Let’s go break the news to poor old Fred, the invalid who has conveniently (for everyone but him) been given a room upstairs, where he passes the hours watching the world below go by without him. Naturally, Grampa-to-be’s reaction to this ostensibly “good” news is an expression of personal regret at never having had “the talk” with his son.
Thanks to the colorist making Jess’ shirt the same color as the yellow background, her demure pose in panel 2 makes her appear to be convulsing.
Son of Stuck Funky 
didn’t Fara Fausett & darin live in dorm &Les manour bfore getting there first home that room over pizza joint in there 10yr as couple?? totaly prepared to raise child, right Tom Batty
Sorry, getting sex ed from the Internet is a terrible idea. Actually, the implied revelation that it took Durwood and his wife this long to figure out how to make a baby is…troubling.
Ha ha ha! The stroke victim is muttering incoherently! Old people and their frailities…comedy gold! I also love the way Boy Lisa’s (ahem) punch line ties in neatly with his known love of the ol’ intertubes. He is, after all, a noted MBA/pizza app designer/inventor of the breakfast pizza, you know.
See, I thought Jessica had somehow gotten her legs over her shoulders from behind, but nope: those are supposed to be her arms. Jessica sure is an interesting FW character. Long, untamed hair, apparent love of internet porn, rarely says anything sarcastic or wry (or much of anything at all, really). In Westview that’s marrying material right there. Sure, she’s lazy and not all that bright but hey, you can’t have it all and besides, Boy Lisa is fortunate to have any woman willing to hitch her wagon to his pizza-scented sails, much less the only one in town with hair.
As I mentioned late in yesterday’s comments, note how once again the premise (“Jessica is pregnant”) IS the entire “story”, not merely a launching point for something more. It’s the classic FW approach. It’s also why all that “tackling the issues” crap is such a load, he may use PREMISES that most other comics won’t touch, but they never actually go anywhere and nothing is ever really “tackled” at all.
“We had the internet, because I’m about 31 years old, so i was born in 1982, and the internet came along to explain things to me well after i hit puberty.”
Oh, that evil, modern Internet, teaching 31-year old kids how to have dirty, tawdry sex before their parents can find the time to explain it the good ol’-fashioned way nature intended! Why, I have half a mind to write a nasty ALL-CAPS e-mail to my congressman to make sure it’s not too late for other 31-year old kids to get hurt!
Fred probably could have died happy not knowing that Durwood received his sex education via the 56k modem at Creepy Pete’s house. I certainly could have.
” … when we moved above Montoni’s we found a box of VHS tapes that Pete left behind…That is when we figured it out.”
Hey…now let’s tell Kerry she is going to be an Aunt.
Oh, please Annie!!!
I know your Drop Dead Fred’s universal communicator and all, but he surely is not concerned about Darin’s limited sex education this late in the game.
What Fred, in his limited vocabulary is trying to voice is his objection to the horror of another poor soul having to be born into the bleak existence that is the Funkyverse. Fred is trying to muster all the strength to save this unborn child from the inevitable misery that he ultimately finds himself in.
Poor, Fred…if only the word abortion didn’t have so many syllables!!!!
Hey all, be sure and share some of your snark wisdom over at Komics Cingdom. I’m sure Tom would appreciate a little constructive criticism.
I’m not sure which is worse, that Fred assumes that since he never talked with his son about sex, nobody else did ever (even after he was married), or that Darrin seems to be advocating Internet pornography as an effective learning tool on the subject.
Wow, take a look at how Jessica is portrayed today, and how she’s been portrayed this week. Ann has spoken to her once, grasping onto her shoulders, but immediately thereafter turns away to talk to Darin. The other time Jessica speaks, Darin finishes her sentence for her. Today she puts on her demure display that shows how deferential she is toward her husband and whatever idiotic thing he’s saying.
She really is viewed as little more than an incubator.
Sorry, getting sex ed from the Internet is a terrible idea.
That’s right. What ever happened to the traditional locker room teaching? Kids today…
Re: today’s strip – informing soon-to-be Grandpa: Freddie’s dead. And soon.
@Jeffcoat Wayne, Of course TB thinks the internet is evil, after all that’s where TFHACKETT and his blogettes hang out.
This reminds me of a brainless old comic I stopped reading ages ago – “A Rose is a Rose.” A toddler would mumble something completely incomprehensible. The mother would somehow translate. Boom. End of comic. That got old quickly. All the more reason for Batpoop to resurrect that slap-nuts funny device!
So why not keep Almost Dead Fred in a dog kennel? Or in a closet? Or just go ahead and buy his coffin now, and let him get used to sleeping in it. Saves time and trouble. Obviously, he’s stuck upstairs until somebody gets around to visiting him.
Hey Fishstick McTranslator, Fred just said, “Juh poo pnts.” What do you think THAT meant?
