Welcome to Main Street, Westview, Ohio…where the “American Dream” goes to wither and die a slow, painful and agonizing death. Where do I even begin today? Let’s go panel by panel here…
First of all…Kahn! That in and of itself is quite noteworthy. Take a look at Wally aka Master Of The Obvious…yes Wally, that “going out of business” sign really DOES give one the impression that Kahn’s deli may indeed be closing! How someone with those keen observational skills ended up working at a crappy pizza place is a real mystery. The fact that Kahn’s is right next door to Montoni’s makes their shock and surprise even funnier. Then again, when it comes to pizza these folks are nothing if not focused.
Panel two: Check out that look of total horror on Funky’s face as he realizes that a) he’s getting a glimpse of his own not-too-distant future and b) his position as president of the local chamber of commerce is even more of a sham than it was yesterday. And look at Wally, who appears to have just realized that if he’d said nothing he’d probably be back inside already.
Then in the final panel we see Funky roaring into “heart attack” mode, as if shoveling a never-used sidewalk will somehow fool the locals into believing that their pitiful “downtown” area isn’t an abandoned desolate death-hole, a monument to failure, disappointment and shattered dreams. Actually, knowing what I do about the typical Westviewian, that could work. I mean no one ever actually enters any of these places so who’d notice the difference?
Goodbye, Citizen Kahn’s…we’ll always remember you as an especially stupid bit of Batominc wordplay. Poor Kahn, he had pretty much everything working against him from the start: dopey cutesy business name, nothing to do with pizza or comic books…you know, everything.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Wally,Kahn, other army guy and Rocky , Bathacks already running on empty for 2014
“It’ll make it look like there’s still some life downtown. And when they stroll over here, happy and pleased, and then see that the deli is closed, they can get the full dose of disappointment that’s a daily requirement in Westview and they’ll finally know in their bones that everything is futile. Win-win all around, really.”
Last seen….Kahn was a cameo at the Mandingo wedding.
Excuse me but right next door and never a mention or appearance?
Bathack: “Oh my a character development I can’t resolve? Puff.. they’re gone.”
Like Chen, Pete, those little kids, Summer, Keisha, Jinx…………oh never mind.
“Gee, if we’d only bothered to broaden our horizons beyond our very limited circle, he might have done better business. Oh well, back to Montoni’s for our daily pizza break!”
Of course Khan’s is closing. He has to go back to Afghanistan to capture Cory so TB can revisit his old plot lines.
Also since Funky is shoveling the snow into the street the next snow plow will push it back onto the sidewalk. Sisyphus the patron saint of Westview (Lisa is their Madonna).
Didn’t Kahn follow Wally over from Afghanistan for some unknown reason? They obviously haven’t talked in 5 years, what a joke. Maybe he ran off with Rena back to the homeland which is relatively thriving in comparison to Westview.
I was just reading the “land mine” arc on the official FW site. There’s some (hilarious) background on Kahn in that arc, although it ends before we see Kahn come stateside. If you opt to read it look for the incredibly obnoxious Les cameo, once a dick always a dick.
Let’s see, they were involved in an arc years ago. He opened his deli next door and it has been there for a while. He is closing and the president of the C of C had no idea there was trouble even tho the guy was his business neighbor?
Yup, it always happens like this.
Maybe Kahn will have a rare holographic variant cover of Starbuck Jones #194* that he can sell to Holly, thereby saving his business.
* Where the grim antihero Destructar reveals that he is actually Starbuck’s son who was sent 2,000 years into the past to be raised by the Undertoads.
Wally: “Look at THAT! It looks like Khan is closing his deli!”
Funky: “Um, you know that I -am- capable of reading, right? Plus, this place is right next door! Don’t talk like you’re spouting off plot points in some lame-ass story!”
Wally: “W-what exactly do you mean?”
Funky: “Never mind.”
Wally: “So, should we go inside and offer him sympathy? Moral support? Directions on job leads or aid for small businesses, Mister President of the Local Chamber of Commerce?”
Funky: “Huh? NO! It’s early and stuff. I need my coffee and breakfast pizza!”
Wally: “….*….at the very least, are we going to use one of John’s ultra rare, valuable back issues to keep him afloat?”
Funky: “Don’t be stupid!”
Wally: “…so what ARE we going to do?”
Funky: “….eh, we’ll do something mildly helpful but ultimately meaningless, in hopes that it’ll benefit us in a roundabout way.”
Wally: “…Happy effin’ New Year, Khan.”
Funky: “Pretty much!”
I was going to suggest that maybe a Subway might do well in their downtown area, but *gasp* that would be inviting great evil corporations into their pathetic hamlet
Khan’s business was doomed once he was not selected as the caterer for the Moore wedding.
Even in his home country, people preferred pizza to Kahn’s delicatessen-fare. His best bet for surviving Westview’s hypercompetitive restaurant market is probably reformatting his place as “Kahntoni’s Pizza”, that or serving every sandwich with a Yakov Smirnoff-ripoff joke. “In Taliban Afghanistan… cold cuts you.”
It’s like a bad parody of a Springsteen song
Maybe Khan realized that he’d do better in a city with a large Afghani population, rather than relocating to the ass-burg city of the guy who he captured when he was killing Americans for the Taliban.
He’s lucky no one in Westview cared about Wally, or he might have been firebombed.
Uh-oh.
$$$WESTVIEW ONCOLOGIST$$$: I was going to suggest that maybe a Subway might do well in their downtown area…
Of course, TB would call it something like “Busway” (see: SprawlMart)
Khan is, of course, the man who saved Wally’s life at great risk to his own (and after Wally told him to go away and not risk his own life). Naturally, Wally has been linked to Khan with friendship like a band of iron, and knew when Khan’s financial difficulties began.
Oh, wait. He had to find out by seeing a sign in Khan’s window, next door to the place he, Wally, himself works. I guess Batiuk is planning for the US troop pullout from Afghanistan and dumping his Afghan character.
‘Look at that! It looks like lost the model sheet to Khan.’
‘Let’s write an awkward reference to him anyway. It’ll make it look like there’s still some life in this comic.’
Interesting point, Chaos. Khan’s had…what, two blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos in the past five years? That’s the comic strip equivalent of millenia.
And yet references to him are dropped without background or explanation.
Contrast this with Jess, who’s the daughter of John Darling Who Was Murdered Who Les Wrote a Book About, as gets mentioned EVERY time she turns up in an arc EVER.
@Charles–it would be great if Montoni’s does so poorly itself because it is in the middle of “Little Kabul”, Westview’s thriving Afghan community.
—Busway” (see: SprawlMart)—
Busway. East Stale!!
I mean, EAT Stale!
Goddamn Tablet keyboard!!!
Maybe Batiuk is right. Technology is evil.
It’s funny how every business in town not only fails, but they fail in a very specific way, with lots of wry weary banter, godawful jokes and sympathetic smirks. And it’s never a matter of the business being subpar or poorly-run, it’s always sort of implied that it’s “this modern world of ours” that’s somehow to blame. Yet conversely, whenever we get a look at a Westviewian business in action, the proprietors are almost always cynical, beaten losers who never stop bitching. It’s all so Batiukian.