Charles
May 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
It's so easy to believe but still so appalling that Les simply used everyone's real names in "Lisa's Story" and passed on a lot of personal information on them that probably wasn't relevant to…Lisa's story.

But I'll be willing to bet that Les doesn't take any heat for this whatsoever. "Hey Blabbermouth, the state keeps adoption records sealed for a REASON, you know. But who cares about that, you have a book about your dead wife that must be written!" And, you know, it's absolutely essential for that book to recount every single detail exactly as it happened, because it happened, you know.

Then I'll assume that, if he didn't hear it from Lisa herself upon their reunion, Shrimp Sauce learned from Les' book that he's the product of an unintended pregnancy (at best; pending the coming retcon). Yet Jessica insists that Frankie's side of the story be heard. If Jessica never got around to reading Les' book about her own father, it's likely she hasn't bothered to read Lisa's (and Darin's) Story either. No wonder she won't let this go.

I may be forced to create a tag
for "baleful expression"!

Darin arrives home from work (that is, walks upstairs) still in a fit of pique following his phone conversation with his long-lost biological father, Frankie. Jessica appears at first taken aback at first by her husband's display of emotion, mainly because they both spent most of their strip time these past few weeks simpering like morons. Then she turns on the charm, which makes her eyes look weird…in panel 3, Jess' whiteless eyes remind me somehow of "Lizz" from the Dick Tracy strips of the 60's, whose eyes used to scare the hell out of young me.

Charles
May 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
So we're to conclude from this that Dying Lisa never told Darin anything about his biodad, so when Darin called "Frank Pierce", he had no idea who that was or why he was trying to contact him.

Well, maybe Lisa shared with Darin the circumstances of his conception, which would explain why a young man who obsessed over finding his biological mother would be so scornful of a man claiming to be his "Dad". But hey, since his adoptive dad Fred is now damaged goods, you think Darin would opt for the upgrade.

Great punchline today from an author who knows a lot about "coming a long way for nothing"!