Fred chauffeurs the rest of the Fairgoods through the “run-down” part of Westview, which really doesn’t look much worse than Les’ neighborhood, except the garbage needs to be picked up and the grass trimmed.
33 thoughts on “I Can See My House From Here”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
If the wasteful use of ink and newsprint were a crime, Batiuk would be the Adolf Eichmann of the funny pages.
Wow! It’s the “bad” part of Westview! What a living hell, it’s like Ohio’s version of Camden or the South Bronx. The trees even lose their “golden canopies” quicker over there. Small wonder the area never really “ran back up”, what with losing such gifted human capital and all. At least it’s fairly safe to say they probably won’t be carjacked, as those Eastern Bloc models aren’t really a “popular” target among car thieves. Or wrecking yards. Or scrap metal dealers.
Why is Boy Lisa in the front seat with his dad? What is this, 1954 or something? This is possibly the lamest premise since “Funky names his car”. Which was only a few months ago, but there you go.
just the beginning of crap feast,battys got couple more months to pad out
Ah, the “mean streets” of Westview! Gritty! Unsavory, even! Recycling bins so full the lids can’t close! Cracked aluminum siding, maybe! Trees with hardly any leaves! Subpar, obviously store-bought Halloween decorations! **shudder**
Keep that Yugo’s tiny windows closed up and lock those tiny doors. Also, try not to hit any potholes. Derwood’s head is already smashed up against the ceiling of that teensy, nay, weensy, motorized contraption. We wouldn’t want him to suffer some sort of…no wait, yes we would. Full speed ahead!
So NOW we get to see Cayla’s relatives?
…What?
This must be the neighborhood where the people who can’t get jobs at Montoni’s, Komix Korner, or Westview High live.
@Helskor: Westview High? No, they live here too. Don’t you remember the great failed budget vote arc? Everyone in the faculty is destitute now. Less being the exception of course thanks to book royalties, evil Hollywood options, and…oh yeah, Dead Lisa life insurance.
It makes me wonder what story ideas were rejected in favor of “The Fairgoods drive around poor part of Westview.”
Tell me again how this place is worse than living in an apartment upstairs over a pizza parlor?
I know it’s kind of pointless to think about these things, but when Derwood was re-introduced to the strip however many months ago, hadn’t he just been laid off from a fancy MBA job somewhere? Where did they live during that time, a Holiday Inn?
So Fred is showing this “run down” neighborhood to a failed MBA & his unemployed wife who have been married for 10 years and just got their first place of their own over a crummy pizza shop where he works …trying to scare him straight?
Tomorrow Darin returns to the Baine Capital Group.
Wankerview Police Blotter: Ann and Fred Fairgood, their adopted son, Dillweed, and his wife of 10 years, Jessica were found dead in the “run down” section of Wankerview, victims of an apparent carjacking. Fairgood’s 1972 Scheissdreck was later found abandoned by the railroad tracks. The victims were apparently bludgeoned with superior smirks.
Comment from ‘Westview has a hood?’ at Comics Kingdom
“Better be careful in that neighborhood – Might get robbed at smirkpoint. ”
That’s outstanding snark right there.
Okay…Wasn’t Fred the Westview Principal by the time he married? Between the time jumps, ignored expanded cast, etc., I can’t remember.) If so, how crappy is the Westview School District pay scale for a couple with that much tenure to be forced to live in such squalor?
To give Batiuk credit, it really is the little details that can make the difference between a good neighborhood versus a bad one. Go to Google Maps and find places like in inner suburban Chicago, or Detroit. Although you can tell it’s bad, it is hard to draw in all that detail, especially with how poor an artist Batiuk is.
The bigger question is, are there any NICE parts of Westview?
I wonder how many of the anti-snark comments over on the strip’s new home come from an IP address in or around Medina, Ohio.
Why are they driving through an alleyway? Did they just score some weed from one of the downtrodden Westviewians in the seedy part of town; those who are forced to eat at the inferior Montelli’s?
Smirks ‘R Us sez: Comment from ‘Westview has a hood?’ at Comics Kingdom
“Better be careful in that neighborhood – Might get robbed at smirkpoint. ”
That’s outstanding snark right there.
Guilty! And thank you. :->
Rather amusing incongruity: “Hey everyone, we just left a wedding! Let’s drive through the shitty part of town in our nice clothes so we can look grimly at some run-down buildings!”
“Great idea, Dad! Let’s go!”
I bet that by the end of the week, Fred’s desire to do this at this specific time and place will seem completely inexplicable, and I also bet that Batiuk has no idea about that.
I’m willing to bet money nobody says “we were poor but we were happy.” during this odd little story arch. This is Westview where the grass is watered by the resident’s tears. There can be no happiness. EVER.
Cue the stock footage bison stampede.
Also, that’s a pretty nice two-car garage for a shitty neighborhood. Most houses in shitty neighborhoods don’t even have one-car garages. Just TB’s great attention to detail.
Also, if he wants to get !aphoristastic!, (and you know he does!) he should remember “you can tell how wealthy someone is by how much they throw away”. That’s a ridiculously full trash can for someone who doesn’t have any money. It’s funny how that’s his idea of squalor: They have so much they produce that much garbage in a week. After all, those cans signify that they have regular trash service.
