ABOVE THE POST UPDATE: Oh my God. Oh. My. God. I never thought…I never dreamed…that this could come to pass…that this…this…
I’ve taken all the brain bleach that I have left. I don’t know what’s more powerful than that (“Nitric acid…pretty much destroy anything…” “But Ernie, there’s not enough of it–“).
For you the living, bonus…cough…bonus points if you can identify that dialogue…Funky-vision on full…oh my God…what I see…”If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!” You know, it didn’t work for Ray Milland, if you’ve heard the rumors…
Apologies if some of the above is a bit obscure…it’s been a long week, and when it’s been a long week, the obscure tends to sharpen his talons and especially sharpen that trivia gland.
I’m…I’m frightened by what Sunday will bring. Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there? Don’t leave me in the Sunday Funky Winkerbean realm! AAARRGHHH!! For the first time, I regret my duty. TFH!!! I’ll be good! I promise I’ll be good!
ORIGINAL POST:
If you’ve ever read comic books, you know there’s always a story that eventually comes up where the hero loses his powers. “I shouldn’t have eaten that fudge cake that Toyman made! For, I’ve now lost all my super-dance powers! Still…fudge cake!”
So, for whatever reason, Saturday’s strip is hidden from my Funky-vision powers. I suspect it’s only temporary–it was only a small piece of fudge cake–but it means I’ll have to wait until the strip actually appears in the real world before I can say anything meaningful about it.
(Contest: did you spot the word that didn’t belong in that previous sentence? Yes, that’s right, it was “meaningful”!)
In the meantime, let’s all enjoy some vintage Gil Kane action.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I assume Batom’s superpowers would be the ability to badly age and render obese anyone in his path and also to change history on a whim. He’d also be able to subdue his enemies via bad puns, which would instantly produce uncontrollable yawning and profuse eye-tearing. Awful greasy pizza would be like Popeye’s spinach to him and logic and jokes with punch lines that made sense would be his kryptonite. And he’d wear a futility belt.
So far, this is the best strip to appear all year — at least until it actually goes live.
…which it just did. And me, all outta mind bleach after this week. *shudder*
TFH: more like mind hydroflouric acid. Industrial strength.
I’d like to give him a pill too…a cyanide capsule. I might need one after seeing today’s strip too. Absolutely f*cking vile, sickening and repulsive beyond all words. Seriously TomBat, the “horny old-timer” element you’ve added to the Dinkle character is NOT making him even more “endearing”…in fact it’s doing exactly the opposite. No one wants to visualize or even contemplate the idea of those two obese babbling idiots (shudder, gag) copulating. Sometimes Batom goes beyond being a dull, obscure comic strip maker-upper (I’m not calling it “writing” anymore) and takes FW to some really sick and perverse places. This is one of those times.
In order to preserve what little remains of my sanity, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of today’s strip.
Let’s see. There was that “putting out” thing from July 16. That “chapel of love”/”have fun kids” thing from July 18. Harry taking off his coat (which might have been a hint of them about to have sex or not) on July 19. And today. That’s three or four days of constantly reminding us that these two are going to have sex.
Why in hell does Batiuk think that it’s such an important part of the story to repeatedly remind us that these two have intercourse? What does it add to their characters? Once would have been more than enough to send the message that the elderly can still have sex.
I have to admit. I wish the pill Harry’s talking about is cyanide, but I digress.
I grudgingly have to give a nod to Batiuk’s artwork accuracy. Spot on renditions of the Falls,distant background, the fence, the Table Rock House.
Ooh. Can we hope and pray the happy couple forgot their American passports and can’t get back into the U.S.?
Normally, we implore Mr. Batiuk to “Show, don’t tell.” In this case, we must instead advise him to “Don’t show, don’t tell, and please don’t acknowledge.” This is just wrong on so many levels. Correction,Dinkle: You ARE a pill.
Batiuk has lost his mind. Nobody on god’s green earth wants to read this. Unfortunately, the strip usually reflects what’s going on in his own life, so thanks for sharing.
Could we please, PLEASE stop suggesting that certain weeks of this abomination is the “Worst Week of its History”? I think Batiuk’s now taking that as a challenge, and we have an entire year’s worth of strips still to go. If he’s talking about Harriet’s birth control and Dinkle’s, well, dinkle, imagine where we’ll be in six months.
Let’s just say he’s swirling the drain and leave it at that.
It’s really hard to say what the “worst” is.
There was that “Les is being pursued by two women” thing that sorta just sputtered out.
There was that “Frank and Occasionally African Lenny want a reality TV show and we get seven days of the same scene”.
There was that “Les has writers block trying to write a script”.
There was that “kid thinks he’s getting texts from a hot girl but it’s really his best friend as part of some weird fight over her or something” (yeah, that was a freaking weird arc).
And there’s this.
So who knows?
I feel like I need a pill.
“Funky Winkerbean is a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.” Riiiiight. And don’t even mention that quarter-inch shit.
Earlier this week: “Because I threw you this tiny, minimum effort party, I expect you to have sex with me!”
Later in the week: “No! I will -not- show concern for the well being of my friend! Because of my sex, that’s why!”
Today: “Isn’t it funny that we are both sexual beings, yet I must now take pills to embiggen my sexual desire while you used to take pills to squelch any spawn from our having sex? HAW!”
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Tom: Setting gender relations back several decades with each strip he creates.
Okay, i am a little leery of reading Batiuk’s blog now since he seems to use it to spoil his own upcoming storylines, but his July 14 entry has been a puzzler. It is another explanation of one of his Great Sunday Rip-Off strips, except it has no relation to the last couple of Sunday strips (two Dinkles, before that Frankie, before that a Rip-Off of a Girl’s Romance cover). If this Sunday is going to be a Rip-Off of the Flash cover he posts, it would seem to have gone with the “Funky and Les go jogging” week from before this Dinkle mess.
There’s nothing particularly gross about elderly people having sex, just these particular elderly people. Or anyone else in Funky Winkerbean. Judge Parker, it ain’t. Will tomorrow’s strip feature Harry and Harriet suffused in a creepy post-coital Viagra-blue twilight? Will the obligatory reflective glass surface be the mirror over their bed?
Well, I’ll be the odd guy out today because I thought this was actually the funniest strip he’s done in months. I would have been happier had TB skipped the buildup with the cake/cupcakes and party at Chucky Cheese and simply had someone say, “Did you know that Harry and Harriet celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the Falls this week?” Then cut to today’s strip. It would have save a ton of pain and still be as funny to this child of the 50’s as it was in TB head.
Great. Just great. What’s next on the “comics’ pages- Hi and Lois’ sex tape?! We find out Blondie and Dagwood are into S&M?! Beetle and Sarge enjoy Small Penis Humiliation?! Please make it stop!!
There’s nothing particularly gross about elderly people having sex, just these particular elderly people
My feeling wasn’t that it was because they were elderly. Rather, it was because of all the various things Batiuk could be exploring in this strip, he focuses on Harry Dinkle’s boner. It wouldn’t be any less execrable if it were Funky talking about his boner, or Les talking about his, or Wally talking about his.
The guy’s boundaries are completely out of whack. He has Funky just casually discuss his enlarged prostate with two kids (who were Funky and Crazy 30 years ago, but still). He has Les spend his lead-up to a marriage proposal talking about how his first wife died of cancer. And now he’s got Dinkle talking about how he takes boner pills so he can pile it into his old lady. Our auteur, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh no. That smugly smirking disembodied Les head can only mean one thing…mass rage, intense hatred and violently grating wordplay is in our future.