Batiuk’s really just conquering my will to snark anymore. Just what the hell is he showing us today? Starting with a God’s-eye view of earth, zooming in on Westview, then along a street where neighbors wave to one another (and a postman not named Harry delivers mail, interesting), where Darin makes himself useful for once under Ann’s watchful eye. Then we’re looking up towards Fred’s window, and now we see Fred, in his chair, in his room, looking utterly helpless, fearful, and alone.
The only way I could cheer myself up after this was by noticing how much that picture frame in panel 1 reminds me of that weird “Phantom Zone” album-cover like thingy that they used to banish the bad guys in the first Superman flick:
41 thoughts on “Fred's World”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
Is there any point to today’s strip other than making us want to kill ourselves?
For the love of all that is merciful and right (things that long ago abandoned The Funkyverse)- make this stop!! Why doesn’t Batboy just illustrate the obituaries every day and be done with it?!
Art imitates life. Here we have a self portrait of how TB views himself and life as from his attic studio. Very sad.
Ha ha ha! The broken old man senses that death is just around the corner on this dreary and grey winter day! Once a respected educator, he sits alone watching the world pass him by as he counts down the minutes until his inevitable, merciful demise. Just a mere speck in the cosmos, an insignificant little man whose pointless, futile little life is drawing to a sad, miserable close. Welcome to the funny pages, folks and don’t mind the smell. It’s just the medium itself dying and decomposing, no biggie.
And Batom Inc. (along with their tens of loyal readers) wonders why FW is the most universally loathed and despised comic strip ever made. Yet another sickening example of TheAuthor wallowing in his own special brand of morose, depressing crapulence strictly for the sheer hell of it. Classic Batiuksturbation at it’s most perverse and creepy.
I think Merry Pookster brings up a good point about the autobiographical nature of this arc. But can you imagine the bewilderment for those folks who only read the Sunday installment? I mean, we follow this strip closely and we can’t figur out what’s going on.
I see Darin’s hard at work digging that grave. Good boy.
Oh, boo hoo. Fredgetable can’t come out and play. And all he keeps muttering to himself is, “Ah hep wih duhduhlivvee.” Nobody knows what you’re saying, Almost-Dead-Fred! Twice a bad husband. Twice a bad father. Our hero. Let’s all feel sorry for him.
I don’t think BatMope is trying to make a statement one way or the other. Life inside his pointy little balding, goateed head — and in ALL of Ahia for that matter — is always this depressing.
P.S. — BOXCAR!!!
Perhaps he will return to visit Ann after he is gone. Hey, maybe he can carpool with Our Lady Of Perpetual Visitation…
Nah, he’ll return to visit his first wife after he dies. She may hate him as well, but at least she was honest about it.
I know this strip is supposed to be great pathos for Fred, but I’m left with the comfortable feeling that Ann and Darin are terrible people instead.
Beanie – “Fredgetable” is awesome!
Fred’s understandably feeling rather blue this Sunday.
Forget the bookstores and comics conventions, Batiuk; hold your next book tour at hospices and nursing homes- they’ll love this stuff.
“oh death and grief and sorrow. ”
Batuik strives for Pathos but gives us Bathos. Did Fred especially like the snow? Making snowmen? Shoveling snow? or just being outside? since we know nothing about this fellow we’re like well okay yeah he’s sad, hmmmm – okay but now what?
I suspect that Batuiks’ bout cancer did a lot of deep emotional damage, he seems to view human life now as simply a process of disease and decay until death and that happiness far from being a desired state is something that makes the inevitable disaster worse.
blech.
As the panels close in on the dreariest of the dreary, I can’t help but think of that righteous Curtis Mayfield riff. (work with me here, you know the jam) Bah da da. Bah da da. Bah da da. da Bah da da da dah. Then the money shot for “Freddie’s day-ud, that’s what I say-ud.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wished before that TB would suffer the kind of hell he inflicts on his characters (and readers) in the name of art/writing. But I do now. I don’t know what kind of personal trauma TB has suffered besides his cancer which he freely shares with his world, but he really need some counseling. No one can be this bitter about everything.
