August 8, 2011 strip
“…derailed by some other projects“? You mean you didn’t see her Dinkle doc, “Harry Dinkle: A Life…and Deaf”? Or her film about service dogs, “Some Buddy to Watch Over Me”? The only documentary “project” we’ve seen Jessica working on was videotaping Les and Cayla’s wedding (and she fucked that up). In any case, you’d think that telling the story of the late father, whose name she invokes at every opportunity, would take precedence over other “projects”.
Son of Stuck Funky 
There never was any strip showing Jinx graduating or going to college….so how do we really know for sure? I say she’s working at Khans’ …and took along Harry’s kids…and wally jr. too.
TB tries to fill us in on the back story every fucking day. Now it’s clear why he works a year ahead, it’s because he just piles up weeks of strips that keep repeating the same point over and over.
Jessie will be delighting everyone with tales from the one time, when she was in band camp, tomorrow.
The Kish-Kish game! TFH, you’re killing me with those placeholder panels.
The wildly over-the-top expository dialogue, Boy Lisa’s anatomically-improbable nose in panel three, Jessica’s perfectly-rendered look of eternal stupidity in panel two, another JOHN DARLING mention…this is the single most ridiculous FW of 2013 so far. “Other projects”, “sidetracked”, “derailed”, “Jinx”…LOL, OK, Tombat, whatever you say. And that drivel about “puzzles” and “pieces” was laughably bad, exactly the sort of idiotic schlock that drove me to hate FW so much in the first place. There’s no way he could have written that crap with a straight face…no way.
Timeline discrepancy alert: Jessica originally proposed this JOHN DARLING documentary two years ago. I am assuming (and I have to as I have no real idea) that Jinx either graduated in June of 2011 or 2012. So she would have been home during the summer of 2011 and 2012 either way, which makes Jessica’s (read: TomBat’s) cheesy excuse even more bogus and stupid.
Darrin & fishstick look like they got into Fred “Darrins stepdad who had stroke an helped with delivery ” meds. Also why Darrins wife whathername is looking like bad acid trip in panel 2
Coming Monday: Jessica’s scheme to “put the pieces of her father back together” doesn’t go exactly as planned as the police catch her red-handed at the cemetary. Meanwhile, Ann expresses her disappointment that Darin didn’t end up dating that nice one-armed woman that teaches band over at WHS.
Appropos of nothing at all, I want Jessica’s baby to be a brunette.
Goddammit, she forgot to mention her father’s name in the third panel and I fucking forgot it. Little help – What was it again??
Hey, Jess — Bull Bushka’s daughter, Jinx, is on Line 1. You might want to take this:
Jinx: Daughter of the late dead guy John Darling, Jess? Hi, this is Bull Bushka’s daughter, Jinx. I told you to read your stepfather-in-law, Les Moore’s, crummy book two years ago. Stop being such a fucking ditz.
Oh, so by the way, for the benefit of those of you who don’t speak Batyack, I’ll translate the Great Walls O’ Text in today’s episode:
“If you recall, we made a big, flowery fuss about breezing into town to make a documentary film about my father, John Darling, who was murdered. We even moved is the world’s foremost authority on my father, John Darling, Les Moore. Then Batamnesia totally forgot about the whole thing. Excuses excuses excuses bullshit excuses contrived excuses bullshit bullshit excuses.”
John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling. John Darling.
Bloody Vikings!
If I understand this coeectly, Jinx graduating from high school and going off to college caught Jessica by surprise? Because Jessica didn’t understand the whole “senior year” concept? Even though her own half-sister-in-law (and the daughter of Les Moore, who wrote a book about her father, John Darling) did the same thing?
I suppose this could be worse – Cayla could be preggers with another Les-based lifeform. But one more mention of John Fuck Darling and fishstick will have to stand in line to smack that documentary filmmaker bird winding.
If Jessica puts the pieces of her father John Darling together, we’ll have Frankenstein John to go along with Zombie Lisa.
