Ya know, a SMALL nod to the event that changed the course of America might be nice. This is the funnies, of course, it’s not like I’m asking Garfield to stare sullenly at an American flag for three panels but it’s a little off that a strip that deals in melancholy as currency would pass up the chance to remember what happened on this date in New York City over a decade ago.
No such luck. Instead, today’s strip is just a time-marking daily grind forward until the next real story arc. Even the telephone pole and goal post weigh in on the current situation with some of the most weirdly-spaced dialog balloons since Mark Trail!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Flog, flog, flog….the anti-jock revenge fantasy just never ends. Get over it already, dude, it was a long time ago in an Act far, far away.
It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so desperately self-deprecating.
…. I don’t even get it. The point of this would be to get the team a bit afraid of their coach so they don’t ignore his orders and so they try even harder against opposing teams. How in this globally freezing Hell does making the team scared of the OPPOSING team help this goal at all?
You’d wonder why anyone would want to play (much less PAY to play) on a football team with such a terrible defeatist attitude. Bull doesn’t even seem to try and apparently everyone else just accepts this as being normal and even funny. But I guess it’s OK for Bull and the school in general to shirk their responsibility to the participating kids because they’re just football players, thus they’re too stupid to really matter. I mean that IS the message here, right?
I mean sure, it’s cool if Batom hates football and sure, there are a lot of jokes one could potentially do regarding a bad football team. But as Jeffcoat mentioned above, the endless self-depreciating misery just turns the whole thing into another predictable ponderous slog. Just awful.
To be fair to be the funnies, even the unfunnies, it’s really hard to appropriately work a nod to a serious event into a creative medium. Heck, I haven’t figured it out yet.
There are other reasons to criticize this comic, though, such as how Bull simultaneously looks like an old man and a baby in panel 3.
Inkwell: Agreed, all I could think of was how Bull is being infantilized there in panel 3. I expect he is wearing adult diapers.
“Well, as long as someone is making those evil teenagers miserable, amirite?”
If all the football team’s parents got together and sued Bull to get their money back from the “Pay to Play” scheme, that might be funny. They could do better if they pooled the money together and ran their own team with Fishstick Annie coaching.
How does it feel to be coaching football again?? What’s the matter re-animated Mark Twain? You can’t tell from the coach’s delightful mug that he’s just oozing happiness and joy? You must be as bad at picking up cues as Wally Winkerbean!
People love Bull’s self-depreciating sense of humor. They’re always telling him he’s worth less.
a tip of the Funky fedora to DavidO for the very funny post titles this week. Following in the esteemed footsteps of TFH, Epicus, and BC.This site is soooo much funnier than the strip. Thanks all.
Bull should disband the team now and avoid futher embarasssment.
1) Of all the people that could comment on 9-11 the last person in the world I would want would be Tom Batuik. The memory is sad and depressing enough without the ham handed one somehow making it worse with some pointless self indulgent grief wallow.
2) You know. These jokes could actually work if instead of Bull’s “oh sweet death why have you not come for me yet as this life is but a brute misery’ expression these were delivered with the understanding that the speaker has a sense of humor about himself as well. John McKay the first coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs, in the midlist of a two season long 0-26 losing streak during the team’s first two years was asked after one game. “What do think about the execution of your offense?” “I’m in favor of it.” He said. Seriously a smile on the joke teller’s face would help but no – the team’s awfulness is just another cross for the man to bear.