Today’s strip wastes no time setting up the drama. Crazy Harry just spent the weekend cataloging his comics collection, exchanging cheery banter with his dumpy wife. Today, however, as he lurches onto his customary perch at Montoni’s counter, even “the Funkman’s” too-cheerful greeting is not enough to elicit a smile. Looks like the USPS’s financial woes have at long last trickled down to Westview.
31 thoughts on “Ill Postino”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Oh for the love of fuck… lemme guess – in order to make ends meet Harry will have to sell off his beloved comic book collection. Yup, let’s keep the depression steamroller lurching forward. I wish Kili the Cat would take a dump on Batty’s head.
Here we go! There’s some of that torn-from-the-front-pages-type grim-faced “reality” FW seemed to be missing for most of 2012. Right after a lighthearted reminder that our beloved Crazy still exists… bam, knee to the groin and down goes Harry! But hey, let’s face it: Harry got a little cocky there yesterday, what with how he was appearing to be mildly happy and all. Plus he spends hours every day sitting around that pizza shack doing nothing while he’s supposed to be delivering the mail. So he kind of had this coming, you know?
For a moment I was considering the possibility that the last two days existed to set up a payoff down the line as Harry is forced to sell his beloved comics to feed his wife and several (?) kids. Then I remembered my cardinal rule of FW expectations, which simply stated says “don’t have any, nothing will happen”. A story arc like that would be way too complicated and well-thought-out for this comic strip.
Coming this week (spoilers): Harry’s prized comic book hoard is destroyed in a fire, which is extinguished by torrential rains (always funny). Devastated, a drunken Harry buys a gun from Wally and heads on over to Komix Korner intending to murder every paying customer. Not finding any, he goes back downstairs and ends up taking a job with Funky, which propels Montoni’s up to fourth on central Ohio’s “most prolific employers” list.
It’s going to be one of those “If only the government could suck more tax money to pay for Crazy Harry’s endless coffee time!” arcs, isn’t it. Oooo, those damned rich people, wondering why this pathetic Tarzan fan should be subsidized for the rest of his (hey, it’s Ahia, hopefully) short life.
Well, the fact that Harry spends time at Montoni’s when he’s supposed to be working’s already been brought up, but don’t you usually lose the beard when it outgreys the rest of your hair? Does Harry want to look 15 years older than he is?
Oh well, now that’s he’s unemployed maybe he can help his wife deal with her generalized edema.
For lack of anything else intelligent to contribute, all I have to say is: NOOOOOOOO NOT THIS AGAIN
After twenty lighthearted, drug addled years, it’s Harry’s night in Batiuk’s Barrel O’ Misery at last. Welcome back, Gloom and Despair, we’ve missed your hilarious presence in this strip for so long.
Harry’s so upset he forgot to apply the Grecian Formula to his beard as well.
Is this because the Postal Investigators found enormous stashes of undelivered mail under his frickin’ comic books and in the back room at Montoni’s? Is it because he spends all his time loitering and not working? Sorry, no sympathy for Beardo.
And nothing will clear out a building quicker than “DEPRESSED POSTAL WORKER IN THE HOUSE!!!”
Other than the murder of John Darling, has there ever been a shooting story line? Time for a “Very Special Funky Winkerbean” especially if Harry going postal can rid of us of some characters, although Les will be spared by the Ghost of Lisa telling him not to go to Montoni’s that day, or by tripping him just in time so the bullets sail over his head.
Some interesting snark over at NJ.com under the strip. Not everyone is enamored of TomBat. And now we can discern Beanie Wanker’s true identity. Yes, apparently his real name is Y. Don Jablowmi. I hate to do it, BW, but the people deserve truthiness in the news. That said, I think he’s spot on about Crusty hanging out all day drinking from the bottomless cup at Blotoni’s. With any luck, he’ll go home on Friday and eat half his comic book collection looking for that long-lost Tarzan with the blotter acid on it. Now the air-guitarist has an air-job. Bwahahaha, toughtitty, Crusty. But I ramble on so.
The results of Harry’s drug test were finally delivered.
Let’s see now.. Wally has the dishwasher job nailed down and Les is the weekend manager…the girls have the holiday shifts covered. I know, there’s an opening for dishwasher over a Kahn’s!