“I got sidetracked by other projects that I can’t name but now that I’m preggers, once the baby comes it’ll be a perfect time to work on my documentary because if there is one thing new mothers have, it’s oodles of spare time and energy.”
I can actually sympathize with Jess. There have been plenty of shitty jobs I’ve put off doing at work because I’d rather work on “other projects”.
Thank goodness The Dark Lord of Medina keeps mentioning who Jessica’s father is, so his “devoted readers” don’t get all confused.
If the presence of your unpaid teen intern is the only thing keeping your work going, you might want to seriously rethink your career path.
I would think making someone named “Jinx” your assistant would be tempting fate, but perhaps Jessica’s idea was that fate works the opposite way in the Batiukverse.
Haha, no. Fate will always frown upon TB’s characters, whether they keep their horseshoe ends pointed up or walk under a ladder.
So, because a high school student went to college, she couldn’t complete her documentary? But she will be able to do it as she’s having a baby? Makes complete sense in BazzaroBatHack world….. what was here father’s name?
Um, does Jessica even have a job? What was she so busy with that prevented her from working on this massive project and required the assistance of the all powerful Jinx?
And why would now, when she is in the process of giving birth to her
first child be the perfect time to stress yourself over said gargantuan project?
Plot convenience, I guess.
Batiuk has once again violated one of the basic rules of storytelling: Show, don’t tell. He did the same thing years ago when we discovered that Cory had stolen the box with the Lisa’s Legacy funds in it, not to mention the fact that Funky had caught Cory doing it. He told us about it, not showed it. And he mainly does just for convenience sake. It lets him off the need to show how events happened Thanks, TB, for once again insulting our intelligence.
i>”Um, does Jessica even have a job? What was she so busy with that prevented her from working on this massive project and required the assistance of the all powerful Jinx?”
Trying desperately night after night to make a baby with Darrin “Blankety-Blank” Fairview. She finally gave up and begged Frankie to rape her instead. Love-ly!!!
It’s like he’s pretending that this plot thread was abandoned a few weeks ago and not two years back. He did the same thing with Les’ “movie-option” too, two years ago he was hemmimg and hawing and asking Lisa for advice, then suddenly he’s cashing a check out of nowhere.
And the CONSTANT need to remind everyone of who JOHN DARLING is might be an indicator that NO ONE CARES about that. I mean if you don’t trust your own readers to remember the details of an old character you mentioned yesterday, then why bother with this serial drama garbage?
Alright, we’ve already talked about the stupidity of thinking that you’re going to have more time when you’re that close to November (remember, that’s when your baby’s due), the idiocy of not realizing that this person would go to college and the how sad it is that this was all it took to derail her project*.
Time for new questions. Did Les actually solve that murder while writing his book or is that simply an accusation thrown at him? What exactly do they do for a living that gives her so much free time to suddenly restart this project? What happened to Les and his script which we spent so much time on? Does Cayla have a role beyond ‘push Les to do something more about his dead wife’? Wasn’t this Jinx free to help any of the previous summers?
*Minor note about the failed wedding tape. My brother provides music and video recording for weddings. He wouldn’t tolerate someone who screwed up enough that they forgot what their job was at one of the most important times.
I think the reason he only said it twice was if you say the name “John Darling” “John Darling” “John Darling” They start singing “The Banana Boat Song” Day O’…Day O’
When this is collected in The Complete Funky Winkerbean Archives #18 it’s going to look even goofier, all of those “John Darling” panels right next to each other.
Oh Oh… TFH.. your flashback to Jessica funkin’ up the weeding video shows my main man Khan in the background.
You know.. Khan the Afgan Terrorist
Based on the way this comic presents itself, Tom Batiuk seems to hold two pretty contradictory views of his readers.
