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.
Son of Stuck Funky 
On NJ’s comment section eclectoman scares me. I’m reminded of an AI going crazy. They start shouting “I need scissors” and I’m running for it.
Anyway you would think that those two, being band members who actually tough it out, would be unhappy that music class is going. But no, they’re teenagers. What do teenagers do? They make comments about how they hate education!
So valuable arts and music programs are being cut, but it’s okay because The Kids These Days are ungrateful hooligans who don’t deserve a good education! So there!
“This strip continues the trend that’s been going on for months now in which nothing ever gets resolved, except through exhausted defeat”
Minor correction, BC: the word “months” should read “years”. “Jim” was nothing more than TheAuthor amusing himself (and no one else) again. Then he quickly ran out of material after four days (as usual) so here’s the dimwitted moron with the idiotic hat for his typical “look how dumb and lazy these kids are nowadays” schtick. The “budget cuts” will be quickly forgotten until next August, when he’ll just rehash the arc yet again. Batom Inc.’s incredibly lazy hackery knows no bounds.
This strip hasn’t sucked enough lately, it’s just dull and lame now. We need Frankie and Lenny and the late John Darling’s daughter(whose father John Darling was murdered) back!
And quickly, like you light on a good thing!
Cody: “I heard they were going to be cutting art, gym, music, and lunch. So I decided to just cut all my own classes, because I’m an evil, stupid teenager.”
Owen: “I too am an evil, stupid teenager! How I delight in my wickedness!”
Both in unison: “We’re stupid and evil, because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just are! Because we just a-”
************************************************
Tom Batiuk: “Funky Winkerbean is a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner. Now where are my damn awards and accolades?!? C’mon, educators! Can’t you see I know how it is?!? Evil, stupid voters, not giving us all their money during a recession! Evil, stupid kids, needing EFFORT and TIME instead of just knowing everything the moment they enter class! Oh, how I HATE them both! So, gimme gimme gimme my AWARDS already!”
The one with the glasses seems to have aged 15 yrs today.
Since nothing but teenage slacking is happening in today’s strip, let’s take a look back to 1972…
where nothing but teenage slacking was also happening.
Les really hasn’t changed, has he?
So if Jim is the art teacher who was the bald headed guy from last school cuts?
@AHREF: He got cancer of course.
“They cut lunch.!!!”..
..where it has been depicted that you get beat up regularly and picked on by bullies and get served food that even the roaches won’t touch.
“They’ve cut gym!!!”
-Where both of you most likely also get beat up and considering you both have the athletic talent of Pee Wee Herman, you probably don’t excel at.
“They’ve cut art!!!”
-from what I’ve seen..neither of you guys has shown any artistic talent other than spending way too much time with DSH John at the comic shop!
“They’ve cut band”!!
“Yes, you may no longer have to endure the histronics of insecure band teachers and have to sweat out band practices and camps. Activities that from you expressions…neither of you enjoy…
“Hope they cut Math & Science”!!!
-Yes the two subjects that might actually get you somewhere in life and out of this godforsaken town…you want to have removed. Smart thinking, Chullo boy!!!
@billytheskink — what your blasts from the past (thanks for finding and/or producing those scans!) show is that Batominc’s craft of writing has neither improved nor declined over the past 41 years. I used to have a sort of nostalgic fondness for FW, but I now realize it was misplaced, brought upon by the natural tendency of the memory to artificially improve things from the past.
We have the trademark last-panel 4th-wall smirk, and, as a bonus, we have the characters unnecessarily, unnaturally, and, yes, inexplicably addressing each other by name, the way teenage buddies never do when there are just two friends present.
Thanks for the 1972 strip, bts…number one, I don’t get it, and number two, Les used to copy math homework from Funky? Who’s wearing the glasses here?
Mudhead and Porgy better hope that Jim the art teacher is dead before they graduate/drop-out because they’ll be fight for that same job at Sprawl-Mart
80% of Westview probably qualifies for free or reduced lunches, so it’s probably a money maker for the school with federal grants.