It’s hard to think of a Funky Winkerbean character more boring than Funky himself. It’s also hard to think of one for which Tom Batiuk has such obvious loathing.
I’ve mentioned a theory before that the fortunes of the Funky cast rise and fall with how their real-life counterparts interact with Batiuk himself. Bull, for example, once the hated bully jock, now enjoys a fairly elevated status in Westview. Oh sure, he’s overworked and the teams he coaches lose every game, but recall how this is presented. The overwork makes him heroic, and the losses are always, always the fault of the players–those damn kids again.
Funky seems to be an especially sad example. Once the star of the strip as a bright-eyed and observant teen, since his real-life counterpart obviously had a massive falling out with Les Moore TomBatiuk, he’s now a sad sack of failure and ennui. And we’re going to watch a week of him talking about how impossible it will be for him to improve his lot.
Imagine if this arc would be about Les instead. Why, on Saturday, Les would be extolling his newfound healthy regimen, preaching to all who could control their impulse to punch his face in. Remember, it was Les Moore who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and Funky Winkerbean who collapsed a few feet into the last Lisa’s Legacy run.
How have the mighty fallen.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Among Funky’s problem areas: 3 panels. 3 different noses.
You have to give TB a point for creating a new character, however bland, to be the personal trainer, and not Bull. Unless of course, his only reason for bringing in a new character was so she could mangle his name and insult him.
Give him credit; he seems to be the only person in Westview using the fitness center at this point. Then again, the place consists of a big empty room containing two (2) treadmills and a surly physical therapist, so maybe everyone else wised up already.
Hey Batiuk, I know more than five people who work as physical trainers in some capacity. I’ll let you know one thing they all have in common…
When a morbidly obese man wearing a shirt from the local pizza parlor walks in the door for the first time and talks about starting up a new exercise regimen to lose weight, they don’t start him off running on a treadmill. (While having a conversation with him, no less!) Typical people the size of dear Funky there would be gasping for breath and falling over after running on a treadmill for a mere three minutes. It’d be a totally useless effort and would probably result in them losing the client.
They’d also probably have the conversation with him about his needs and goals before they had him start doing anything. But they’d also work in a place that arranged the exercise equipment in a logical way, rather than having treadmills haphazardly strewn about the room.
I’ve mentioned a theory before that the fortunes of the Funky cast rise and fall with how their real-life counterparts interact with Batiuk himself.
Once the star of the strip as a bright-eyed and observant teen, since his real-life counterpart obviously had a massive falling out with Les Moore TomBatiuk, he’s now a sad sack of failure and ennui.
I’m not convinced of that at all, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Funky has no real life counterpart. I feel that Funky’s had things turn out so badly for him because he’s the name on the strip but he’s not the author avatar, and to an odd degree, Batiuk resents the character for this.
The “problem area” is everything within the Westview city limits and the only “work” than needs to be done on it involves copious quantities of napalm. And someone better warn Fitness Girl that if she’s going to stand around all smugly like that she’s going to catch the eye of a certain Mr. Moore and Lord knows she doesn’t want that.
I think it’s kind of interesting how we point and laugh at “Funky Winkerbean” the comic strip, while BatWrite points and laughs at Funky Winkerbean the character. As Charles mentioned above, I think Batiuk genuinely resents how his strip is stuck with its unwieldy, stupid name. He’s also the embodiment of every single “getting old” gag in the Batom repertoire, at this point Funky is like a well (well, well, well) worn punching bag and like they say, familiarity breeds contempt.
Please, Epicus, we prefer the term “quarantine zone”.
And I have a new theory. Maybe Westview is where companies send all their employees they can’t fire but can’t have interacting with the world. That would explain how the town has survived, it’s being artificially propped up by companies that are terrified of what will happen when the town disappears and all the unwanted zombie employees are released.
When a morbidly obese man wearing a shirt from the local pizza parlor walks in the door for the first time and talks about starting up a new exercise regimen to lose weight, they don’t start him off running on a treadmill.
Funky goes or at least regularly went running with Les on weekends. Like with my old boss, I’d just claim that he could be one of those ‘fit yet fat’ people who have massive spare tires but could beat 95% of people in a 5K.
But then again, he damn near passed out during a very recent race. So who knows.
So who knows.
Certainly not TB.
+1 for the trainer’s exaggerated akimbo in panel 1, though. She’s putting Superman to shame with that pose, much less Funky.
Funky goes or at least regularly went running with Les on weekends. Like with my old boss, I’d just claim that he could be one of those ‘fit yet fat’ people who have massive spare tires but could beat 95% of people in a 5K.
Sure, but Fitness Girl doesn’t know that. All she knows is that a 55 year-old-ish big fat guy, wearing a pizza shirt and sweatpants from 1978 just walked into her gym and told her that his wife sent him there to lose weight. Even if he told her that he runs 3 miles a week with his friend, she still wouldn’t take his word on that because there are plenty of fat guys who claim exercise they don’t do because they don’t want to shame themselves in front of the attractive woman who exercises for a living. She certainly wouldn’t put him on a treadmill and have him start running because that would probably kill him, figuratively speaking, hopefully. And there he is, feeling like an asshole and embarrassed about how he couldn’t even jog for a minute before he fell over, so he leaves after his time is up and never shows his face at the gym again.
I’ll also give credit for personal trainer character. Without any advanced character development she’s actually 100x more likeable than rest of the Funky Winkerbean cast.
Hell she’s a infinitely better exercise companion than goddamn Les Moore!!
Ha ha ha ha ha! Funky is overweight! What a hilarious week it’s been in Westview! Oh how the laughs keep coming! Ha ha ha!
My fitness place: 1st did total evaluation, asked for goals and are extremely supportive of everyone. A guy just joined, must weigh near 300 lbs, he works hard, staff roots for him and pushes him but NEVER insults or mocks him. Bats view of the world if he thinks it funny is goofy depressing and I really think he has some bizarre psych problems. Wow, do I love to hate this strip. Thanks for being a slow moving train wreck of a writer.