Son of Stuck Funky

by billytheskink | August 18, 2022 · 10:30 pm

The Les He Knows, The Better

More word zeppelins in today’s strip… Not as bad as yesterday, but still, get your bookmarks out, folks!

You know, this is actually one of TB’s tidiest retcons, probably because it is one of the very few intentional ones he’s ever undertaken. It takes the original scene and changes its context (slightly) by depicting a previously unseen scene. Tidy. The pieces actually fit together. There are no loose ends, deleted original context, or unresolved conflict with the originals scene. See? That’s not so hard.

Heck, as a bonus it even (unnecessarily but adeptly) explains a silly detail from the original scene, why Les has a camcorder and this Hari Seldon story readily at hand as if he was waiting for Lisa to lament about all the things ~~Summer~~ she will never get to experience. Turns out, he pretty much was just waiting on the chance to whip that camera on out.

Tidy as it is, this retcon was no more entertaining or less irritating because of it. In fact, it makes the origin story of the Lisa tapes tremendously off-putting. The focus shifts away from the impending reality of Summer growing up without a mother seen in the original scene to the needs of Summer’s nogoodnik parents… First, Lisa wants to record the tapes so she can live vicariously through Summer’s adolescence in her imagination. Then, Crazy and Lisa hatch this cockamamie plan to let Les take credit for the idea to record the infamous tapes, which only soothes his ego and bolsters his hero complex. These people are awful and I hope I never wind up sitting next to any of them on an airplane.

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Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, bad ideas, cancer, cancer films, character death, Crazy, Crazy Harry, death, enraging facial expressions, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, hatchet face, horrible ideas, ideas, impending doom, Isaac Asimov, Les, Lisa, non-pizza foodstuffs, obsolete video technologies, pop-culture references, porch swing, raging egoism, references no one gets, retcon, retcons of retcons, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, Star Trek, Taj Moore-hal, terrible ideas, the lisa, the Lisa tapes, tiny hands, tiny trees, trees, unnatural hand gestures, welcoming death, word zeppelins, wry banter, wry self-deprecation, wry weary snideness, wryness

by billytheskink | August 17, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Hari Don’t Care-i

I’m surprised it took until today’s strip for the word zeppelins to arrive… but one has docked right at Crazy’s mouth and is unloading such a tremendous volume of technobabble that it threatens to lift the roof right off the porch of the Taj Moore-hal! In explaining the concept of recording Lisa’s advice on video, Crazy somehow spits out 60% more words than Les did in the original take on this story back in 2007. It is almost enough to make you pity Lisa, who apparently had to listen to this verbal assault twice.

Hey, I said almost…

I’m not a big Isaac Asimov guy or a sci-fi reader in general, I’ve always been very much a non-fiction reader when it comes to things that aren’t comics, so I cannot tell you how accurate or apt or idiotic or unnecessary Crazy’s rambling is (I can tell you it makes for miserable comic strip reading, but that should go without saying). I suspect we have some folks much better suited to that than me in our comments section, so I will now turn this over to my fellow SOSFers.

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Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, awful dialog, awful wordplay, bad wordplay, book, bug-eyes, cancer, cancer films, carousel of death, character death, Crazy, Crazy Harry, death, excessive word ballooning, false modesty, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, hatchet face, Isaac Asimov, lame wordplay, Lisa, NERDS!, porch swing, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, sub-moronic wordplay, Taj Moore-hal, terrible wordplay, the inevitable death of the universe, the lisa, the Lisa tapes, unnatural hand gestures, wall of text, welcoming death, word zeppelins, wordplay

by billytheskink | August 16, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Where there’s an ill there’s a way

So much for Summer’s reappearance… with today’s strip we’re now seven panels removed from Monday’s “Hey Harry! What Brings?” with no end in sight to the sepia-toned sadness blocking Ms. Moore from view. If that’s not bad enough for poor Summer, Lisa can’t be bothered to even mention “her daughter” by name in the word salad she spits out in panel 2.

Are we headed toward another unnecessary and uninteresting retcon?

