Well, we let him get away with it yesterday, but Batiuk goes back to the well again today to try and wring a little more pathos outta Pop. Today’s comic is perhaps notable because it’s the only time that I know of where we’ve seen Funky’s mother, a rather nondescript needlenosed and chinless Batiuk female.
26 thoughts on “The Child Is Father to the Man”
Comments are closed.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Since when did you need a B.A. (even from Kent Read, Kent Write, Kent State) to manage a pizza parlor?
Oh Batom, you ol’ pathos-wringer you! Things were getting just a little too upbeat lately so you had to remind us that Funky’s having a tough time watching Pa Bean deteriorate…again…via what one could kindly describe as a “real reach”. Kind of odd that Funky would remember his first day at KSU from his father’s perspective, but whatever.
The overall vibe I’m getting is that Pa Bean might not be long for this strip. Or that there might be a KSU arc coming soon, or maybe both.
Let’s have a “dead pool” for Funky Winkerbean in 2013. We’ll pick character names and month of death (to break ties), i.e. Pop in March, Cayla in July, Les in January (one can hope!), Cory in June, etc.
Flunky went to college?
Funky: “Gee, I feel so guilty, watching them wheel Pop away.”
Holly: “Guilty enough to do more than -only- visit your father on major holidays and -only- offer him the barest scraps of attention and affection? The man’s mind may be gone, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be treated with love.”
Funky: “I said -guilty-. Not MIRACULOUS. Yeesh, get off my back, WOMAN!”
******************************
Cayla: “Say, um, Les? Do you think you could, you know, spend some of the holiday with just me?”
Les: “Get off my back, WOMAN! I’m still trying to find the tape Lisa made for my first Christmas with my second wife!”
*****************************************
Harry: “Geez. I wonder why all of my favorite secondhand bookstores are closed?!? I want to read books! Comical books about TARZAN! And why does the evil technology thingy the woman who lives in my house gave me keep beeping?!?”
Yeah, I was going to ask too — FLUNKY WENT TO COLLEGE?? He’s a dumbass! Oh, wait. It was only K*nt State. 13th grade.
Wait, what’s Funky doing in his flashback to him going to college? Tell me there isn’t gonna be another car crash ar-
Oh, wait, that’s his dad. Geeze, why the heck does he and his dad have to practically look like twins?
Why is that nurse so smiley? Is she avenging some ancient wrong?
“Finally… I just love tearing the Winkerbean family apart!” she gushes.
@Epicus Doomus, Yes, I can see it now a two month story on the anguish Funky goes thru on discovering his Father left his body to KSU as a medical cadaver.
Couldn’t get to a computer yesterday so a belated Happy Holidays to my fellow snarkers.
I too would have given yesterday a free pass, but TB never knows when to leave well enough alone. Maybe Funky ought to consider visiting more than once a year.
Good strip. Showing a flashback of events that occured between Acts I and II next to the present decline of Pa Winkerbean’s health is an especially apt comparison.
Actually, this strip shows the Circle of Life in Wankerville. Years ago, Pa Bean and Anonomom watched Funky go off to K*nt State. Now, Funky and Anonofatblonde are watching as the nurse wheels Pa Bean… off to K*nt State. That’s right, fools, Pops is pulling a Rodney Dangerfield and going back to school! Aw, c’mon, he’ll be a big hit there! And given his current mental and physical condition, probably finish near the top of his class and be a star basketball player. Might even become assistant coach of the girls basketball team.
Speaking of the K*nt team, do you think BatDreck remembers sending Slumber and Kareesha there? Or did he quietly shitcan that idea after we pointed out that team is something like 2-34?
And just one more thing? Anybody from Wankerville, past or present, NOT go to K*nt State?? Thanks to the Magic of Retcon, apparently Flunky went there too. So that’s the only college in the BatDickverse? And everyone gets in? Better yank it back another quarter inch or two, Tommeh.
Chien probably went somewhere cool, which is why she was never seen again.
Darin, Petey, Mouch, Jessica all earned degrees from the back of a comic book… or “As Seen on TV”
Beany, Bowling Green or Ahia State aren’t publishing the Collected Funky Winkerbean Volume 2. Of course KSU is the only school in the Funkyverse.
When it comes to bathos, Batominc is always gilding the lily; bringing coals to Newcastle, owls to Athens, samovars to Tulu, sand to the beach, wood to the forest, water to the ocean; and getting direction from the Department of Redundancy Department.
What will tomorrow bring—a flash-forward of Cory, legless and seated in his wheelchair, watching a senile Funky being wheeled away to his room at Quarter Inch Arms Nursing Home?
A random thought. Do you suppose BatCreep has shown us nothing of the two “girls” at college since they moved in just before Halloween (!) because, unlike Medina High, the colleges don’t let him in to ogle and eyeball the students? Maybe he’s aware that he doesn’t have even the first, faintest idea what college is like now. Unless K*nt relaxes their rules and lets him creep around, we may never see the spawn of Les and Crayola again until their rookie season on the
WLNBAWNBA.After all, we know Tombarf insists on 100% accuracy when portraying young people.
I didn’t even Funky went to college. I don’t remember Act II ever mentioning it.
Well, at least Pa Winkerbean didn’t say anything.
Just because Funky ATTENDED Kent State doesn’t mean he GRADUATED from Kent State. Perhaps he drank himself out of there.
At first I didn’t understand the juxtaposition in today’s strip. In what sense is sending your kid off to college, and hopefully to a bright future, in any way similar to sending your aged parent off to die in a nursing home?
Then I realized: the young Funky is about to hit his physical peak in just one or two years. From then on, it will be slow decline, not even noticeable for the first couple decades, but then inexorable, leading ultimately to death. Death, which must, in this context, be undignified and bereft of higher meaning.
Fact: your kidney function began to decline at about age 20, Funky. When you reach age 65, (by my calculations you are about 52 years old now, appearance notwithstanding), you will be medically classified as “elderly,” regardless of how robust your health is now. This is because at age 65, the decline in your kidney function has likely reached a point at which dosage adjustments in your medications may be necessary.
Personal note to Tom Batiuk: when my mother had Alzheimer’s dementia, she remained what we call “pleasantly demented” right up to the end. I believe her generally good spirits were attributable not only to her basic pleasant nature, but also to the goodwill and gentle humor of her family. For example, my dear late husband, not a punster by habit, nevertheless managed to evoke happy laughter from Mom with his wordplay and gentle ribbing. If ever there were a context for the skillful use of puns, this would be it.
Wishful thinking, Spode. An evil troll (Reflex76) put a curse on Tommy making him awkward and ham handed in all things. He’s now completely incapable of making good decisions. So sad…
Trust Talentless Tom Batiuk to try a ham-handed reach-around attempt at “a very special episode of Funky Winkerbean.”
Got myself a wee giftie via eBay: Funky Winkerbean: You Know You’ve Got Trouble When Your School Mascot is a Scapegoat (1983), foreword by Erma Bombeck! Scans coming soon…
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ODkMF.jpg[/img]
Erma Bombeck must have owed her agent a favor.
TFH, not trying to one-up you, but my copy of that book (from the clearance section at Half Price Books) is AUTOGRAPHED on the inside front cover by Tom Batiuk himself! Let me know if you ever want to use it for another giveaway.
Anyone been following last weeks “Pearls Before Swine“? Choked me up a little. Way better then this crap.