Frankie finally musters the gumption to get out of his Stalkermobile and enter Montoni’s, where he is greeted by an entirely too-chipper Rachel. The redhead attempts to throw this mysterious stranger off the trail by spouting gibberish when asked about Darin’s whereabouts. But she doesn’t know that Frankie’s read The Book: he gets the “Funky Winkerboard” reference and regards Montoni’s would-be gatekeeper with a stern gaze.
37 thoughts on “Winkerboarding”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
If Frankie hurled a glass of bleach in her eyes he could not be blamed.
I see that Rachel’s relationship with Wally has lead to her adopting his perpetual Sunken-Cheeked Pinched Tight Starvation Victim look.
Guess she hasn’t been eating too well since Flip…er…Buddy II threw up a ton of partially digested fried pickles while scared to death on that Ferris Wheel last year!
Ah the inconsistency of drawing FTR begins.
“Winkerboard”?
Is that when he gets paddled by Funky?
“Whew”…. well we set those tables up…now let’s go have a meeting to decide on how the chairs should go.
Since Rachel is there..Wally and Buddy must be in the kitchen.
Does wally still have that 9mm?
Will Buddy sniff out the bad guy and growl?
All this and moore coming to you over the next 2 weeks.
Not sure what is the bigger shock: An actual paying customer at Montoni’s or Funky and Darin having a business-related meeting.
Rusty: Likewise if he hit her in the head with a croquet mallet. “Funky Winkerboard”? He wasted an entire day on THAT joke? Yikes…that’s sad. This arc must be even duller than we’ve imagined.
See, if I was writing FW I’d “borrow” heavily from the “Homer’s Enemy” episode of “The Simpsons” aka the Frank Grimes one. Have FTR simply be a sincere, normal guy looking to establish a relationship with his biological child, only to be thwarted, annoyed and driven insane at every turn by Westview’s bizarre cast of weirdos. Finally, after Les accuses him of being a date rapist based on some old “journal” he supposedly “found”, FTR would snap, freak out and somehow die horribly. The story would end with Les reading Frankie’s eulogy straight from “Lisa’s Story” while everyone laughed…”that’s our Les!”.
“Homer’s Enemy”…that and the “spin-off” episode immediately thereafter seemed to be the point Groening and co. threw up their hands and admitted their creation no longer was human or familiar. 😦
Would that Tom one day had a similar moment of revelation.
Goodness gwacious me! At first, I thought Batiuk had abandoned the previously established arc in order to sidetrack us with a week of Rachel serving wacky customers. Then I remembered that the majority of Montoni’s customers already work there.
Anyhoo… Let me echo everyone else by asking: “Funky Winkerboard”?? Is Batiuk intentionally dreaming up entries for the Batiuktionary now? Sniglets, this ain’t.
Anyhoo deux… I trust we’ll spend the rest of the week sitting in on this exciting meeting of the Funky Winkerboard, before Rachel finally tells Darrin he has a mysterious visitor, just in time for the Saturday Cliffhanger.
I thought Winkerboarding was torture expressly prohibited by the Geneva Convention…or was it the Comics Code Authority?
“I doubt that Fairgood is going to… fare well. Muhuhuahahaha!!“
Frankie’s already starting to look less evil and more beaten and world-weary. Westview must function in a manner similar to the Swamp of Sadness in The Neverending Story.
TFH, if you think button-eyed corpses are chipper, you’ve been reading this for too long.
There are a few restaurants I visit on a regular basis (and yes, one of them is a pizza place). I know the names of my usual servers, and they know me when I come in. But even in my most frequent haunts, I have no idea what the managers’ names are. And yet Rachel expects this first-time customer to understand that she’s making a reference (I hesitate to even call it a pun) to the manager’s name.
I’ve never heard a circle jerk referred to as “Funky Winkerboarding.”
… for God’s sake, don’t order the cannoli today!!
Another fun way to go would be to have Frankie travel about town utterly destroying everyone in his path by making cruel, pointed observations about them.
“Is that one of Tony’s pies I smell or did someone die in here…again?”, “Wow, Winkerbean, the pizza business has taken its toll, eh?”, “Hey, Becky! Catch!”, “Hey Jess, I heard you swapped brains with a squirrel. He just called and wants to know where he buried those acorns”, “Nice to meet you Summer, I didn’t know Les had a son”, “Nice sign on your door there, Skunk Head, I have some glitter and glue you can borrow if you want to make it look more professional”, “Nice hat, Owen, family too poor to own a mirror?”, “HEY DINKLE CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???”, “Hey Wally…BOO!!!”. Things like that.
Then he’d eventually meet Les in a winner-take-all obnoxiousness showdown where they’d exchange mighty wry barbs and sarcastically smug zingers, sort of like in those comic books a certain “writer” is so fond of, only with terrible puns and bad wordplay instead of action. Sure, Les would definitely win and it’d be awful but at least it’d be an interesting change of pace.
Montoni’s pizza has, on it’s staff, a full-time MBA applications programmer.
/head asplodes
Frankie’s baffled disgust at Rachel’s incomprehensible wordplay is the most “reality-based” this strip has been for quite some time.
Tomboy’s rejected third panel word balloon:
“But he’s dropping the kids off at the pool.”
“But he’s dealing a deuce from the bottom of the deck.”
“But he’s downloading data on the porcelain hard drive.”
“But he’s generating a new supply of Les Moore sculptures.”
“But he’s taking a Batiuk.”
I’m Funky Winkerbored.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Yesterday, Frankie was in his car, today he’s in the restaurant?! Hey, Tom Batiuk, how did that happen? Wouldn’t he have to find a parking space, find some quarters for the meter, walk across the street, open the door (to Montoni’s), see the sign that says “Please Seat Yourself,” and then sit down? Where’s his copy of the menu, too?!
