SosfDavidO here and awww c’mon, still with the sneezing thing? If this were any other comic it’d be semi-mirth provoking but now today’s strip has even the most optimistic of faithful Funky Fans wondering if Mason has a brain tumor or something. In any case, gear up for more sneezing, followed by either an attempt at hilarity or a trip to an MRI machine.
Blessing in Dis Guy
What’s up fellow funky fans! SoSfDavidO here with today’s strip , which only time will tell is a one-off dumb gag or the start of something much more serious for Hollywood’s hottest leading man!
I must say, the new artist is going to take some getting used to. Gone are the days of the severest of hatchet-faces. Mason actually looks somewhat like he could be a leading man in the first panel instead of a human tomahawk. Could it be? Now I miss Tombat’s old, classic style!
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
A Sundered Sunday’s Sundry
As usual, Sunday’s offering was not available for preview. As I said last week, Sunday strips tend to be outside the continuity of the previous (or upcoming) week, so who knows what we’ll get? I’m going to guess “band camp.” It’s been a long while since we enjoyed one of those. …many, many years in fact. I’m sure we were presented one within the last year, though.
I doubt we’ll get a continuation of the “Flash Museum” arc, as Saturday showed both Pete and Dullard leaving the place. I suppose they could babble and babble about the stuff they’ve seen for six panels–it would not come as a surprise.
Note that I said “the stuff they’ve seen.” We sure as Hell didn’t get to see much of it. Jay Garrick’s hat, about half of Captain Cold, a distant picture of Gorilla Grodd, and some boomerangs. Someone who had never heard of the Flash, reading that story…would still never have heard of the Flash. On Wednesday, this person would learn that a comic book is involved, and on Thursday he’d hear about “Flash villain(s).” Though whether or not “Flash villain” is a villain opposing the Flash, or a type of villain, he would not know. Also, is the Flash a person, or an organization like SHIELD? For being such a big Flash fan, Tom Batiuk doesn’t seem to be able to say much about the man himself.
As Charles mentioned yesterday, Mr. Batiuk seems to have some peculiar ideas about Hollywood, and I’ve long suspected that the entire strip is just Mr. Batiuk saying, “This is my universe, and I can make it work however I want. Comic books are the most revered art-form. Anyone who works on a movie is paid enormous amounts of money, but they constantly daydream about what they really want to do–work on comic books. Females are there to see that the man is supported in all things, unless it’s Funky, because screw him.”
Speaking of money, I’ve occasionally ordered DVDs from Warner Bros online store, so they send me periodic emails about other things. One of them is a life-size statue of Wonder Woman, made out of some kind of foam and looking pretty realistic. In order to get one of those, prepare to have $1300 dollars on hand. Pete’s “dolly” looks less and less like an indulgence and more like an illness.
UPDATE: Well, today’s offering did involve the flash, though not the one people were nattering on about last week. The art in this one has a nice sense of space, flows well and looks pretty nice, though the two images of Dinkle do what in film school is called “crossing the axis.” It’s something you’re not supposed to do, as it tends to subliminally confuse audiences.
The one thing I really want to mention is that image of Funky. He has now become indistinguishable from his father, which makes that last panel pretty…disturbing.
Well, I see the light at the end of the tunnel is growing dim, so time for me to climb out of the pit before it fades entirely. Please welcome your new dungeon master, DavidO! Let’s all look forward to tomorrow, when, uh, a thing, er, might happen…or might not, but as always…um…[slinks away awkwardly]
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
La Vida Patetico (Extended Disco Remix)
Oh. My. God. Pete and Dullard are pathetic beyond my ability to measure.
Well, I guess working as a storyboard artist must pay pretty damned well. The shipping and insurance alone on that garbage is probably going to be over two hundred dollars…especially if the treadmill is a fully-functional model that is being shipped fully assembled. Although I doubt the treadmill “works.” Museums don’t really tend to sell that kind of thing.
And when we last glimpsed Dullard’s house or apartment or whatever, it sure looked small–where is he going to keep that monstrosity?
Maybe they can turn Skyler’s room into a Flash Treadmill Room. A phone call to the local orphanage would be the first step. The orphanage in Westview is just bursting with inconvenient children; in California, I’m sure they’ll have no problems finding something similar.
As for the “dolly,” again I can’t comprehend the idea of wanting something like that. It just seems (to me) like a huge waste of space, unless you’re running a comic book store. Or unless you’re Chester the Chiseler and live alone in a giant mansion. In that case, superhero statues are your best friends, and lord knows you can’t have too many of either, especially if one column has a big fat zero in it!
I originally was going to say that this whole arc reads like something from a huge Flash fan who happens to be five years old, but that just seems too mean, even for me.
I understand being a huge fan of something which has made you profoundly happy, and the urge to share that happiness by trying to share the fandom. But there are ways to do that which work, and there are ways to do that which actually turn people off from the “something” you’re always on about. This story does a good job of showing that Tom Batiuk is the world’s biggest fan of the Flash, and that he has no way of transmitting this enthusiasm (bordering on unhealthy obsession) to anyone else.
Note: personally, I always thought that the Flash was a pretty cool superhero. I only rarely read his comics but it seemed to me that they went out of their way to be scientifically plausible, and as a callow youth I appreciated that. He’s even better in the animated Timmverse; the previously mentioned episode “Flash and Substance” is very entertaining. Even better is “The Great Brain Robbery” where Flash and Lex Luthor switch minds. Should I mention the best line in that episode? No…cause I’m evil.
