Sourbelly: Meanwhile, you’re not missing anything in this strip. More “jokes” about high school marching bands marching in bad weather. For the TRILLIONTH time, I have to ask: Why is this supposed to be funny???
Sorry, Sourbelly, it looks like you’re going to have to ask a trillion and one!
It’s raining during another Battle of The Bands. Because band competitions happen outside, when it rains, marchers get wet. Somewhere there’s humor in this, or at least, 35 years ago, it was somewhat able to elicit a slight chuckle from the hardest core of band directors who have had rain affect any band competition they may have been in.
This sort of thing might be cute in a local band fundraising coupon flyer or something but for the most part it’s retread over schlock. Bill Watterson and Gary Larson are looking more and more like geniuses for leaving at the top of their game.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Optical illusion time. Batiuk makes it look like Becky is holding up those flippers… but, wait — she’s missing an arm on that side. No problem, just let an anonymous band member hold them above her sleeve. Awk-ward! And, oh yeah — Sandy. *groan*
Yeah, TB should have retired in the mid-80s when he got a marching band shoe named after his character … now he’s been reduced to building strips around product placements for said shoe … sad.
Band marching in the rain – again. Hee hee haw haw!!! This strip just writes itself – which explains a lot.
We are entering this strip’s worst time of the year – November. the month is dominated by the perpetually-rainy Battle Of The Bands, followed by the Band Turkey sales. Both of these feature Lefty, who I can take in small doses, and Dingleberry, who I just cannot tolerate.
I might take this month off. Happy Thanksgiving.
Another Les-free week, apart from the idiotic Halloween throwaway? Right on!
Even her raincoat sleeve is lovingly pinned up? Jesus… I hope this IS a hurricane and a tree falls down and lops off her other arm. Then Skunk Head can sit his ass down and pin up the OTHER sleeve of every piece of clothing she owns.
Yeah, and it always rains the night of the band contest. We get it. 100 percent chance of rain, zero percent chance of fresh material.
O.B. Dan- you are so right! I forgot how awful Novembers in FW are. Once again, I am forced to remind Batom Inc. that repetition is not the soul of wit.
If someone locates the period when Batiuk was at the top of his game, send up a flare.
Thing is, with Batiuk being an OMG SERIOUS WRITER WHO TACKLES SERIOUS ISSUES now, this gag seems less an exercise in absurdity and just another expression of the perpetual hardship and misery that blankets Westview. The Battle of the Bands suffers from ridiculously inclement weather not because it’s funny, but because their universe is ruled by a petty, cruel god who just likes watching them suffer.
The good thing is that the lame rain-on-the-band gags likely won’t extend past tomorrow, or maybe a Sunday strip (maybe an Aquaman comic book cover?)
A marching band playing and marching in the rain? Oh, Tom, what’ll you think of next?!?
@Rusty, it may be hard to believe, but the strip was good-bad and genuinely fun to read (although not in the way Batiuk intended) between the first time jump in ’92 and Lisa’s death. It wasn’t always this boring.
Helskor, I’ve been reading it since its inception. Since I somehow won the random drawing of the Vol 1 on this site and have recently read the first couple of years strips, it doesn’t hold up very well now. Instead of smirking he would have the characters make a shocked face to the reader at the punchline, similar to what Shoe does now. It was better then than now, I certainly agree, but like FBOFW, was never that great to begin with.
I’ve been trying to think how to describe all these random, jarring transitions between storylines, each of where goes nowhere and does nothing. It’s like a mosaic portraying a slow descent into madness.
The closest thing i’ve found was the doctor’s speech to Quaid in the original Total Recall: “It won’t make the slightest difference to me Doug, but the consequences to you will be devastating. In your mind, I’ll be dead, and with no one to guide you out, you’ll be stuck here in permanent psychosis. The walls of reality will come crashing down around you. One minute, you’re the savior of the rebel cause; next thing you know, you’ll be Cohaagen’s bosom buddy. You’ll even have fantasies about alien civilizations as you requested; but in the end, back on Earth, you’ll be lobotomized! So get a grip on yourself, Doug, and put down that gun!”
What did happen to the whole “serious issues” thing? I mean, the “gay prom” was a universal embarrassment, with the rest of the year being mindless filler and meaningless storylines–sometimes they don’t even make chronological sense. The wedding was missing a BUNCH of things–no dead Lisa, even, and Batiuk would never miss an opportunity to do such things. We never got to meet the girl who wanted Owen (or Cody, or both), we never got to see Becky kill her mother, et cetera et cetera.
If anyone wants a taste of the “serious issues” Act II covered complete with unintended hilarity, I recommend you check out the readable parts of this book.
Tip of the funky hat to Senor T for that link.
Weird storyline to lead off there:
–Funky hires shiftless relatives of employees.
–Funky’s employees are held up.
–Funky is a bad person for not being more concerned about them.
–Cindy’s editor is upset–that Funky is “Redlining!”
Was redlining really such a thing that people were more worried about appearing racist than deciding that some neighborhoods were too unsafe to deliver pizzas to?
Dinkle band shoes are a real thing?!? Who knew? That said, this lame strip is not remotely funny on any level. I think I would rather have a Less arc than this hot mess. For snarking purposes anyway.
If this is a Band Battle featuring bands from other jurisdictions, the rain should be falling only on Becky’s Westview Wetcrew. Now that might provide a scintilla of variety and humor.
So, the whole Roberta-Becky Epic Beatdown Terror-O-Rama got called on account of rain?