What started out as the most entertaining FW arc in a while has predictably settled into a rut. Clearly Darin’s made it clear that he wants nothing to do with Frankie, Lenny, and their proposed reality show.
22 thoughts on “Seriously Sunday”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
So if you want to discuss a business deal and go where you won’t be disturbed, try Montoni’s: Serving no customers in the greater Westview area since 2005.
This whole arc could have been established by this one strip. Why drag it out for weeks on end? (rhetorical question)
Jessica : ” They only thing I’m going to thing I’m going to take is a shower!”
Lenny “Hey that’s the spirit, Jess!!! Gratuitous nudity!! Just what we need to get this reality show on the road. Although, do you mind if we cast a body double for your shower scenes!!!
Jessica: “what!!!!”
Lenny: “Hey Jess-baby! You know I love you. what with your pseudo-Farah Fawcett hair and your dead-inside expressions…but lets face it. Funky Winkerbean has bigger boobs than you do. We’ll also have to film in another location too, since we all know there is no way in hell that you guys actually have running water in that rat’s nest you call a home!!”
Yeah, as if re-uniting Lisa was a bad thing, too.
I suppose I have some kind of eternal naivety. I want things to work out. I love to support those who have a vision, even if it’s a vision I think is a bit lame. I would love to be able to say, “Tom Batiuk, you did good.”
But Tom Batiuk keeps rebuffing my efforts to give him credit. “Rebuffs” is perhaps a bit soft. Tom Batiuk seems bound and determined to give his readers the dullest possible experience in return for their willingness to pass their eyeballs over his work.
Imagine a thrilling roller-coaster ride. You pay your money, give a “thumbs up” sign to the sullen attendant. He heaves a crank and…you go about four feet, the ride grinds to a halt. “Um, is something wrong?” you ask.
The sullen attendant shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t ask me. I just count the tickets. This ride is closed. Please, exit left to funway.”
You leave the ride, behind you are voices. “This ride is closed?! Hey Paolo!” “I’m gonna get my wife!” They fade behind as you leave.
Your pal comes up to you. “Hiya hiya, President gonna buy you a new pair of shoes?”
What do you say? “He’s working on it!” you lie, knowing that there are no shoes in any vision of the future.
You’re not going to even see any pictures of shoes. Those voices who spoke of shoes are now silent in your head.
I really, really want to see the one, true REAL Funky Winkerbean strip: where it all fades and it’s just Les trying to clean his glasses amid a post-atomic wasteland. “Lisa? Lisa? Yes, it’s me! It’s me!”
“….Lisa? why are you calling me Frankie? I’m not Frankie! You’re–you’re disappointed that I’m…Les? But…but–”
A curtain of nuclear ash descends. SFX inhuman screams. FADE to BLACK.
PS: Beers helped write this.
Sneering. Smirking. Obnoxious grins. Cocked eyebrows. Angry dramatic exits. Engaging, entertaining plots. OK, which one of those doesn’t belong?
While no one could have predicted this exact sequence of boring events, I think it’s safe to say we all knew that Batom would find a way to take this once semi-promising premise and turn it into another ponderous, repetitive slog to Nowheresville. Nice work, Tom, you’ve once again found another unbelievably stupid way to get from “point A” to “point ZZZZZ”.
Well we might as well expect this drag on. Because we all known Batiuk has that habit. But at least stupid Jesse actually spoke something smart in that pea-brained head of hers.
Imagine how many people are entering this neverending arch for the first time with today’s strip, wondering why Jessica is immediate lashing out at a guy for wanting to do a reality show about reuniting with his son. Like, seriously, what’s the harm in that? Then, when Jessica says “Slime”, Darrin has the goofiest, dopiest expression on his face, but hearing her talk about taking a shower seems to put him in a bad mood. If this arc is going to continue for Week 653, I hope Batiuk will at least let us patient readers join Jessica in the shower (to continue listening to her vent, of course).
Gotta note that, after all these strips showing Darin together with his bio-dad, we still have no idea if he knows that his father raped his mother.
WHEN that happens, we’ll get the most tedious and drawn-out denunciation of all. Big Frankie is going to die of boring lecture cancer.
Hey Batyuck! MORE ANGRY TURTLE WAR FACE!!!!
Yup, Jessica, it was a bad idea for you and Darin to meet Frankie and Lenny. Frankie is clearly a sleaze who never cared about anyone other than himself. I just wish your husband had told you beforehand that he didn’t want to meet this man who is clearly bad news.
Oh, wait…he did.
I wish that Lenny had removed his sunglasses in the last panel, so we could see if he, too is sporting that sqinched-eyes look, so reminiscent of a really bad case of constipation.
Darin’s made it clear that he wants nothing to do with Frankie, Lenny, and their proposed reality show
Lenny: “Clear”? Great idea! Audio simulcasts on Clear Channel!
Stupid as expected.
TB should have spent the week of Frankie pouring his heart out to gain Mr & Mrs Dimwoods emotional connection…….. then later throw the “hook” in about a show
TB has no sense of real life outside his Mothers attic. He can’t even depict a decent “Con”
All Snarkers… don’t fall into the retcon about Frankie being a “rapist”.
They were two 16/17 year old kids in 1982. She was naive and he was a jock with a 6-pack of Old Milwaukee. TB wants to retcon Lisa into a teen rape victim. Don’t encourage him.
Wow. In P6, Darvon delivers the anti-smirk.
Even with a year lead time, batiuk writes himself into a corner.
I’m still trying to figure out what Frankie and Lenny’s grand scheme is here…
Phase 1: Go to Westview acting like evil scuzbags and alienating everyone with their behavior.
Phase 2: ????
Phase 3: PROFIT!!
@Beckoning Chasm: You are my favorite person on the Internet today. What is your brand of beer? I have got to get me some of that!
@Bill A: You’re absolutely right—this entire fiasco is nobody’s fault but Jessica’s. Her righteous indignation rings hollow. Par for the course in FW, natch. I get the distinct impression that Batominc is quite unaware of the misogyny in his strip; he likely considers himself a feminist. What an oblivious jerk!
@Jessica (in-universe): you silly woman! Frankie is not reuniting with his son. He’s meeting him for the first time. You’re every bit as stupid as all the other women in Funky Winkerbean—save the Sainted Lisa of the Other Shoe. Seriously, Batominc, what is wrong with you?
Jess: “Using people’s pain and heartache for entertainment purposes, just to get money, awards, accolades! How EVIL!”
Darin: “Glad you finally understand, wifey. Now, ready to go with me for our weekly visit to the grave of Lisa, my bio-mother who died of cancer, the subject of her husband’s best-selling book and upcoming hit made-for-cable movie?”
Jess: “Oh, yeah! And then I’ll work on my docudrama about my murdered father, John Darling! Boy, I sure am glad WE never do anything so despicable and EEEEEVIL as your dad!”
*****************************
Frankie: “Man, I’m strangely disappointed. I thought for -sure- they’d get on board after I told them ours would be the first reality TV series adapted into comic strip. Hired “the author of Crankshaft” to do it and everything!”
Lenny: “I guess some children WERE left behind.”
–Phase 1: Go to Westview acting like evil scuzbags and alienating everyone with their behavior.
Phase 2: ????
Phase 3: PROFIT!!–
Cobra Commander had better plans than this.
This originally had a tie-in to Goatee Boy’s movie deal. What ever happened with that?