For years, mankind thought they knew the origin of the Lisa tapes… but they were WRONG.
WHAT IF… recording an incessant number of Lisa’s final few hours on earth wasn’t Les’ idea at all, but instead, the brainchild of a completely different nerdy MAN?
The TRUE origin of the Lisa tapes revealed… This August. Playing exclusively in Funky Winkerbean.
[read in movie trailer voiceover voice]

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Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, awful dialog, bug-eyes, cancer, cancer films, comma eyes, Crazy, Crazy Harry, Harry, Lisa, Not Summer, ponytail, porch swing, retcon, sad-sackery, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, smirk, smirking, Summer, Taj Moore-hal, the lisa, the Lisa tapes, trite dialog, unnatural hand gestures

by billytheskink | August 15, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Porch Wry-rates

Cue the laugh track for today’s strip… because otherwise there’s just this long, awkward pause between non-jokes. It’s like a newsprint manifestation of those “sitcom without the laugh track” videos, only more more cringe-inducing. Why are these two ostensible friends (one of whom is terminally ill) being insufferable to each other? This kind of thing works when you establish that the two characters have some type of relationship and that unbearable wryness is their M.O. As far as I know, Crazy and Lisa never had much of a relationship of any kind (he was Les’ weirdo buddy), much less a whole Gilmore Girls thing going on.

Lisa really let Harry slide on that face after saying she didn’t feel as bad as she looked? Sure, she’s dressed like Crankshaft, but she’s also sick and at her own home. He’s the one who went out in public dressed like Gallagher wearing a Paul Simon Halloween costume.

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Tagged as cancer, Crazy, Crazy Harry, dead characters, death, enraging facial expressions, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, Harry, impending doom, Lisa, ponytail, porch swing, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, slowly dying inside, Taj Moore-hal, the lisa, things to do in Westview when you're dead, wry banter, wry self-deprecation, wry weary snideness, wryness

by billytheskink | August 14, 2022 · 10:30 pm

It belongs in a mausoleum!

Today’s strip appears to be the latest installment of one of TB’s most recent recyclable story concepts: “old person has a Lisa flashback in front of Summer”. Of course, it’s also the latest installment in his most overplayed story… but we all knew we would be back here eventually.

Just how many Lisa tapes are there? We can see 5 or 6 peeking out of the top of the box Crazy is carrying today, meaning there are probably at least 10 total in the box. The box Summer brought to him close to seven years ago was about twice as deep, also with about 5 or 6 tapes visible out of the top. This suggests that there are about two dozen tapes, over two full days worth of Lisa video assuming she recorded a full 2 hours in SP mode on each tape.

Regardless of how many of these tapes there are, they can’t be much more than conversation pieces now given that Crazy baked them when converting them all those years ago. Not that Les wanted anyone conversing about them despite having 7 or more of them on prominent display in his living room.

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Tagged as Act II, Act II tragedies, Crazy, Crazy Harry, enraging hair strands, flashback, flashback thought bubbles, Harry, laptop, Lisa, Now Crazy Harry, obsolete video technologies, ponytail, porch swing, seldom-seen characters wearing hats, sepia-tone, sepia-toned flashback, Summer, Taj Moore-hal, tapes, the lisa, the Lisa tapes, those stupid tapes, VHS, woman with receding hairline

by billytheskink | August 13, 2022 · 10:30 pm

A Cat, a Pat, a B flat, and an old bat

Oh boy, more unwelcome guests in today’s strip… and also Bingo. Bingo can stay, he’s cool.

He’s also old and decrepit… because of course he is. What tremendous misfortune, to exist in the Batiukverse. Even the cats have to be old and sad and subject to awful wordplay about hi ps.

Hopefully Bingo will take his claws to the new choir robes in the back after these yutzes leave.

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Tagged as Bingo, cat, cats, choir, choir loft, choir/organ, church, church choir, church ladies, church organ, curmudgeonly oldsters, Dinkle, Harry, Harry Dinkle, hatchet face, hip, lame wordplay, Lillian, Old Dinkle, Old dying people, old Harry Dinkle, Pat, Pun, punnery, puns, St. Spires

by billytheskink | August 12, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Haiku Dive

Today's strip still has
That chair jammed in the ladder
And also two shmucks

So what's with the chair?
Is that really going to
Keep folks off the dive?