So, don’t let Tom Batiuk give you the idea that the flash is only for cretins, dimbulbs and creeps. The Flash is one of the good ones.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Pete on The First Try
Pete sure looks pleased with himself, as well he should; he has answered correctly. Dullard, on the other hand, looks around worriedly. I said a man’s wife is his best friend. Just like mine is my best friend, always there, always by my side. Wait a minute, where’s my wife? If she’s my best friend, why isn’t she here instead of Pete? How come I don’t have any cookies? Yes, Dullard has answered incorrectly, as the wives, mothers and daughters of Westview have no place in a man’s life, unless there are cookies to be served unto him during the sacred reading of the Book of Comic.
On the wall behind them is a collection of boomerangs, presumably those used by Captain Boomerang, a member of The Flash’s rogues gallery. All I know about Captain Boomerang is that he uses boomerangs to commit crimes, and his original costume looked as if it–how can I put this?–would not be out of place on an off-Broadway stage in the mid 1990’s, or a hairdresser’s salon in the late 1960’s.
I assume the Captain didn’t just buy his boomerangs at any available sporting goods store; they were probably custom made to be, uh, deadly, yeah, that’s the word. (Yes, I know boomerangs are technically deadly weapons, but they’re generally not designed to be deadly to people. Except in The Road Warrior, the “Fun and Games” episode of The Outer Limits, and…Flash comics.)
So while an exhibit of boomerangs on the wall is perhaps slightly less stupid than Jay Garrick’s hat, it still makes The Flash Museum in Central City kind of clueless as to how an actual museum is supposed to work. I thought about saying, “I’d love to listen in on the planning sessions for this museum,” but I have this ghastly premonition that we do not have long to wait before we will witness just that.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Crisis on Infinite Earths
The written content of today’s strip makes “trivia” look like Tolstoy, so I’m going to ignore it. Despite Dexter Myles constant pointing. What the hell is that guy’s deal? “The fingah! The fingah!”
No, what I want to draw your attention to is the object in the glass case in panel one.
It’s not a flying saucer. It’s not a hubcap. It’s Jay Garrick’s hat.
I hate myself for knowing this and typing it out at you, but the original golden age Flash was a guy named Jay Garrick. He safeguarded his secret identity by…putting on a hat. Seriously, no mask, no hood, just a hat. “Jay, are you secretly the Flash?” “Of course not, that’s silly!” (puts on hat) “Oh my gosh, Flash, how did you get here? And where’s Jay?” Finally, we have someone who makes Superman’s glasses look like a James Bond disguise.
But that’s not what worries me.
If someone was going to build a comic strip museum, you couldn’t put a baseball cap and glove, or a yellow porkpie hat, into a glass case and claim they belonged to Charlie Brown and Dick Tracy respectively. Because neither of those folks exist, so it’s not possible to possess items that they used.
So, then, someone made a replica of Jay Garrick’s hat for the museum. “So what?” you’re probably asking me. But why would they do that? What does the hat by itself do, when you could get a more complete impression by making a statue of Jay Garrick wearing his hat? Both are equally fake, but the second makes more sense. Unless…
–unless The Flash is a real person in Funky Winkerbean, and that’s Jay Garrick’s actual hat. And he donated it to the museum. Suddenly, all of this makes sense. No. No, no. No, it doesn’t. But it seems logically consistent, given the contents of The Flash Museum in Central City. But if there are actual superheroes in the Funkyverse, why are there comic books? Why does Pete struggle to write them, when he can just read the newspaper and copy what actually happened? How come these heroes never save anyone–yet get gigantic museums in their honor? Could you hire Superman to destroy Westview, because evil? Why hasn’t he done so already?
AAAARRRRRGGGHHH
MIND
BLOWN
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
The Terrible Tues
Commentor Erdmann mentioned the Superman museum last week, and based on images on the web, it looks like a fun place to visit (if a bit overstuffed with things). It’s also a much more modest endeavor than The Flash Museum in Central City, which, as we discovered yesterday, is a friggin’ skyscraper.
Someone built a skyscraper to celebrate a fictional character. I just cannot wrap my brain around that–the Funkyverse is utterly insane if this is considered not to be cause for a trip to the asylum but beneficial behavior to be celebrated. I think Funky Winkerbean has moved beyond criticism with this arc, because in order to criticize, one must have a common frame of reference with that being criticized. And I really don’t think I have anything in common with the people who created this, um, story. Sheesh. A skyscraper for a fictional character! What must Tom Batiuk have been thinking–
–oh.
Anyway, I would like to point out something clever in this episode. By using a single word, “guide,” Tom Batiuk told me that this Dexter Myles guy is the guide for the Flash Museum that exists in the comic book. No need to do a web search or anything, which is good, because I didn’t care enough to find out who he was. So, kudos for that. Honestly, I appreciate his willingness to impart information so succinctly.
Of course, it’s for a character from a Flash comic book, so it’s half expected; it would be churlish for me to point out that a great number of his own characters (Thatsnought Humore for example) don’t even have proper names, so I won’t!
As for the rest of the content here, I think, “Therapy would be a really good idea.”
Alternate Les Museum:
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
