Moving forward at break-neck speed, Darrin is already old-hat at diaper changes and taking care of little Skyler, who, thank the gods, appears to have his mother’s nose from the looks of things in today’s strip.
Bonus Nonsense strip!
And again, I’m no parent, but I do take a common sense approach when it comes to handling raw feces while eating. The FDA’s official stance on the matter is: “No, never, geez, what are you, stupid? OMG, that’s so gross!”
Son of Stuck Funky 
But can he change a diaper while eating pizza and reading a comic book? Because if he can’t, what good is he? And I hope his personal sanitary habits undergo an upgrade when he’s (ugh) handling pizzas, although somehow I doubt it really matters.
Look at Jan in panel one. The Aging Angel sure visited her in a hurry. Baggy eyes are only the first sign. Now that she’s seen her first grandchild (a male, thank the Westview Gods) she can die in peace. Well, no, she can die in protracted agony–makes a much longer plot arc, yes?–but same difference.
In contrast, look at Darin and Jess in the “Darin finds his birth mother” arc from well before the last quote unquote Time Jump. Isn’t it odd how neither of them have aged at all since then? Why aren’t they fat and balding, and agonizing how they cannot possibly raise this infant?
I’m afraid that the “joke” here is that infant feces usually resemble peanut butter in color and consistency. Which makes it even more disgusting.
Am I wrong in thinking that the joke doesn’t work unless we get to see the peanut butter sandwich, or am I giving Batiuk too much credit in suggesting that he was actually going for a joke in the first place?
Jeffcoat, the joke just doesn’t work period. Even if Batiuk was trying for grossout humor, which I don’t think he was, it would still just be an awful thing.
The feces thing aside, I was happy to see genuinely happy faces on everyone. Or the closest we’ll ever get.
You mean the stock art that isn’t well set up and so looks like poorly designed robotic people? Yes, I know that comics need stock art. It’s insane to draw every single thing every single day. You still need to make sure that it actually works.
Today’s strip overtakes “Two Guys Stand Beside a Bush while a Woman Pees” and “Band Director Asks Wife to Put Out after Showering her with Gifts of Cupcakes and Pizza” as this year’s episode with the greatest ick factor.
@Gyre – “Jeffcoat, the joke just doesn’t work period. Even if Batiuk was trying for grossout humor, which I don’t think he was, it would still just be an awful thing.”
Obviously he’s trying out for a gig at “Marvin”, which would be a step up from where he is now. Unfortunately for TB he doesn’t have the writing chops for it since it requires more sophisticated writing then he has show us to date.
I was waiting for Skyler to be mistaken for a band turkey and sold…Instead we get feces and peanut butter.
Obviously he’s trying out for a gig at “Marvin”, which would be a step up from where he is now.
To be fair to Batiuk — and believe me, he needs every bit of credit he can get — he’s not at Marvin-level yet. I don’t even think that he’s in the Bottom 10 of Awful Comics That Show Up In Every Newspaper.
Heck, let’s make a list of those comics right now. Except for Apartment 3G, which I believe is the worst comic that actually shows up in newspapers, here is an unranked list of 10 comics I think are worse than Funky Winkerbean:
1. For Better or For Worse
2. Marvin
3. Mary Worth
4. Newspaper Spider-Man (while prettier to look at than everything on this list, the actual plots are God-Awful)
5. Love Is
6. Gil Thorp
7. Drabble
8. Marmaduke
9. Mark Trail
10. Apartment 3G
If I really wanted to I could probably stretch the list out to 20 comics. But I think those are 10 comics that are without question reliably worse than The Bean. Of course, this more speaks of the wretched quality of Newspaper Comics than anything else.
@ H&N, To attempt to differentiate the Top 10 Worse comics is impossible…these and FW stink equally along with CS…and yes others..
Can’t mention FBOFW… it concluded it’s own story life. The key word there is “concluded”. TB has never really concluded any story arch….nothing but loose-ends he conveniently just forgets about. I dare say even Apt 3G, MW & MT wraps up stories. They are dumb…but they have a ending.
Awwww, mang, that’s just repulsive. Even if it’s a gag perpetrated by the Bitch Jess, it’s still the most gnarly shit I’ve seen in a comic, and I’ve seen both Marvin and Family Circus. If she means it literally, then Durwood is just a sick, sick man. Either way, I want to blow chunks.
Now, I’m not a nationally syndicated cartoonist but I’d like to think I’m up on some of the comics industry’s lingo. Pretty sure TB is using the wrong definition of “gag” today…
And with all of the Marvin references going around, I think it is worth pointing out that Marvin creator Tom Armstrong drew pretty much the entire run of John Darling. Given this prior relationship, TB may well have called him up for some diaper jokes.
Cooked feces, of course, are okay to handle?!? 🙂
I disagree with having Gil Thorp on that list. Despite the batshit insane artwork and plot lines, there is some continuity and coherence with the characters, and no ham-handed attempts at humor. It’s not a great comic to be sure, but I would put it well above FW.
It’s funny because babies can’t control their bowels, and peanut butter resembles the contents of diapers, and the genius MBA inventor of both the pizza app and breakfast pizza itself lives in a squalid apartment above a pizza parlor and adjacent to a creepy comic book store, and he lives on peanut butter sandwiches like a college freshman.
Also he has no gag reflex.
@Howard and Nester, I don’t know what this says about me, but I enjoy “Drabble”. It can be corny and ridiculous at times, however; Kevin Fagan makes no pretense at it being anything more than a gag strip and in fact reviles in it.
I’m also willing to give “Marmaduke” a pass simply because it provides fodder for The Comics Curmudgeon.
I am truly shocked that “Luann” didn’t make your list.
@DOlz: Luann is horrible and even offensive, but it targets a specific kind of audience: bitter, vengeful nerds who weren’t able to become successful and loved after high school despite society’s promises of things getting better. Or people about to become such. It provides them schadenfreude and/or wish fulfillment. On its own terms it’s hard to call the strip a failure. A similar calculus applies for 9 Chickweed Lane. I know otherwise reasonable people who unironically and emphatically like those comics. In a literary and artistic sense, comics like Funky Winkerbean and Spider-Man are less abominable than those two but please no one. So I think they have less of a reason to exist.
Jess: Yup, Darin is totally wonderful, because he views a soiled diaper as the perfect excuse to stuff his face with high fat snacks!”
Jan: “…uh….”
Jess: “Uh-oh! I can tell by the look on your face Mom, that somebody needs a change! Darin? Still have the wipes?”
Jan: “HEY!!!”
Darin: “Oooh, wait! First let me whip myself up a batch of muddy buddies!”
As far as other strips, FBOFW had similarities to current FW (trying to move from gag-a-day to melodrama, weird obsession with certain Mary Sues), but is off the radar now; Luann is probably closest now, but at least it doesn’t try for pathos so heavy-handedly. The thing from your list i really think matches FW best is probably Spider-Man, in that both appear completely oblivious to how the reader perceives the main characters to be completely the opposite of how they’re portrayed.
Probably the only things i have no respect at all for are the legacy gag strips: Crock, BC, Wizard of Id, Hagar… Each sort of had it’s day and is now continuing for no reason ($) at all.
Okay, and Marvin. Geez, that guy worked with TB for a couple of years and learned all the wrong lessons.
When I was a kid, the pediatrician I went to had framed Marvin strips up on the walls of his examination room. Today, I blame them for most of my flaws.
.Why do I get feeling Funky will say that when he’s visiting his dad in the Thanksgiving strip.
@Doug Puthoff: Given how Batiuk draws the main cast outside of Les, Funky will be so old looking that him and his dad could pass for brothers.