How do you expect us to understand that those things might have happened if you don’t show them to us? Over the course of a couple of weeks?
Gee whiz, Mr. Batiuk, get with the program!
Cup a coffee? Cuppa Coffee. Cup of coffee. See how easy it is Tomboy? See? Actually, I am a professional writer of sorts, but day-um.
If we’re going to get puns like “Funky Winkerboard” then we had darn well better get this one, and one where Frankie begins a conversation by saying “let me be Frank…”, as well.
Darin’s first question for Frankie will, of course, be why he didn’t order his “cup a coffee” using the Montoni’s app.
Dammit, billytheskink! I was saving “let me be Frank…” for a post title!!!
This is one example of where the Mr. Pink philosophy of tipping would be justified.
What the hell is Frankie’s endgame here? Seriously–does Darwood not know that his dad might be less than savory? And oh no, St. Lisa can’t have just gotten knocked up by a popular football player from Big Walnut Tech who took advantage of a ugly chick, it has to be retconned into a creepy guy who can only get sex by coercion.
I’m more annoyed that people come into Montoni’s and order coffee. Has anyone in history ever siddled up to a pizzeria counter and ordered a coffee?
Oh, right, breakfast pizza. I see it’s still the rage with the high schoolers. It’s so busy in Montoni’s that Frankie can hardly get a seat.
Winkerboarding: Being forced to look at Funky Winkerbean Strips while the same strips are being read aloud S-l-o-w-l-y in a dull monotone. Has been know to cause permanent damage in a fairly short time. Outlawed in several states.
Cup.
A.
Coffee.
This is infuriating. Can’t draw. Also illiterate. Can’t be arsed to do a little QA, not even with a year’s lead time.
I’ll try to explain this so even a Winkerbrain can understand it. Frankie did not say “cup a coffee.” He said, “cup o’ coffee.” If you had shown this strip to another human being, perhaps even a Kent State sophomore nursing a bad hangover, you would have caught and been able to correct this stupid error.
But no.
And yet we’re asked to take this art form seriously. I know some artists. Artists are friends of mine. This guy in Medina? He’s no artist.
What is going on with Rachel’s face in panel 3? It got the 2-D treatement, as if she had just had pushed it into Flatland.
At least today’s dialog contains no instance of the letter “L,” whose shape has been annoying comics readers for 4 decades. Here’s a clue: it’s an upper-case “L,” not a lower-case “h.” So stop writing it wrong. Just, you know, stop. It’s not “cute.” It’s not “whimsical.” It’s not ¼ inch from reality. Cut it out; you’re bothering everyone.
TF, at least you still have “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
TFH sez: Nope, kinda used that one already!
The ‘cup a coffee’ line isn’t that bad since it could, theoretically, be meant to suggest an accent. Actually close to something you would hear in a normal conversation in real life. And then it’s ruined by that… attempt at a pun. It actually took me a few moments to realize that it might actually be a joke.
And this woman works at a pizza joint. Why does she look like she only has one meal a day?
—And this woman works at a pizza joint. Why does she look like she only has one meal a day?—
The slow death of starvation is much more acceptable than the horrify death of Ecoli contamination. You choose your battles when you can.
Tomorrow: A loud flush is heard. Durrhey strolls out of the crapper, zipping up and tucking in his shirt.
FTR: Hi Dillweed, I’m your legal, biological father.
Dillhole: * smirks *
FTR: As such, according to my attorney, Lenny, under Obamahio law, I’m entitled to half your salary.
Duron: I make $9.75 an hour.
FTR: Uh, I’m also entitled to half your savings!
Darvon: Got none. Don’t even have a bank account.
FTR: [Getting desperate] I GET HALF YOUR SHARE OF THE LISA STORY MOVIE DEAL!!
Dildo: I never had a share of that in the first place.
FTR fumes. Finishes his “cup a coffee” and storms out.
FTR out on the sidewalk, on his cell phone. “Hey, Batiuk!! Asshole! Why the fuck did you make me schlepp down here???”
I’ve figured this out! Frankie wants to tell Darrin the truth, that he is not his biological father. That Lisa doesn’t remember what happened when she was date raped. Lisa was at a party with Frankie, but it will turn out that Frankie *did not* date rape her. Lisa was passed out. Frankie went to get someone to help. It was that person who fathered Darrin. Frankie just took the heat all these years.
Darrin’s real dad is the guy he went to for help. Then principal Fred Fairgood! Yes Darrin’s adopted dad is really his *real* dad! Now that Fred’s in poor health, Frankie can finally admit he was covering for his favorite principal.
As the Funky World turns!!!
That’s actually plausible…although Frankie never went to Westview, and Fairgood getting it on with Lisa is way creepy.
“Would you like a slice a pizza or a bowl of our Soup a the Day — today, it’s Cream a Mushroom Soup — with your cup a coffee? Or perhaps you’d like a little music with your meal. We just added “Boys a Summer” and “Duke a Earl” to our jukebox this morning.”
Sorry. Nobody gets the “Funky Winkerboard” reference.
“What-a-did-a that-a Frankie guy want? Just a cup-a coffee? How come-a no-a-body from-a outta town wants-ta eat my-a food? What the hell-a you mean-a “Yelp”? Whadda the f*ck-a is-a that?”
Winkerboarded: to be blindsided into a state of bored confusion by an especially obtuse, obscure, strange, desperate or stupid bit of FW wordplay or plot development.
“I was totally Winkerboarded by Rachel’s alleged “joke”. “Batom really Winkerboarded his readers with that ridiculous SSC arc last year.” Also see: Winkerbored.