This has to be the end of the craptacular “Fred has a stroke” arc. Surely Batom Inc. has wrung all the melodrama he can out of this. And remember, folks – this all started because Durrin expressed his happiness out loud.
For some reason today’s comic just isn’t loading. Anyway, it feels so strange (yet so RIGHT) that Act III descends back to the depression.
One of the things comics show is how incredibly disturbed the author is. While I can think of at least a dozen popular webcomics that fall in this category, Funky Winkerbean definitely falls under this category.
more misery porn, TomBat is a sick man
It’s nice to see comments from OB Dan and Sgt Saunders….a couple of long time snarkers from the pre-SOSF days.
Still waiting for TGF Dan?
Now this is humor with a wheelchair!
This is the universe targeting Fred again, lining him up to take another shot. When will Darrin ever learn to stop being happy?
I can only guess that this is a homage to the opening of the Simpsons? I wonder if Batiuk tells himself he could have directed an animated series that would have lasted more than five minutes.
Nice of them to go to all that trouble to leave Fred and his wheelchair UPSTAIRS in the Fairgood house. You can tell he’s thinking that he’d so be outside playing in the snow, if only he wasn’t in that wheelchair. “Butcha ARE, Fred! Ya ARE in that wheelchair!” And don’t try calling for help, because Baby Jane Fairgood left the downstairs phone off the hook. By the way, dinner will be served in ten minutes; hope you like baked rat.
Yeah, question. How did they get the wheelchair upstairs? Elevator? BatHack doesn’t let tiresome details like that get in the way of a good mope. Maybe Fredgetable muscled it up the stairs by himself with the idea of flinging himself out the second story window. Now that would be cool.
I think The Universe put a little shock collar around Fred’s neck. Every time Durgood or Kerry smirks, he gets a good jolt. And if you saw those two nitwits yesterday, you know some voltage was being expended on Mr Father and Husband of the Year.
“Zzzzzzzt! Zzzzzzzzzt! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!!”
“BOXCAR!!!!!!!”
Tom Batiuk: “See, most people don’t realize that being left alone depresses the sick and afflicted. And this is a Very Bad Thing. Of course, since I’m so Wise, being an Author and all, I can point this out to the plebes and shame them into being better. Hoody hoo! Awards! Accolades! Gimmee gimmee gimmee!”
Reader: “….um, you’ve shown Fred being ignored, insulted, teased, and subjected to the care of his ambivalent, untrained, unloving family for this entire arc.”
Tom Batiuk: “IT’S CALLED WRITING, PEOPLE. Listen, idiot, what’s the point of discussing any important issue if I don’t make it clear how much suffering is involved? Hmmph. I g-”
Reader: “What was the important issue, again? That the Fairgood wife and the Fairgood son are selfish assholes?”
Tom Batiuk: “WHAT?!? But didn’t you see how they went to the hospital?!? Ann’s giving Fred therapy! Darin’s shoveling snow! They contacted Kerry, my brilliant twist of a long forgotten character!”
Reader: “They went to the hospital to drink coffee and insult everyone in sight, especially Fred. Ann is -not- a trained therapist. Darin has already written off his dad as dead and buried. And Kerry was a throwaway gag you yourself forgot about for forty years. You invented her just as fodder for kicking off ANOTHER arc, the one you really care about. Lisa. AGAIN.”
Tom Batiuk: “Mmmm, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. If only every sick person could be as pure and perfect as you!” ❤
Reader: *sigh*
There’s no dialogue, yet every panel screams “LOOK! SERIOUS ART! I’M A SERIOUS ARTIST, ADMIT IT!!!”
This would be the perfect FW to hang on the refrigerator door…if there was a suicide note right below it, that is. Believe it or not, there are actually times when I almost (almost) feel the slightest bit bad about tearing Batiuk a new one every day, but then he plops out a steamy turd like this arc and those feelings go away…very quickly. Today’s bleak and miserable strip is obviously the work of a sad, depressed shut-in with a serious vitamin D deficiency or something. I realize he’s going for an “awwww” here but all he’s getting is an “uggghh”.
