It wouldn’t be A Very Special Funky Winkerbean Story Arc if Batiuk didn’t manage to work in a Sunday comic book tribute. Interestingly, Batiuk’s Medina homeboy Tony Isabella featured this very comic book cover on his blog a little over a year ago. Also worth noting that while the guy pictured here has the same skin tone as the woman, that the FW colorist has made him positively swarthy. He’s like Lenny in reverse.
The Lisa-Frankie “romance” so far: insecure “new girl” can’t believe that the handsome jock has asked her out. He picks her up in his leopard-print upholstered bread truck. Later, they attend a party where they both consume alcohol. On the way home, Frankie stops in an alley where we must assume they had unprotected sex. Lisa’s journal only informs us that this was not a good idea, but was she in fact raped? What were her “high expectations” when Frankie parked in that alley? Did her low self esteem lead her to just go along despite her better judgment? Nothing to this point suggests that this was non-consensual (“Uncle Jfff’s” recollection of the near-punching seems to have taken place either after the sex or on a different night–Lisa’s dressed differently). In the 2001 flashback to Lisa’s teen pregnancy, she even offhandedly describes Frankie as a “lousy” lay.
What makes today’s panel so infuriating, of course, is that interview Batiuk gave back in March, where he teased this story arc:
In the return of that story we deepen the teen pregnancy story and say that it was a little more than just youthful indiscretion on Lisa’s part. There was some coercion involved (emphasis added).
With that, Batiuk goes above and beyond “tell don’t show”: he’s telling about “telling, not showing”. Any coercion on Frankie’s part, particularly of an alcohol-impaired Lisa, makes TB’s evocation of “Romance” today stupid, tone-deaf, and wrong.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Well, of course it’s stupid, tone-deaf, and wrong–why should it be different from anything else we’ve seen in this comic thus far?
Who’s writing this journal?
A 33 year old male psychology student preparing a masters thesis called “Date Rape: How Unwanted Sexual Encounters By Young Adults are Precipitated by Impairments in Critical Thinking.” ???
I’d give this guy an F.
So if he goes in a “one reckless moment of passion” direction with this, it won’t be a retcon at all. It’ll just be yet another re-telling of his beloved teen pregnancy arc. But if he does depict any sort of “coercion” taking place, today’s little “homage” strip becomes wildly offensive and out-of-place, to say the least. A romance comic in the middle of THIS arc? Really? This is a pretty messed up choice if you ask me.
“High expectations and low self-esteem”? In other words: It was consensual. No date-rape to see here, folks, no matter how desperately Mr. Batiuk tries to ret-con this nonsense.
The coercion was Frankie asking if she wanted to screw. It hadn’t occurred to her otherwise.
Retconning is fun.
For TB’s next comic
ripofftribute may suggest he dip into the oeuvre of “The Inferior Five”? Their leader, Merryman, must have been TB’s inspiration for Les.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_Five
F*** all this retcon crap…this is the real story of Lisa’s pregnancy.
And it’s the only one I hold to be true.
https://sonofstuckfunky.com/other-crap/teen-pregnancy-arc/
The real mystery here is, what moved Lisa from skank to swank…?
Yes, young adults think about contemporary issues affecting them by imagining classic comic book covers. I know that my son, a freshman in college, told me “My professor reminds me of those Flash Gordon classics with Jungle Jim Toppers.” So no wonder that Summer, while reading her dead mother Lisa’s diary (who is also the dead mother of Durwood, who is married to Jessica, the daughter of her father John Darling,t he dead TV guy, who Les wrote a book about that no one read, least of all Jessica the daughter of her father, John Darling.)—anyway, where was I?
Oh no wonder Summer thinks of a Girl’s Romance cover. Beause that is what just young adults do when provoked into thinking about contemporary issues.
It is called writing.
American Romance comics: Aimed at preteen girls. Written by middle-aged men. Completely dead as a genre by the early 1970s.
Nothing at all to do with date-rape. 😦
That’s the best Beckoning edit I’ve ever seen.
Well of course today was always going to be a lame throw-away of Batiuk depicting a contemporary issue affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.
And there are multiple red herrings here:
*What was the purpose of Pm & Jff?
* Was there a “rape” or just high school hijinks of alcohol fueled hormonal teens?
* Was there even any penetration by Frankie at all? from what we’ve seen it doesn’t confirm that.
** Somehow in all of this I think Frankie will just be embarrassed and leave with his tail between his legs
* I think the Fairgoods “Lighthouse” reference will come back
* I think Darin’s 1/2 sistah will come back into this
It’s not a matter of what will happen…but how Batiuk will recon everything and handle it in a thought provoking & sensitive manner
I was reading yet not paying attention to Fred and Ann drive around aimlessly talking about the good ol’ days.Was the Lighthouse reference some type of “drop-in” where the local teens could go and “rap” with a middle-aged guy wearing a ponytail, who had an uncomfortable interest in their relationships?
To Beckoningchasm – Bravo! TB should take lessons from you on the process on retconning.
As to this story…the confrontation that Uncle Jeff saw was Frankie’s response to St. Lisa announcing she was with child. The sex was consensual….
My my, the Batiuk Defense Organization is in full swing today over at Comics Kingdom.
—My my, the Batiuk Defense Organization is in full swing today over at Comics Kingdom.—-
Yeah, that unpaid intern is earning his art school recommendation.
Ha! He probably can’t even draw Cubby, Tippy and Tubby without tracing.
What was the purpose of Pm & Jff?
To establish that all these characters exist in a shared Funkyverse. It’s all setup for next summer’s billion-dollar blockbuster, The Winkervengers.
The “Lighthouse” was referenced as a place where a guy did something terrible
Did the guy write and draw a comic strip that portrayed young adults in a sensitive and thought provoking manner?
Well, the comments over there are blowing up (100+). Sadly that’s no real indication that we’re really getting anywhere near the end of this debacle.
An open appeal. Would whoever handles comments on Disqus actually be CONSISTENT? There is no way to know whether a comment will go through, whether it will be “moderated” (read: only posted if you complain about it not being posted), whether replies don’t require moderation or if it’s original posts and replies.
*What was the purpose of Pm & Jff?
Seriously, it was to indicate the existence of Lisa’s journal that Summer is now reading. That was the only consequence of Jff’s week of flashbacks. He was there to remind Cayla that she found a journal of Lisa’s and forgot to tell anyone about it.
It wasn’t to recount the incident in the alley, since Jff’s recollection did not differ from Fishstick’s of the previous week. He took an entire week of strips to establish the existence of this terrible journal.