August 2013 – Son of Stuck Funky

The Business End

Naturally, anything called “Merchant’s Day” would have to feature the only two functioning businesses in Westview. What I don’t get is how cavalierly John runs his comic book shop. Here are a couple of potential customers who, yeah, might not read comics themselves, but might know people who do and thus might buy gifts, and John can’t even be bothered to look up. Isn’t he perpetually behind in his rent payments? Isn’t the entire town continually strapped for cash? Does he not want to even try to make money? Look at the expression on his face: it just screams “Get out of my shop. Get out of my shop. If I don’t look up maybe they’ll just go away.”

Besides, given the fact that John frequently proselytises everyone about the art and value of comic books, you would think in his world there wouldn’t be anyone who wasn’t a potential fan, just waiting to have him open up a whole new world for them. Yet here he doesn’t even try.

Yes, I do know that the words “try” and “attempt” and “strive” and so forth are considered curse words in Westview, but the continual avoidance of those activities is just so. Damned. Wearying.

…come to think of it, this particular episode seems to sum up Funky Winkerbean in a nutshell. “Look…here’s something.” Lady, if you only knew how wrong you are. “Never mind…this isn’t a store.” You know what else it isn’t? A joke. The joke is right here, and it’s on us.

A Matter of Perspective

Today’s strip

…or, “There Were Giants In The Earth.” The question I have is, why aren’t the band members playing on the football team? Look at the size of those creatures. Unless they’re all crammed on the scissors-lift, they must be around ten feet tall. No way some opposing team is going to get through a line of those guys! The dialogue above should read, “Please consider giving us all your money, or Band SMASH!” Unless what’s behind them is some prop goalpost, used in some wacky band skit. In which case…they don’t have money for classes, but they can buy props for band skits?

And I’m not buying the idea that this is some kind of “art mistake.” No way, Tom Batiuk was nominated for a Pulitzer, darn it, he wouldn’t make an error of that magnitude!

So, what did we learn this week? That bad things might happen in your life, and when they do, what you really need to do is pick yourself up, dust yourself off, then give up and walk away. Don’t even try to make a case for yourself or your viewpoint, because that’s just what they want you to do. Just don’t give ’em the satisfaction…you’ll find the smirks you can whip out generate plenty of satisfaction for you. And make certain to complain a lot as you go, because you always want to leave ’em wanting more, right? (Nota bene: that’s “more” and not “Moore.”)

I have heard rumors that there’s actually supposed to be a joke in the strip above. Fierce study by a squad of master detectives (plus some robots because they’re cool to have around) has failed to find any evidence of said “joke,” so I’m going to file that away under “Unlikely.”

Revenge of the Rats

Today’s strip

Above the post update:

Well, I’ve been wrong before. And I’ll be wrong again. Farewell, Jim, and godspeed.

Original post:

Friday’s strip was not available for preview, so while we wait I’m going to point out a couple of things.

1-unless something happens today, this week featured a pretty unique storyline: no one smirked. Let me repeat that: not one single character, in four days of a storyline wherein the cruelty of fate, taxpayers and school boards was loudly and repeated lamented, smirked. That has to be some kind of record. Of course, as noted, no one has seen today’s strip, it could be a regular smirkageddon.

2-this strip continues the trend that’s been going on for months now in which nothing ever gets resolved, except through exhausted defeat. I’m trying to think of the last time any of these characters took positive action in attempt to combat the entropy that closes around them like a strangling cloak. All I can remember is Owen and Cody building a robot…which was almost immediately destroyed. Most of the rest of these arcs have people determinedly doing nothing in order to stymie their opponents (the Frankie story). The last time I wrote in these pages, Les, Cayla and Funky sat down to have lunch. They never even got to eat. (Someone might mention the Dinkle Anniversary party as a counter-example. I’d point out that we never saw Harry do any of the things he was supposedly doing to prepare, other than talk to Funky. Instead, it was talk, talk, pun, talk, complain, talk, pun, talk, done.)

It’s one thing to have bad jokes, or bad insights. At least those are attempts. Having nothing, just having characters state their troubles, then give up and wander away…even badness is more “something” than that. The lack of anything in this strip is what makes it so hard to read, and so exhausting to try and come up with anything to say about it.

Maybe that’s Tom Batiuk’s plan all along; he hopes to starve criticism not by feeding it poison, or by not feeding it at all, but by feeding it those chemicals that bond to the digestive system and make it impossible for nourishment to be absorbed. Like…like that’s how they killed the Tribbles in that Star Trek show! If that’s his grand plan, I’d love to see the end result he hopes for: a comic strip free of critics so he can do…what, exactly?

Let’s hope today’s entry proves me wrong and is the first shot across the bow of a renewed Funky Winkerbean. I am not, of course, holding my breath. If you are, please let me know your record.

Old Feller

Today’s strip

Ah, this, this is always a sad moment: the moment when we say “Goodbye” to a character we’ve come to know and love. I mean, aside from the “know and love” bit, and the fact that we were never given time to come to care for this HarryLes amalgamation. Here he was given to us, and now taken away prematurely, before his true, inner loathsomeness could be allowed to flower, before we were given a chance to hate his every appearance. Why, yes, it is just as sad as all those times we wept over those Disney characters when they were slaughtered, or married off, or adopted, or (give me a moment to stem the tide of tears) hired at Sprawl Mart.

“Pay to Laugh” Maybe?

Today’s strip

I think Bull has found a better way to raise funds for the school–check out his stance in panel one; clearly, he is going to be a background dancer in rap videos. His “getting down” is “dope”! Maybe he’ll even be a rapper himself–

–or maybe not, there’s a limit to how “dope” something can be.

I’m not sure if Greybeard’s idea is as “dope,” only because I can’t figure out what Greybeard’s actual “Pay to Paint” plan is. If the arts classes are being cut, logically that probably means there aren’t enough students taking those classes; asking the few who have an interest to pay to attend seems like a losing proposition.

Of course, you’ll note I used the word “logically” up there. I suppose the purpose of this arc, like all the “school funding” arcs, is not to examine the issue at all but to yell that “taxpayers who want to cut teachers and classes are cheap meanies, because they are mean and cheap!” “Reality-based” only goes so far when you’ve constructed your own reality.

Speaking of art, panel two has the real “artistic” goods. Is that Les wearing a Crazy Harry mask, or Crazy Harry wearing a Les mask? Or is it one of Philip K. Dick’s insectoid aliens wearing an abandoned skin? And why is he/she/it talking to the worst drawing of Alfred Hitchcock ever made? These mysteries, my friends, may never be solved. Not if we want to “pay to sleep” at night.