1. The fact that characters (like Jess and Darrin) just show up out of the blue seems to indicate that Tom Batiuk feels all his characters are so universally beloved that we know them all really well, and just love following their lives. In other words, we’re just springing out of our chairs when he presents them. “Darrin and Jess?! No way! This day has now become awesome! And they’re having a baby?! Oh wow! I don’t care that I just wrecked my car now!”
2. The fact that characters keep referring to themselves and others by name, over and over (John Darling, here) seems to indicate that Tom Batiuk feels his readers are all morons who cannot remember a character’s name from one day to the next, let alone one panel to the next.
As I say, those views seem really contradictory.
I suppose there is a third view–that Tom Batiuk feels his only audience is made up of people who ridicule the strip, so he does these things to drive them into a rage. But that’s not very charitable of me to say, is it?
Thinking about that flashback to the ruined video, I’m reminded how often things are inexplicable in this strip. For one, pro videographer Jessica was distracted by the wedding music at a wedding. Really‽ For another, there were no consequences for her egregious failure, because Batominc, as is its wont, abruptly dropped the storyline. We are left only to conclude that being bad at your profession causes pregnancy.
I don’t think Batominc can even spell denouement.
Darin: “Jess, what “other projects” have you been working on? The very last time I saw you carrying around that museum piece you call a camera was that rainy day a couple of years ago. Remember? The one when Les was acting all smug and happy, while Cayla was going around in a haze of remorse?”
Jess: “Ugh, don’t remind me. But, yes! I had several projects!”
Darin: “…such as?”
Jess: “Such as the thing I did with those people in that place about that stuff!”
Darin: “…”
Ann: “Um, do I have to stick around for this? It’s almost time for Fred’s daily beating-”
Jess & Darin: “WHAT?!?”
Ann: “Hey, it’s the only way I can make him talk for the damn therapy! I’m not a miracle worker!”
Sung to the tune of “Good Morning Good Morning” by The Beatles (performed by the Harry Dinkle Orchestra):
John Darling, John Darling
John Darling, John Darling
John Darling ah
Nothing to do to save his life call Plantman in
Nothing to say but what a day how’s Fred been
Nothing to plan it’s up to Ann
Batyuck’s got nothing to say but it’s OK
John Darling, John Darling
John Darling ah
Going to film don’t want to film feeling low down
Heading for home Jess starts to roam then she’s in town
Everybody knows there’s nothing doing
Montoni’s closed it’s like a ruin
Everyone you see is half asleep
And you’re with Darin in the street
After a while you start to SMIRK now you feel cool
Then you decide to take a walk by Westview High School
Nothing is changed Les is still the same
Batyuck’s got nothing to say but it’s OK
John Darling, John Darling
John Darling ah
People wanting news it’s five o’clock
Everywhere TV’s are getting dark
John Darling no longer is alive
It’s time for Les and his black wife
Somebody needs to make fun of Tom, glad that you’re here
Watching the smirks you start to snark now you’re in gear
Go read the strip, it’ll make you sick
Batyuck’s got nothing to say but it’s OK
John Darling, John Darling, dad
John Darling, John Darling, dad
John Darling, John Darling, dad
John Darling, John Darling, dad
–When this is collected in The Complete Funky Winkerbean Archives #18 it’s going to look even goofier, all of those “John Darling” panels right next to each other—
Dude, just reading Batiuk’s comments about those strips will be worth the price!!
“I suppose there is a third view–that Tom Batiuk feels his only audience is made up of people who ridicule the strip, so he does these things to drive them into a rage. But that’s not very charitable of me to say, is it?”
Dare I say it, I might actually respect the man if that were the case. To intentionally do a job this shitty for no other reason than to allow us to amuse ourselves silly with our clever snarks and quips, for that I might actually stand in line. But of course, he believes himself too great an artist for that to be the case. Therefore, he does a shitty job for actually no reason — well, except for the undeserved paychecks, which I guess I can sort of understand from the sellout perspective.
Wow, the snarking is most excellent today!