Beanie–believe me i hate the Wall Street rip-off kings, but the only thing i hated more was Becky’s whining “Why don’t I get to vote on a banker’s bonus?” from the school levy arc.
Crazy is about to face unemployment as a completely unskilled, post-middle aged man in a dire local job market, and yet, the most depressing thing about this strip is that Funky’s favorite part of the workday is being visited by the mailman.
Cue “Price Is Right Losing Music”
Don’t worry, Harry, Montoni’s can always use another dishwasher.
http://priceisrightlosinghorn.com/
What are the odds that Harry will blame the Internet this week for his getting shit-canned?
Harry can fall back on his enormous civil servant pension and fine collection of warm sweater vests.
“…this letter carrier has been canceled.” Ah, like a magazine subscription, right? Plus, “canceled” sounds sort of like “cancered”. So much funny packed into one speech balloon!
Beat me to it, sourbelly. I was about to say at least the USPS gives you warning before you get cancer.
But shouldn’t a man who’s roughly 75 be happy to finally sit back and collect his fat pension? I feel real sorry for you, Harry, getting retirement from the USPS with a buyout of all your sick time (we know you’ve been eating at Montoni’s and shopping at Komix Korner on the company dime all these years), plus probably 80% of your annual salary as prescribed in your defined benefit plan.
Yeah, I feel real fucking sorry for you.
Alas I suspect that the Montoni’s has just found their Delivery Man.
Yet another “eggs in one basket” member of Westview just got dumped. Remember Rachel abashedly admitting to Wally that she was a “lifer” at Montoni’s despite being in her early 30s and with a small child?
That was more depressing than when Lisa died.
@ Jimmy…. There will be no pension or any early buy-out benefits for Harry. In Batdick world reality is 1/4 galaxy away…here’s how it works:
* Summer’s education should have been covered by Lisa’ life insurance:
Squat, Les had to work nights at Montoni’s
* Our 10 year POW Wally should have gotten over $500,000 in tax free combat & back pay and BAS/BAH..and he didn’t even get a fuckin’ Thank You.
For the past several months, I’ve felt wrong talking about my favorite Muppet, Crazy Harry, wondering if I had the name wrong or something. As a Muppet fanatic, the possibility has greatly distressed me.
I feel a bit dumb that it took me so long to realize I was just associating it with Batuik.
Help me out here, FW historians. Now I know Harry went from (wink, wink) high school stoner-type to irreverent, goofy mailman pretty much right away, but what “tragic” part of his back story have I missed? SOMETHING bad must have happened to him, right? This is FW: everyone has some tragic back story. Booze/drug issues? Abused as child? PTSD? Or is this going to be his first “dropped shoe”? That can’t be possible, can it?
I can’t stop misreading “Funkman”. I don’t know if it’s the lettering or just my sleepy brain, but some part of me doesn’t want to recognize that N.
It’s hard for me to feel sympathy for Harry. Not only is it canon that he’s a lazy, poor worker, but my own experiences with my local post office and mail carriers IRL have grown fairly ugly in recent years. So many items mangled, lost, misdelivered…and harrassing phone calls in reponse to the few times I dared call their customer service line with my concerns. The only result? Local USPS people taking it upon themselves to call me up and cuss me out. Yeah, that resolved my concerns!
No, no sympathy at all. You deserve it, you lazy, no good mooch!
@Epicus, I think it’s tragic that he has two children who disappeared without a trace, yet he never seemed to care.
When Beardo said he was getting cancelled, I imagined one of those old “hand cancel” rubber stamps they use to mark stamps as “used.” Except this cancellor is about 20 feet high and weighs about 600 pounds, and comes straight down on Crazy’s head, distorting him to something resembling a man hole cover, or a hairy Frisbee. Sorry, chap. You’ve been cancelled. Wham.
So are all his stupid friends going to knock on every door in town begging all of Wankerview to vote for some kind of tax increase to save his lazy ass? Probably.
Better late than never… but sorry to get any hopes up.
@Jimmy: Those kids didn’t disappear. He sold them on the black market to help pay for his growing Tarzan collection.
If seeing a depressed , comics obssesed middle aged mailman come through the door of your bar is the highlight of your morning……you have more issues than mere alcoholism, Funky.