Beanie, I’m glad you brought up Rose is Rose. The character you’re referring to is Mimi, a bald, freakishly ugly baby hoo aweways tawks lyke dis:
Did Annie volunteer to be Fred’s speech therapist, or merely his translator? The more I think about it, the more today’s strip pisses me off. The supposed humor hinges on Fred’s inability to speak intelligibly: “Ha ha ha, what’s he saying?” My late Mom suffered a series of strokes, and it was heartbreaking to see her struggle to speak.
Couldn’t you still write and type after you’ve had a stroke? I luckily have never suffered one nor known anybody who has, but I imagine you still could type on a computer or write somehow on a pad of some sort. There have to be other means doctors and scientists have developed for stroke impaired speech.
$$$WO$$$, it depends on a number of factors: the patient’s condition and age before the stroke, the severity of the stroke, the degree of recovery, and the patient’s (or patient’s family’s) resources…
There have to be other means doctors and scientists have developed for stroke impaired speech.
Well it’s certain that, with Annie as his advocate, Fred will never have access to any of ’em.
Wasn’t Summer a preemie or did I dream it? Otherwise, you just know Batiuk would make Jessica go into labor on, yes, Labor Day. The perfect combination of smirkworthy wordplay and cheap melodrama.
Poor Fred has to work so hard to say his punchline, he has no energy left to smirk at it in the last panel. Truly debilitating in the FW universe.
Well it looks like the guy who says “HAHA” got banned over at Comics Kingdom.
466 people like FW on Facebook. Over 400,000 like George Takei’s Broadway show about the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII. 460 of FW’s likes are ironic.
As TFH noted, the colorist really botched Jessica’s shirt in panel 2. Great attention to detail, Team Batominc!
Helskor: Wasn’t Summer a preemie or did I dream it?
You remember correctly. 8/6/08
I’m shocked BatHack didn’t retcon the infamous tour of the slums of Westview after the Moore (or Less) wedding:
Fred: Darin, now that you and what’s-her-name are in your 30’s and have been married for several years, your going to start thinking about having sexual relations….
That would have allowed Fred to mumble today’s punchline, “I hlpd wth the cncepton”.
I want to be nice and say, “well the real humor is that Darin learned about sex from Memebase. Continuity dictates that Fred should have trouble speaking!” But you know what? Even if I give that one to Batuik, I still hate the whole “stroke” arc.
Fred has been totally sidelined, only there to provide new dialogue for his wife. No time is spent on him anymore– his marriage is tragic? Only Anne’s POV! New grandbaby? Doesn’t appear until Friday! Difficulty speaking? A minor issue.
At least FOOB– Lord forgive me– had the decency to give Grandpa thought balloons so we could still connect with him and understand him. Fred has become a prop, whose suffering is either nonexistent or just irrelevant in Tom’s mind.
I might be missing something here… but it seems to me Fred was able to get his point across, but the stroke has simply made him f+cking stupid. My best guess here is that Batiuk is confusing the aftermath of a stroke with Alzheimer’s.
Helskor, why would Jessica’s baby have to be premature to be born on Labor Day? Funkytime is, if nothing else, highly fluid: didn’t the school year bleed into July last year or the year before?
By the way, TFH, today’s post title is *#@(star)(Saturn)!!ing great.
Well…aside from the poor artwork, bad dialogue, dumb concept, stiff pacing, lack of humor, and uninteresting characters, the strip today isn’t bad.
Summer was born premature? But look at Lisa’s pregnancy! Did Summer eat her twin brother in the womb?
ICYMI over on the Curmudgeon site:
Strokey Cancerbean: Here, adoptive Pops o’ mine! Check out this Wikipedia article! Turns out birds and bees have nothing to do with making babies! The Internet is smarter than you, old man, is what I’m saying. Now, unlike you, I’m going to go home and have sex with my wife!
TheDiva: Exactly. Pornography has as much to do with real sex and love as “G.I. Joe” does with the real life armed forces.
Yet another example of the creepy, misogynist vibe that’s increasingly infested the strip in recent years.
What’s sad/funny is that we remember more details about FW than does TomBat.
OF COURSE Summer was born prematurely, if it had been just a regular plain old birth there wouldn’t have been any LISA DRAMA and Act II was all about the Lisa drama and little else. In fact I’m kind of stunned that Summer wasn’t born in a cancer ward that was just destroyed by a bomb blast…or maybe I’m just remembering it wrong.
(Tom Batyuck reads Epicus Doomus post, scribbles furiously in notepad)
“Summer…born in cancer ward…just destroyed by a bomb blast.”
(Tom Batyuck googles award-granting organizations associated with cancer and anti-terrorism)
Nah, Lisa was wearing a pregnancy suit in order to show the whole world how much she nobly suffers, or sufferingly nobles, or insufferably suffers with nobility.
I hope you’re all getting this down.
You’re right though. Of all the shit she nobly suffered through, having a preemie is the least of it. Hell, she must have wondered why the hospital didn’t tragically lose power while preemie Summer was in the ICU.
Given Ohio’s generous welfare, plus food stamps and WIC from the Feds, these just tripled their income.