Charles: It’s POSSIBLE that a bad neighborhood could have a two-car garage, because the “one-car garage” thing comes in because the neighborhood is very old and poorly maintained. In the heyday of Detroit, houses were built with one car garages on tiny lots, and was able to achieve extremely high density for low-rise homes (13,000 people/sq. mile–for reference, Manhattan has 70k, suburbs may have 1-2 thousand).
Given how Westview looked in the 1970s (when Funky when back in time, he realized how nice downtown looked back then), I would guess that Westview has faced a rapid decline, with this neighborhood getting the bad end of the stick.
The money that keeps the sports programs going at the high school came directly from that district’s trash collection budget.
Isn’t Fairgood a bit addlebrained at this point? Would be funny if he made a right turn and found himself back in front of the Taj-Bore-Hal. Low rent district indeed!
So like any new Wankerbean story line that pops up, we are left to wonder if it’s aimless filler, or if it is going somewhere. Or will it START to go somewhere, then end abruptly? Really, what’s the point? After all these years, only now is Fred showing Bastard Boy his cruddy old street? On the surface, it would appear Swishy Tom is going somewhere significant with this. But our experience tells us otherwise. Either way, Fred’s ultra-sub-compact car itself has generated more that enough unintentional yucks.
Señor Tortilla: Except Fred mentions how the neighborhood was run down back when he and Fishstick were just getting started. Since he’s supposed to be in his seventies, that would mean that the area was in decay for going on fifty years now.
And that’s not a two-car garage that’s been there for fifty years. As TFH says, all he can do to show squalor is have an unkempt lawn and lots of trash that hasn’t been picked up yet. Batiuk doesn’t have a clue. Poor people don’t throw away a plant still in its pot. Hell, they probably don’t even have plants! They don’t generate enough garbage to fill one of those large municipal cans within a week, because they simply can’t consume enough things to require that they throw that much away.
Fred: “So, you see, happiness is completely defined by material wealth and earthly possessions. If you don’t have a surplus of either, you are doomed to be miserable.”
Darin: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Fred: “Eh?!? What sort of fortune cookie did you pull that out of, guy?!?”
Darin: “…*….never mind. So, can I sit by my WIFE now? You kind of reek of week-roasted hog thigh, Pop.”
Fred: “NO!!!!”
Jess: “Um, should we do anythi-”
Ann: “SILENCE! The MEN are TALKING, missy!”
Charles, Charles, Charles. You beady-eyed nitpicker. It’s called “writing.”
Write that on the blackboard a hundred times and see me after class.
— Mr Moore, Language Arts
I just cannot believe we’re supposed to accept that Boy Lisa, MBA and his lovely bride are “two kids just starting out in the world” when they’ve been together since high school which was (in strip time) FIFTEEN YEARS ago. The disbelief the reader is supposed to suspend with FW sometimes boggles the mind. This is why I’ve always maintained it was a huge mistake to expand the “cast of characters” so widely, he simply can’t keep up with them properly.
Oh no! These people have (gasp) garbage cans!
I believe I shall faint.
Right, so let’s keep track of time: it was still 2008(?) when Lisa kicked the bucket, it’s been 10 years (at least) since she died, it was Prom 2012, Crankshaft also takes place in 2012 and has Black Cayla, Les has aged about 10 years, Summer has grown from preschooler to high schooler, Jinx has grown from BABY to high schooler, Darin maybe spent a few years in community college, Funky has aged far more than any of them.
Confused yet? I am.
Señor Tortilla: The timeline is indecipherable. Many have tried to make some sort of sense out of it but alas, all have failed. It’s more baffling than season 6 of “Lost”, even. Act II was supposedly playing out in “real time” so when Lisa croaked it was 2007. Then Act III was supposed to be ten years later which would mean that in Westview it’d be 2022 now. Yet everyone there is still struggling with “the internet” and those darned cell phones, not to mention driving around in those weird off-brand cars from the mid-90’s. So who the hell knows? I doubt TB even really does.
Very brave of Señor Tortilla to attempt to make sense of the Funkshaftiverse timeline…that way lies madness! A few more holes in the continuum:
Wally Jr. appears to be well under 10 years of age at the beginning of Act III; yet Wally Sr. was M.I.A. for at least 10 years (and Jr. is presently “in the elementary school band”).
In addition to college-age Cayla’s appearance in Crankshaft, we’ve had decrepit, wheelchair-bound Ed Crankshaft making a cameo in FW right before the Kilimanjaro trip.
And Ed’s granddaughter Mindy is a Kent State frosh at the same time as Maddie and Jinx, at least in Batiuk and Ayers’ KSU Mural.
Epicus, Batiuk often forgets about the ten-year jump: like when he shows Dinkle confused by the logistics of raking leaves now that he’s retired, even though he’d been retired for more than a decade. And of course Wally being a POW for twelve years which is completely insane.
S.P. Charles: Forgets, or chooses to ignore?
“Just does ‘t give a sh-t,” Epicus, which I suppose is a little of each.