In the waiting room, Ann shares with Darin and Jessica the story of her and Fred’s courtship. Batiuk tries to lighten the grim tone of this arc by having his dumb blonde character misconstrue the kind of “strike” Ann is talking about. Because she’s such a romantic naïf, Jess actually seems taken aback at the thought that teachers would actually go on strike. Anyway, when is a strike (in the work stoppage sense) ever “unexpected”?
27 thoughts on “Strike That”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Cripes! Not another episode of FISHSTICK ANNIE’S NOSTALGIA THEATER! Just kill Fred! Put us out of our misery!
Yeah, union members don’t just wake up one morning and say “What the Hell, we’re going to stand outside and wave signs around today”–striking is usually based on specific grievances and/or negotiations going sour and are therefore anything but unanticipated.
But what really confuses me about today’s strip is where exactly Jess comment is coming from. Is she making a weak joke about Fred and Anne’s love being like a thunderbolt from the blue, and it goes over her mother-in-law’s head? Did she really think the couple met because one (or both) of them was struck by lightning? Did Batiuk just write the set-up for the joke and forget to give it context? (I’m guessing the last one.)
Wait… did Batsy give a recurring character a stroke just to set up one of this lady’s boring old stories? She didn’t need an excuse last time!!
And the “story” is still stuck on “Fred had a stroke…” while bad artwork and worse wordplay takes center stage. Meanwhile…nothing happens. At all. How long was he waiting to sneak that “strike” gag in somewhere? IMO, not nearly long enough. The great “writer” who “stretched the creative boundaries of comic strip narrative humor, introducing real-life issues such as dyslexia, teen suicide, guns in the classroom, racial discrimination, teen-dating abuse, breast cancer, alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder into “Funky Winkerbean” is a cheap fraud and a tired hack who can’t spin a two-week long story without resorting to bogus padding and desperately inane wordplay that hinges on at least one character being a blithering idiot.
“Unexpected strike”…like when you show up for work in the morning and there’s a guy standing out front with a bullhorn passing out picket signs and you just grab one and join in. Yeah, I hate it when that happens.
But, Blondo says, “Kind of like” a lightning strike. Which to me indicates that she was intentionally being metaphorical. Not in a clever way by any means, but still. It appears that Fishstick just assumed Blondo was a complete imbecile and corrected her. Whatever your interpretation might be, there’s certainly nothing funny going on around here.
Also, Darvon really needs to have his lower jaw looked at by a professional. It’s sliding all over the place.
Has this person no compassion?
Brendan Burford, Comics Editor
King Features
300 West 57th St
NY, NY 10019-5328
Fax # 646-280-1550
Lord have mercy! Even for Funky Winkerbean, that was an incompetent set-up for a poor excuse for a punchline.
Ann: “Your father and I knew each other, but we didn’t until we did.”
Darin: “….”
Jess: “Um, Ann, are you feeling okay?”
Ann: “No, I’m choking on all the unicorn dust and liquid sunshine this day has br-OF COURSE I DON’T FEEL OKAY!!!”
Jess: “…touched a nerve.”
Darin: “….”
Jess: “Um, Darin, could you like, -pretend- you were engaged and interested in your mother and father during their time of need?”
Darin: “….hmmm? Oh, sorry. I just keep thinking back to how right I was about our show not being on tonight. That was awesome.”
**********************
Only Tom Batiuk would kill off a peripheral character just to set up convoluted retcon-heavy flashbacks.
…Not to mention those unexpected strikes at the bowling alley and the baseball stadium. But hold on to your pants, kids — we’ll get to those courtship dating stories before this month is through.
Personally, I think Jessica’s assumption of Fred and Ann being the victims of a freak lightning storm to be quite an appropriate catalyst to their tepid romance.
“Our eyes caught when I was beating the shit out of some scab with my picket sign. Fred commented on how athletic I looked. Of course, I used to coach basketball. Did I ever tell you about that?
“The scab? Oh, I think she died a couple of weeks later. Serves her right for not joining the union.”
Bracing myself for the strike/stroke pun. *smirk*
Panel three written by Captain Obvious. I think this is the sort of rubbish BatHack writes when he doesn’t get enough sleep. Struggling to think how Blondie McBighair turned initial statement into something about lightning. Dumb “writing.”
But what would I know? I don’t draw my own cartoon.
Hi. Me again. Sorry. Just wanted to say if the strike weren’t “unexpected,” it would have been been referred to in advance as “the coming strike.”
Okay, I’ll sit down now.
Pookster–it’s just that Brendan Burford’s job has no duties, apparently, and his only visible success is in getting his wife a job as one of the “Six Chix.”
At Ann and Fred’s wedding:
Minister: “If anyone objects to this union, speak now or forever hold you peace.”
Superintendent: “Ahem”
Rita Wrighton: “Awwwwwkward…”
high taxes, teacher strikes, slums, no private enterprise other than Montoni’s and Komix Corner….Westview just crushes your soul.
Wait, Piccolo is Brendan Burford’s wife? And Piccolo was drawing a couple of those (not very subtle) S&M-themed comics in 6C back in 2011 or 2012, so that must mean the editor of Funky Winkerbean probably gets off on…NO! THAT CAN’T EXPLAIN FUNKY WINKERBEAN! IT CAN’T BE TRUE! YET IT MAKES SOME SORT OF BIZARRE SENSE! NO! NO! NO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I would like to thank George Will for making a guest appearance in panel two today. Not sure who plays Fish-stick Annie in panels one and three.
Panels 2 & 3 are the absolute worst.
Panel 2: Dumbass smirk, with a dumbass question.
Panel 3: Jessica looking totally gobsmacked about the answer!
And still all the concern is on Fishstick Anne, as if she is really the one suffering, and not us, the readers. By now, it’s obvious that “no name husband” doesn’t mean crap to anyone — have a nice death there No Name!
Is everyone in Westview a self-centered ass?
I sense some photo album flash back strips (complete with those little black corner sticky things) in the coming days.
With Anne about to launch into a long ret-conned story (possibly undoing even the “drive around Westview” tour), my hope for this story being some drama-filled storyline filled with unintentional laughs is sinking fast. Then again, my finding out the hard way that the goal of Mary Worth is not to tell a good story, though at least I discovered Comics Curmudgeon in time to see Jill have a meltdown at a wedding (sadly, no Aldo or the guy shot)
It could have been a wildcat strike, caused by a sudden poor decision by management, or the realization that they were teaching Les Moore.
“Is everyone in Westview a self-centered ass?”
I love rhetorical questions. They are made in their creator’s image.
A lighting strike can be unexpected. Which is what Fishstick was talking about, until Jessica guessed it. Whereupon, in order for the Funkyverse to remain at least 1/4″ from reality, Fishstick changed her story.
See? It makes much more sense that way.
–“Is everyone in Westview a self-centered ass?”—
-no, Les Moore, for example, is a self-centered dick.