7/16/2007
7/17/2007
7/18/2007
7/19/2007
7/20/2007
7/21/2007
7/22/2007
(Unrelated Sunday strip)
7/23/2007
7/24/2007
7/25/2007
7/26/2007
7/27/2007
7/28/2007
7/29/2007
7/30/2007
7/31/2007
8/1/2007
8/2/2007
8/3/2007
Son of Stuck Funky 
Wow. That Seinfeld reference is so painfully out of place, especially in a story Tom obviously wanted taken dead-set-seriously.
That’s not comedy relief, it’s comedic defilement!
Here again the Batiuk double whammy. “Know what’s frustrating? Checking a mailbox. Know what’s even more frustrating? Not checking a mailbox.”
The Seinfeld reference is strangely appropriate if Batiuk had already decided everything he was depicting had happened ten years earlier already (looks like Lisa’s about gone so time for the big jump). Of course that doesn’t jive at all with the timing of the Wally in Afghanistan thing…. so once again i hate you, Batiuk.
I like how Darin got a PO Box so his parents wouldn’t find out he was looking for his birth parents… and then doesn’t pay for the PO Box, forcing the post office to call his parents.
I noticed this a while ago, but it never seemed appropriate to comment on it in other threads, but I was always struck by how Lisa’s baby was adopted by the principal at her school. Since there wasn’t a private arrangement between them, this evidently happened without any knowledge or consent of all the parties involved.
I just can’t imagine that an adoption agency would, by its sole decision, place a teen mom’s baby with someone the mom knows. I’ll acknowledge that I don’t know specifically how it works, but I simply cannot believe that it would work like this. It fails the smell test that they would arrange it in this fashion without the consent of all parties involved.
And it further just reinforces the creepy incestuous nature of Westview. Everyone lives in town forever. You work at the school you went to, or work at a restaurant you used to patronize throughout your childhood. You marry someone from your high school class, and if you get divorced, you marry someone else from your high school class. Everyone goes to the same school, and they all go to the same college. And when your children come of age, they’re all the same age and they’re all friends with each other.
Mucho thanks for posting this one, TFH. It’s every bit as stupid and repugnant as I remember it being the first time around. Speaking as an adoptee who’s done the “search & reunion” thing (and who’s also helped to counsel others considering the same), I found it both obnoxious and idiotic to the extreme. And speaking as a long-time FW reader, I would consider this arc to be the second worst piece of claptrap Batom Inc. has ever belched forth. Only the “Lisa dies” arc was worse. Everything about this pile of garbage was terrible. Boy Lisa’s impatience with the post office, Jessica’s insistence on turning it into a cutesy little parlor game for her amusement, the tiresome, drawn-out bit with opening the goddamned letter and worst of all, the “big reveal” which was merely another excuse to trot out sad, pathetic Chemo Lisa yet again. Just absolutely awful, awful stuff.
FW was rarely as unintentionally hilarious than the strips featuring the idiot a) struggling to throw unopened mail away, b) struggling to open an envelope, c) collapsing to the floor in disbelief upon reading the letter and d) driving around stupidly while still reading the letter. Five f*cking days of a character opening mail…how TB sleeps at night after cashing his Syndicate checks is beyond me. I especially love the little grunt as he tries to shove his unopened mail into the wastebasket; way to emote, jack-ass.
And that scene on the Death Porch…man, what a bunch of sickening, desperate claptrap. The entire idea that Lisa’s high school principal ended up adopting her “teen pregnancy baby” was just ridiculous and unbelievable to the extreme. The whole thing was just disgracefully bad, totally embarrassing and as unrealistic as is humanly possible.
And the very timely “Seinfeld” reference…I recall reading this at the time and having no idea that those people were supposed to be Jerry & the gang. maybe when he finally does the “Darin meets Frankie” arc he’ll trot out a “Friends” reference to bring his sorry little tale full-circle.
I love that “Darin goes to the Post Office” qualifies as an arc. Only in the Funkyverse! Now, if someone can just locate the famous week-long “Fred Pretends to Smash His Wenis on the Toilet Seat” arc from the mid-80’s, I’ll die a happy, cancer-free man.
Fourth comic, second panel. Dillweed gives this raised eyebrow, wild-eyed look. Not making this up: I saw this exact look on a guy’s face in a Viagra ad. I remember thinking, “Is this the look you get on your face when the Boner Juice kicks in??” Did Doorknob take a Little Blue Pill???
And his nose looks like a tiny, yet erect, weenie. Probably the same size as Batty’s.
And his nose looks like a tiny, yet erect, weenie. Probably the same size as Batty’s.
And that’s yet another thing that pisses me off: Act II Darin had a prominent “ski nose” like Bob Hope. But while he must be, what, ten, fifteen years older now? He hasn’t aged at all but when he reappeared in Act III he sported the same aquiline beak as Funky and just about every other male adult in this strip.
Oh man, the “unrelated Sunday strip” is a real corker too. Even as she was dying Lisa still had the strength to smirk at Les’ painfully stupid word-play. Such a hero.
Just stumbled upon this section of the website. I’ll put my two cents in here.
1. Have to say here aren’t many guys who could turn searching for your birth mother into a make-out session. Game recognize game!
2. You need a goddamn geneology degree to figure out who’s related to who in this stupid strip!!!! How are Lisa, Fred, Kerrie and Fishstick Annie related to one another, again???
3. I know Darrin’s been looking forward to this news…but is sitting right in the middle of the freaking post office the best place to open and read this type of letter. I mean seriously Darrin…the welfare recipients and the trigger happy postal workers are not interested in your mom-quest!
4. Um, there is nothing in the pile of letters that screams of “junk mail”. In fact it actually looks like it could be important mail….of which it apparently is …dumbass!!!!!
That’s Fred, before he turned into a vegetable! Wait, I thought he was the principal of Westview High School, but from the way he dresses, I would’ve thought “mall security guard”.
Thanks for the recap, the only reason why I read FW is this site, so I do not know a lot of the backstory. Oh, by-the-by, how this storyline played out is sickening, truly, BatHack is a hack!
I would love to think there’s all kinds of important stuff in that pile of junk mail–job offers, royalty checks, fan mail (for his apps), inquiries from software developers, etc, etc. Apparently Darin’s obsessions have only two settings: ON (checking the mail box multiple times in a day) and OFF (complete disinterest and tossing of contents). What a shallow, dull idiot is this Darin.
Seven years on and it’s still a load of meretricious mush from a deluded hack.