I think it’s Java related problems, but does anyone have a GIF I could view the comic with?
Missing panels from today’s hot mess:
p8: The unleashed dog bites the mailman’s leg and proceeds into the street and is flattened by Snowball.
p9: The ominous icicle in p6 drops and pierces Fishsticks skull while Durwood clutches his chest from too much exertion.
p10: a devilish smile is shown on Fred’s face as he watches from the window above.
There, now that’s the proper amount of misery a Sunday strip deserves. Thought BatHack was getting soft with us there for a minute!
@Senor: I was having the same problem and I noticed it was pointing to the 1/31/13 strip. I clicked on the little calendar and selected today’s date and it came up. Hope it works for you.
TFH sez: Yup, I mistyped the URL…sorry gang! It’s fixed.
Also, I see that Fred’s stroke has withered out his head so that it resembles a dried apple. Since when do strokes deflate your skull?
Also, why is he hanging around in a wheelchair in the first place? Was his motor cortex affected? They only said that it was his speech centers. He shouldn’t have forgotten how to walk, you know.
BTW, according to the model sheets that were linked earlier, Fred’s somewhere around 65 and Annie’s somewhere around 60. Never mind that they shouldn’t have been retired so long that everyone at the school forgot their contributions, they shouldn’t even have been retired at the start of Act III!
Oops, didn’t want to check those ages because it only occurred to me in the middle of writing that message. According to the model sheets, Fred was 60 at the start of Act III and Fishstick was 59. So at this point they’ve barely started drawing Social Security. Fred looks to be on the far side of 90 in this strip.
Westview seems way smaller than I previously imagined, though it does resemble the “small, ~5000 people towns” I thought. Hearne exactly.
A feel good romp if there ever was one. Can’t wait to see what Smilin’ Tom has for us on Valentines Day!
@Jason, I don’t want to spoil it for you but here’s a hint. It involves a Montoni’s heart shaped pizza (of course), rancid pepperoni, the heimlich manuever, bacterial infections, and a shortage of antibiotics caused by Rush Limbaugh.
Can’t wait to see what Smilin’ Tom has for us on Valentines Day!
It involves Viagra and an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours.
No, Duane, the Valentine’s Day strip has Wally — who’s single again, having broken up with his appeared-out-of-nowhere girlfriend off-panel — shooting himself during a bout of depression. After telling Buddy to fetch him his gun.
Before he shoots himself, he says “You’re my only buddy,” as if even the dog isn’t sick to death of that alleged joke. Wally pulls the trigger and we pull away to Buddy, who’s smirking
You know my grandfather died a couple of years back. I knew he was doing badly. But everytime I saw him he was smiling, he appeared to be trying hang on and always asked me about how were doing and what was going on in the world. My grandmother also seemed to be doing well at the time. They actually seemed legitimly happy toward the end. I’m saying this because I really feel pissed off at this strip!!! I mean not all life is a veil of tears!!!! There is some beauty in the world. Even when we eventually go old and things go wrong..there some happiness in the universe, for chrissakes!!!!.
I’m sorry but this strip really is ticking me off!!!. Batiuk really needs to get off this depression-porn kick that he’s on. Heck, I remember Gary Trudeau wrote a strip on an character that was dying of AIDS. He died after finally hearing The Beatles on CD. He died and it was sad, but it was also beautiful and celebrated the wonder of life. That’s how you handle death in comic strips!!!
Well, I can only imagine the reason for Fred looking worse off than normal, such as the “dried apple” skull (in contrast with the “lightbulb” he used to have) is a result of “speech therapy” with Annie, in which Annie tortured Fred somehow.
Batiuk mentioned a “crossover with Crankshaft” in this arc, so I’m guessing Fred will meet with the geriatric Crankshaft from the flash-forward of Crankshaft.
Yeah, @$$$Westview Oncologist$$$ nailed it. It is a great joy to love life even in the face of certain death. That is the human condition, and, in trying to illuminate it, Batominc succeeds only in denigrating it.
I bet Batiuk’s feelgood comedy of the year is “Amour”.