Your old pal TFH checking in today. I fear that, after turning author duties over to the esteemed Beckoning Chasm, Epicus Doomus, and, next week, David O, that my snark reflex has begun to atrophy. Because I look at today’s strip and see the same old contemporary issues being depicted in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner and I feel like to puke.
A Scapegoats receiver goes for the ball: will he catch it? No, and he’ll look like a spaz in the attempt (but at least that Goats’ defender knows how to hit). Fat, beady-eyed Coach Bull “ta-weeeets” his displeasure, and takes”Ryan” aside to offer him some useless advice: “you might as well catch it.” Ryan, being a teenager, expresses his complete lack of comprehension of the most fundamental aspect of what he’s supposed to be doing. This cluelessness is usually Owen’s schtick, though Maddie (before she disappeared) and any number of Mr. Moore’s anon-o-students have shown the same lack of guile (anytime a teen in this strip (anytime a teen utters the word “seriously?”, get ready for a “punchline”).
Son of Stuck Funky 
TFH: It isn’t you. I’ve felt the same way lately, the material over the last few months has been so abysmal that it makes it very difficult to really find much to say about it aside from “FW is a complete pile of shit” and “the guy who supposedly writes this crap is the luckiest man alive if they actually pay him for it”. If he spent more than 15-20 minutes “writing” the last 8-10 weeks of this thing I’d be flabbergasted. It’s like he taunting the readers, daring them to notice how little he cares.
Like today’s latest colorized contribution to our nation’s overflowing landfills, featuring (zzzzzz) the horrible WHS football team….again. It took me a second to figure out Tombat’s little gag here, which I’m assuming is that the team is so bad that they allow anyone to play regardless of whether they know the rules or not. Or it could be that “these kids today” are still total imbeciles. Or then again, it could be that as hellish as high school is, extracurricular activities are truly the seventh circle of hell. Or it could be none of those things, who the hell really knows? By the time he finished “writing” it I doubt he knew either.
Batiuk seems to have reached an impasse. He’s unwilling or unable to create new characters and doesn’t seem to have anything left to do with (or to) his old ones. He can’t keep going back to the medical encyclopedia for a new Disease Of The Week or find yet another way to shoehorn Lisa back into the strip without descending into self parody (if it hasn’t already).
Bull: “Look, Ryan,”
Owen: “Um, it’s Owen, sir.”
Bull: “Owen?!? Since when are YOU a Bully Jock?”
Owen: “Since a few weeks ago, apparently.”
Bull: “….*…huh. Well, Owen, you’re a teenager. Therefore, you are automatically and innately worthless and evil, and anything I do with you will just be a big fat waste of MY precious time. Therefore, you suck and I hate you.”
Owen: “Whoa…”
Bull: “Puts you in your place, doesn’t it?”
Owen: “Actually, you’re a LOT nicer to me than Becky ever was! Wow! Now I’m GLAD I’m no longer in the band!”
Bull: *fumes*
I know just what you guys mean. After the end of the Frankie Retcon Arc and that brief weirdness that was Wally returning to college and proposing marriage but it’s killed before Tom is forced to create new characters, the past few months have been nothing but TEENAGERS ARE BAD TEENAGERS ARE BAD TEENAGERS ARE BAD TEENAGERS ARE BAD AND I HATE THEM.
And Dinkle. I’m dreading when HE turns up again.
It’s almost enough to make me long for the return of Fred and Ann’s sham marriage or Crazy Harry Kollecting Komix. Almost.
Don’t feel too bad; it’s not our fault Batiuk’s fondness for “damn kids get offa my lawn” strips has outlasted any value it might have even as snark fodder.
I’ve felt the same way about the strip–its one defining characteristic seems to be laziness. It makes it hard to critique something that’s so Not There to Start With. It’s almost like “conceptual art” in that each viewer has to make up his or her own interpretation.
But there has to be something there to start with, something to react to. And Funky Winkerbean just doesn’t have anything there these days. That’s why most of my posts tend to spin off in some odd angle–it’s hard to drive straight when you don’t even know where the road is.
It’s almost like Funky Winkerbean is becoming a zombie strip.
Lazy, uninspired, repetitive, ponderous and most of all, dumb. It’s the same f*cking jokes over and over again, every day. The lack of effort is just so glaringly obvious. It’s certainly nothing new, it’s just an especially long period of bad filler material.
“It’s almost like Funky Winkerbean is becoming a zombie strip.”
But that would be fun to read!