Les can dish it out
"Memory lane is now closed"
But he can't take it

Not some great mem'ry
Les scared to jump off high dive
A weak Act I gag

More memorable
Was Les and the climbing rope
A low bar to clear

Les and the rope, though
Had the off chance that he might
Wind up hung to death

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Tagged as Act I, Act I call-backs, appalling lack of sportsmanship, bearded dick with ears, chair jammed in a diving board ladder, chairs, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, general dickishness, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' back is turned take the shot take the shot, memory bubble, memory loss, misplaced nostalgia for things that weren't all that great to begin with, nostalgia, Now Funky, sidewalk tiles, sport, sports, swimming, Tennis, tile, trash

by billytheskink | August 11, 2022 · 10:30 pm

With a capital P and that rhymes with D and that stands for… uh…

The real star of yesterday’s strip finally gets top billing in today’s strip!

Like certain parts of the comics page we are too polite to mention here at Son of Stuck Funky, the old pool sits sadly: unused, unloved, overgrown, and falling apart. Unlike certain parts of the comics page we are too polite to mention here at Son of Stuck Funky, the old pool has actually been replaced.

Les is one to talk about “Summers* slipping away”…. At least Funky is willing to admit his memory lapses.

^{*It has been 43 days (and counting) since Summer’s most recent appearance in this strip. The three gaps prior to that were 145, 408, and 107 days.}

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Tagged as bearded dick with ears, chair jammed in a diving board ladder, chairs, crappy ploddinng stories that never get anywhere, curmudgeonly oldsters, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, ladder, ladders, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' back is turned take the shot take the shot, memory bubble, memory loss, misplaced nostalgia for things that weren't all that great to begin with, nostalgia, Not Summer, Now Funky, old crap, Old dying people, old useless junk, Remembrence of Strips Past, smug inept bearded jerks, sport, sports, swimming, Tennis, the inevitable ravages of age, the ravages of age, tile

by billytheskink | August 10, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Burning Man

One bad turn deserves another, I suppose. Today’s strip sees Les take his revenge on Funky for two strips’ worth of Crankshaft schtick with some ‘Shaft-level quote muddle-ment of his own. Where did you pull this piece of unwisdom from, Les, I Chong?

The master says: Piles of excrement comes out of both ends of Les, but only one pile can can be flushed.

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Tagged as bearded dick with ears, chair jammed in a diving board ladder, curmudgeonly oldsters, dismal world view, Fire, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, general dickishness, hatchet face, headband, Inappropriate quotes, Les, Les being a giant smug douche, Les' back is turned take the shot take the shot, Life is a dismal horror from which you can never escape, morbidity, muppet profile, Now Funky, old crap, Old dying people, old useless junk, pickleball, sport, sports, swimming, Tennis, the inevitable ravages of age, the ravages of age, trees, uninteresting stupid anecdotes, useless old junk

by billytheskink | August 9, 2022 · 10:30 pm

I guess that’s why they call it refuse

Les continues to set Funky up for this tiresome Crankshaft schtick in today’s strip. Why? Why is he doing this? Is.. is he enjoying this? He’s even more monstrous than I thought!

The real story behind the name of pickleball is (not-widely) debated, though all of the purported origins clear the low bar of being more interesting than the one put forth in this strip. I’m surprised, actually, that pickleball has not caught on in Westview, given that it was invented by a guy* who died of cancer…

^{*apologies to the late Joel Pritchard}

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Tagged as bad hair, bench, crippling yet trivial injury, curmudgeonly oldsters, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, hatchet face, injuries, Life is a dismal horror from which you can never escape, Montoni's T shirt, Now Funky, Old dying people, park bench, pickleball, really dumb questions, silhouette, silhouettes, sport, sports, Tennis, the inevitable ravages of age, the ravages of age, trees, very old gags, Willy

Son of Stuck Funky

The Les He Knows, The Better

Hari Don’t Care-i

Where there’s an ill there’s a way

Porch Wry-rates

It belongs in a mausoleum!

A Cat, a Pat, a B flat, and an old bat

Haiku Dive

With a capital P and that rhymes with D and that stands for… uh…

Burning Man

I guess that’s why they call it refuse

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