Hey, that title is topical! Topical is automatically funny, right? I’m sure hoping so, as we continue to plow through this Sahara Desert of comedy in today’s strip.
I almost wish TomBat would have “tackled” the issue of high-school concussion-related injuries “head-on” instead of what we just went through!
Son of Stuck Funky 
A: Bull Bushka, Becky Howard, Tom Batiuk
Q: Name (at least) three mopey FW characters who grudgingly go through the motions and clearly don’t give half a f*ck.
Intrigued by the new pic in the header? It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new face around these parts, eh? Looking forward to seeing where this goes, or doesn’t go as the case may be.
He seems justifiably angry, yet not world-weary-decrepit-smirk-angry.
I like him.
Is that John Lydon in the header? I wish.
our maybe Sids older bro ,please let him kick Les morons @ss
And again, it’s adults talking to adults. Aside from Owen giving that oh-so-witty announcement about the fact that the team sucks, can anyone provide me a recent example of a teen talking to another teen WITHOUT it being in response to something an adult’s doing?
Let’s see:
Recently we’ve had those college women (over the age of teens) responding to the soldier and his dog (both of which are adults for their species).
The old couple having an awful anniversary and the husband outright saying that he wanted sex as a reward for the anniversary.
Summer reading that incredibly contrived journal in response to the actions of multiple adults.
The gays go to prom thing where two gays teens talked to another teenager so we could see adults talking to teens and adults talking to adults.
At best I think there was a brief bullying arc and that really confusing fake text message arc. And I’m pretty sure those were surrounded by more stories featuring adults.
I think the only reason that Batiuk even HAS teenagers in his comic at all is that he can’t give up the high school and wants some way to justify that glowing blurb he has on NJ’s website.
As has been noted by many here, it seems to me that Tom Batiuk’s goal is to diffuse all criticism by simply not having anything happen in this strip. No drama, no jokes, no character development, nothing. When nothing happens, well, it’s very difficult to critique nothing. Imagine being a movie reviewer. You’re settle in your chair at a press screening and you’re then told that the projector is broken and cannot be repaired in less than three days. Your column is due tonight for the morning edition. What can you write about? How uncomfortable the chairs, how stale the popcorn, how flat the soda, how the screen looked nicer 40 years ago? J. Jonah Jameson isn’t going to like that.
Eventually you give up on movies and decide to write a gardening column. Or at least that’s what Tom Batiuk is hoping.
Today’s header: what if Fonzie played Han Solo?
Why not just have Becky be the coach? She’s certainly more enthusiastic about her job than Bull is!
Is Bull carrying Becky’s shriveled arm that he discovered in the Lost & Found box? Never mind, that would be Continuity. Go on with… whatever this is supposed to be. I hope that creepy 80’s-era flasher guy in the header has some better ideas for next week.
I’ve looked at this strip a few times, and I honestly can’t figure out what the joke is supposed to be, other than the football team sucks and the band is the only reason why anybody would want to come to a game. At least, based on the unseen-before persona in the header, something different’s about to happen.
bobanero: Bull wants to know why the band didn’t come on for the halftime show earlier and save the team from what was presumably a dismal first half, since he apparently has no clue how the time clock in football works.
Who is that in the header? Creepy.
TB has turned into Mort Walker the last few weeks–but a Mort Walker who can do only “Gee Sarge sure is fat jokes” instead of rotating it with “Sarge beats Beetle up” “Beetle is lazy” “Miss Buxley is the sex” “General Halftrack is old drunk and lecherous” “golf” and “Lt. Fuzz is annoying”. every so often.
But TB’s depiction of high school in the 21st century is less realistic than Mort’s depiction of the US Army in the 21st century.
And speaking of the 21st century and the army–the hell happened to Cory. He’s in the Army. Right?
I bet that he will show back up and have some horrible have happened to us and we will find out from purely written wal o’text rather than from any dramatic tension.
Also anyone elxe notic ethat the cast of characters page has been removed from the official FW site. Guess too many beady eyed nit-pickers were looking at it.
I’m guessing mystery man is some type of drug dealer..cause lord knows the people of Westview could use one!!!!
Beckoning: If there’s anything to be discerned from Funky Winkerbean Act III, it’s the glorification and exaltation of passive acceptance over ambition and activity.
Note that both major villains of the past couple of years, Evil Roberta and Frankie the Reality Show Star, were depicted as evil mostly because of the fact they were trying to get things DONE more than the actual nature of their actions.
Note that on the rare, very rare occasions that a minor or secondary character puts effort into anything, they invariably suffer intense short term agony (Dinkle’s party planning) or lose everything they had (Susan’s kiss)
Out of the leads, our golden boy is Les, who never puts any effort into anything but the occasional cruel taunting of those LESser than himself, and reaps naught but benefits from his creator for being so perfectly passive. Because to Tom, passive IS content. Taunting IS happiness. And this strip IS a travesty.
HREF: We won’t getting updates on Cory, but Tom has stated we WILL see Holly buying Komix for him! Joy, joy, joy. 😛
Well, for today’s gotta say great art. It was clearly late night the last two strips, now it’s evening.
And why is a TV crew interviewing him. Do they regularly do this now?
And Bull badmouthing his team publicly. Take a drink.