Epicus Doomus
November 29, 2012 at 12:08 am
…Old slang from the 1940’s, obscure sports references, weird mixed metaphors and Funky not just being unlikeable and dour but downright obnoxious…this is one peculiar little arc.
Peculiar indeed. It started out with Crazy’s career crisis, then we witnessed Funky’s reaction (to its impact on himself), moving on to Funky getting fired up on his friend’s behalf, before wrapping up (or not) today with Batiuk revisiting to a favorite theme: bashing the U.S. Postal Service.
Son of Stuck Funky 
There might be a semblance of a joke here if it made ANY FREAKIN’ SENSE AT ALL
I have a theory about Funky Winkerbean.
I believe the strip is based on Tom Batiuk (Les Moore) and his actual high school chums, along with one high school bully (Bull). Well…yeah, you’re probably saying, that’s pretty obvious.
But my theory is that the characters in the comic have changed as Tom Batiuk’s relationship to their real-life counterparts has changed. Take Bull as an example. In the present series, he’s treated pretty sympathetically. I think this is because Batiuk met the real-life Bull in latter years, and they became friends. The character has a lot of latitude–he gets to call Les a “maggot” during the training arc. Can you imagine if Funky called Les a “maggot”? He’d have to do a grovelling apology…which we saw (“I screwed up” “Yes, you did“).
Speaking of Funky, I think it’s just as clear that Batiuk and the real-life Funky had a major falling out. He’s a fat, cheap, self-centered alcoholic with a near-criminal step-son. He looks at least ten years older than Les. He’d downright mean to everyone. Can you imagine any business owner wanting to be photographed tossing money in the air for a magazine cover? Maybe as a joke on the inside pages, but it seems really unprofessional for a pizzeria owner.
You can pretty much tell who Batiuk is still on good terms with–Harry Dinkle (he must have been a favorite teacher), Dopey Pete, Comic Book John Guy, a couple of others here and there. And all those women who wouldn’t give him the time of day? Why, they’re all fat, dumpy and indistinguishable from each other. Shows them, huh!
What this is leading up to is this: I think the real-life Crazy Harry and Tom Batiuk have just had their falling out. Who knows over what (“Say, how much did you enjoy The Complete Volume One I sent you for your birthday last year?” “Oh, I haven’t gotten around to opening it yet.”). But the result is this present plot arc, in which Crazy Harry loses his job in an unrealistic way. Sure showed him, too!
It would explain a great many things.
Now we see Harry flat-out stealing Newman’s “Seinfeld” schtick: the lazy, shiftless mailman sponging off the public dime. Sad when a forty-plus year old character can’t even have a B-level sitcom character trope of his own, you know? He doesn’t even get to be the town’s resident comic book freak, he has to share that with…well, everyone else in town. Ditto hanging out in that pizza dump.
So what reason is there to like or even remotely care about Harry? No, seriously, I’m really asking because I can’t think of any.
BeckoningChasm, your theory would explain why TB seems to be unaware that he’s writing Les as an insufferable ass****.
Of course this would also mean that TB is an insufferable ass**** and doesn’t realize it.
I take it this fictional UPX is located outside of Westview’s city limits, since Funky didn’t describe it as “Our Westview UPX.”
“Dude– I just want a job. I don’t want to do any work!“
Oh, I get it! USPS mailmen are shiftless, moronic bums who pride themselves on doing their job as shittily as possible, because they’re horrible, shitty people. Har!
This is a fresh take on the whole postal service thing, isn’t it? I mean, other than Seinfeld in the ’90s and a few dozen other examples.
ED: Sorry, I didn’t hit refresh before posting my comment. I see you already had the Seinfeld angle covered. No plagiarism intended.
Was there really a reason TB couldn’t have said “UPS”?
Sourbelly:
Let’s not forget Montoni Harry’s true inspiration:
[img]http://www.davidstuff.com/humor/cliff.jpg[/img]
They said “UPS” in an earlier strip.
@BeckoningChasm – Brilliant!!! Just Brilliant!
As for today’s strip – BeckoningChasm’s commentary is better reading. In fact, it’s better than this entire arc.
And yet another character in FW becomes despicable. Before, Crazy Harry was a guy with a strange attraction to 1940s comic books, but otherwise okay. Now, he’s a lazy SOB. The only thing funny about this strip is the fact that Batom Inc. thinks he has established Les as a paragon of intellect and likeability – but readers hate him, too.
Welcome to Westville where every prospect depresses and every man is vile.
So Crazy Harry is a lazy sluggard–but we should feel bad because Evil Technology of Evil is causing him to lose the job he’s so terrible at! Wait, what?
I guess it still Takes A Millage! “I want da gubmint to give me a job – I just don’t want to have to work.”
UPX instead of UPS? Ooooh… Somebody got a Cease and Desist Order.
Beckoning: excellent analysis. I had a few similar thoughts as well. Note how everyone in the Funkyverse who was “cool” in high school is now a fat, miserable and/or dysfunctional loser, while the class geek is now a successful, desirable, witty and beloved town icon (and his geek-ette blossomed into the perfect specimen of total femininity before becoming the town’s leading martyr, too). Such a spiteful little comic strip. And subtle.
Sour: Not a problem…I totally forgot about Cliff Clavin myself. Guess we can toss Harry on top of the pile of fictional, useless, shady postal workers. Hope TB isn’t expecting any important mail anytime soon…
I liked today’s joke…when George Burns and Gracie Allen featured it on their radio show back in the 1940s!
Yeesh.
Looking forward to the jokes ripped off from Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks, Duffy’s Tavern, Edgar Bergen, and Ed Wynn!
I can conclude from this arc only that Batominc owns stock in UPX or FedZED. How else to explain the antipathy to both new-fangled “E”(lectronic)-mail and traditional USPS mail?
It’s also possible that this is just writing so bad that the plot is simply inexplicable, but when has that ever happened in this strip?
Good point, ED, but also take a look at how attitudes have changed now that Act III’s heroes are from the Act I villain clique. It’s a little depressing but not at all surprising.
I’m surprised at how incoherent this week has been. Granted, most weeks of Batiuk are incoherent, but it’s usually a random incoherence. This week’s been thematically contradictory.
And that taught them fear UPS’s bloodthirsty lawyers, I’m sure.
Quote:
“As for today’s strip – BeckoningChasm’s commentary is better reading. In fact, it’s better than this entire arc.”
Not that he had to try very hard.
Speaking of which, someone ought to tell Crazy Harry that USPS is going to experiment with same-day delivery. Burn!
Good job BC. Combining this theory with George in Indiana’s observation that Crazy is modeled after Chuck Ayres, I begin to worry about the future of Crankshaft. Well, not worry exactly…
^ I had to look him up. I knew Crankshaft wasn’t drawn by Batuik; the characters have a wider range of expressions.
And I guess their limbs aren’t mutilated and their faces are more consistent, but I try not to look at Crankshaft too hard.
Yeah, Crankshaft: often annoying but better art overall.
Ayres was a year or two behind Batiuk at Kent State, and i keep thinking that’s what Batiuk thinks a ‘young man’ looks like.
Looking forward to the jokes ripped off from Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks, Duffy’s Tavern, Edgar Bergen, and Ed Wynn!
But not Robert Benchley. He’s too sophisticated for TB.
Once again Batuick makes a character be so very unlikeable. We can’t have characters with any redeeming qualities.
Beckoning Chasm is Batiuk’s unauthorized biographer.