Jeffcoat Wayne
February 16, 2013 at 11:07 am
One week of this mundane arc down, three more to go. YIPPEE!!!!!!!
I really did not expect the Music Education Convention to run into a second week, but here we are. Batiuk has managed to find a topic of even less interest to the average reader than comic books, and I say this as a former high school band member and a band parent (and with all due love and respect to comics fans). Having swung and missed every day last week at humor, today Batiuk “assumes” a serious tone with a tip o’ the Scapegoat shako to the struggles of women band directors.
Son of Stuck Funky 
No one would bring the entire band to a convention, unless they needed a set-up to a non-punchline. Wretched.
Nice reference to the Lynyrd Skynyrd tune, BTW. I wore that 8 track out my junior year of high school.
TFH sez: Thanks, Rusty! File this one under Post Titles That Practically Wrote Themselves.
This entire arc is simply one of many recent arcs intended to make the critics of Funky Winkerbean scream out loud, “All right, I’m sorry! These people are boring beyond description! Please, please…please bring back Les Moore and make him the center of the strip! At least with him, we had some kind of reason to read this damned thing, if only to hate on him! Except…now that we’ve seen the others, well, huh, turns out there’s a lot more to hate than Les Moore. So bring him back! We’ll hate Les…less!”
Well, I’m sorry, but I will never, never, ever request the return of the Most Odious Character in all of Comic-Dom. Sorry, Mr. Batiuk, your signature character is still not welcome.
Think of the worst character you’ve ever encountered, in comics, film, TV, whatever. Imagine that he (or she) is there, instead of Les Moore. Doesn’t that make the world shinier?
After reading this strip – or rather, trying to – for at least ten years, I’m at last starting to get angry. I read the comics for a laugh and a diversion. If I want to see sadness, disease, tragedy, depression, and futility, I’ll read the FRONT page of the local paper.
I am seriously considering no longer reading this shitty train wreck in order to preserve some semblance of actual happiness in my life.
“And I’d like to see more one armed band directors. And more band directors married to kid-touching Man-Children. And more band directors whose predecessors still hang around ‘helping.’ And more band directors who are girls but kinda LOOK like guys. Blah blah de doo bladdy blah…”
Oh, boo hoo. I guarantee you rampant sexism is not a problem here. Yeah, like there’s this Band Director Old Boy’s Club. Gimmeafugginbreak. Don’t make up “issues” that don’t exist, BatPuke.
No way in the FUCKING world would I ever want to see more of Limp Les. All TB is proving is that he has sucked the joy out of all of his characters. I will say this; if it was Les getting his ass kicked by Cayla every single day I would come back to reading the strip. As it is I only come here for the comments.
Well Becky, when you’re at these conventions, maybe if you took charge instead of following your retired male predecessor around like a lovesick puppy, people might be inclined to take you more seriously. As it is, you don’t give anyone any reason to suspect that you have the title of Band Director.
What’s this broad’s point?
“Yeah, way back FOUR YEARS AGO, when I started, it was a different world! I had to sit in the back of the band bus. There were no ladies rooms at the convention – I had to pee outside. Nobody would even talk to me. Everyone thought the coat rack I was standing next to was the director, and not me. I got thrown out of the building twice, and had to sneak back in with the cleaning crew. But that was way back four years ago. Things were very different.”
Any chance the chaperone was mistaken for the director because he had two arms and looked like an adult? Whereas Drecky looks like a 14 year old boy, or a one-armed stripper?
Oh no. I was sure the band convention thing was a certain one-weeker. I mean jeez, he wasn’t just scraping rock bottom last week, he was burrowing into it nose-first like the Titanic into the seabed. Oh well, I guess he’ll try to work around his complete lack of material by having his boring, uninteresting characters babble senselessly like he does today. I have no idea what Becky is jabbering about but I assume it’s some sort of underground band reference. Or perhaps it’s an attempted jab at gender inequality in (sigh) the world of marching band directors (yawn)…I don’t know, nor do I particularly care. I’m sure it’ll make its way on to the walls or refrigerator doors of the two or three people out there who might find it relevant and/or humorous, which ultimately makes the cost of the ink, newsprint and comic strip author’s salary totally worth it, right?
Becky has just never been able to get her arms around her problem of feeling insecure.
Righty-O Charles… she let’s Dinkleberry walk all over her as if he’s still in-charge.
I’m glad to see more depth to Tom Batyucks character development….or lack thereof. It’s not just less more…all these characters are loathsome and non-lovable.
They will be forgotten more then last weeks box scores.
It’s understandable that the convention-goers thought that the male chaperone was the band director, it was probably Harry. Have we seen any other male adult spend any time around the band?
I suppose it also could have been Fred, who subsequently told everyone at the convention he was there to “lend a hand”…
A Google search of “sexism in marching bands” turns up a story from a couple months back about a questionable comedy-night thing done by the Columbia University band (students, not faculty), and….nothing else, really. I think Batiuk is inventing things to get on his high horse about now.
Perhaps Becky will be singlehandedly signing copies of “Paving Their Own Way: Experiences of Female High School Band Directors”
Yawn.
Funky Winkerbean is like a TV set that everyone left on, each thinking that someone else was watching it.
TOM BATIUK, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!
Batom Inc. is about to insult the only group that could be considered his core audience by implying that band directors are a bunch of sexist a-holes.
I have it on good authority that Dinkle Brand Marching Shoes are made in chinese sweatshops by workers too young to be employed in this country. BatHack has a lot of nerve calling out other facets of the marching band industrial complex. Pot meet kettle.
Interesting how the two idiots here are the two characters most detached from their Act II counterparts. It would be interesting to see a storyline how between Act II and Act III Becky became a hateful old biddy, but evidence from Act II eliminates the arm and the mother, so we’ll have to go with what has changed–her second husband.
Wow, what’s going on in panel 2??? I had no idea that prostitutes worked music educator’s conventions, too!!!! Well, I guess a girl’s gotta work…. Becky better be careful, there’s probably a demanding market for handicapped escorts.
TomBat gave up humor for Lent.
Becky: “It’s nice to see more and more women band directors each year. The earlier part of the 21st century was so horrible towards us. I myself was tarred and feathered six times in 2004 alone!”
Harriet: “…..”
Becky: “The first year I brought my band to the convention-”
Harriet: “The band? There are STUDENTS here?!? I haven’t seen anyone who looks younger than age 42 in a week!”
Becky: “There are OODLES of band kids here! Scads, even! You just aren’t looking hard enough, Harriet!”
Harriet: “But wher-”
Becky: “They’re probably hiding from the flying elves.”
Harriet: “….*….um…”
Becky: “Now, if you’ll STOP INTERRUPTING ME, I was about to share another anecdote about how someone made an innocent mistake, but I took it as a sign that they were the embodiment of everything EVIL in the world!!!!”
And welcome to week 2 of the Bataan Death Marching Band Conference 2013.
TOM BATIUK, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!
I DIDN’T READ YOUR BOOK!
Why would Becky have needed a “male chaperone” anyway? What goes on at these band conventions, exactly? Are they especially dangerous for unaccompanied one-armed females? Is it just not “socially acceptable” for an unescorted lady to attend them? Or was the rather antiquated notion of a “chaperone” the only way this dud of a “joke” would work to BatMarch’s satisfaction?
“Male chaperone,” my butt. That was some guy she was banging, since FOR OBVIOUS REASONS she gets no play at home. What happens in Ahia STAYS in Ahia!
Sean D — Bazinga! Hilarious.