While most comic strip artists would be content to allow their readers to assume that a mug would contain a hot beverage, that’s not enough for the creative team at Batom Inc. They’re going to make goddamned sure that you KNOW that shit is hot, via the ingenious use of the steam line. It’s those kinds of little nuances that really make up for the glaring lack of an interesting story.
The corner-thingy sepia-toned faux-flashback helps too, as the reader is forced to stare at it for an inordinate amount of time in a vain attempt to figure out the point, thus distracting them from the glacial pace and general pointlessness of the whole thing. We do have the SoSF forensics team working around the clock to figure out what that point is and as soon as we get the results we’ll post them. But don’t hold your breath.
Brilliant nuance and story-avoidance aside, two things really stand out about this one. First there’s the laughable dialog masquerading as wry banter, but you’ll get that on any weekday I suppose. Funky’s peculiar poses are more difficult to explain, especially given how Funky has been featured quite a bit lately. You’d think the drawings would get MORE consistent when he’s using the character more often but nope, it obviously doesn’t work that way around here. In panel one he appears to have been lobotomized and in panel three he’s morphing into kindly-but-dimwitted grandpa mode. And in panel two, he’s Wally. It’s just all over the freaking place, man.
“Hit or miss”…I’m wracking my brain trying to think of even one small thing that could possibly be construed as even being close to a “hit” in Funky’s post-Cindy life and all I can come up with is the time Cell Phone Girl “hit” his car. Well, at least he still has his bland, pitifully self-effacing sense of “humor” about his nightmarish delusion of a life. I think those two will definitely rekindle the romance after Holly is killed by a landmine (aka “bouncing betty”) while delivering Corporal Cory’s Comic Collection in Afghanistan. In fact, the first thing Funky should do is fit her for an apron.
Son of Stuck Funky 
The idea that Funky has retreated into a delusion of his past is perhaps the most interesting thing to happen in this strip in ages.
What’s the point of flashing back to the middle of a conversation? Why would anyone, the characters, the artist, or the audience, ever remember Funky saying this?
Ever since Cindy was shipped to Cleveland/the greater Westview area, Batiuk has gone all-in on the lines under her eyes.
“…life catches up with all of us.”
If you can call vegetating in Westview living, that is.
Though this is the most attractive I’ve seen Funky in years.
“Life catches up with all of us”…implying that “life” itself is the enemy here. Not time, not age, but life. That’s a pretty interesting and really dark philosophy right there, an interesting choice for a daily comic strip too.
I guess the steaming hot coffee could foreshadow something. I was hoping it might foreshadow Cindy throwing scalding hot liquid directly into Funky’s enormous face, but that’s probably too much to hope for.
But really…what is Funky’s angle here? If Funky was capable of convincing an attractive women to sleep with him..it would have been better for him to hit up that exercise chick, or even the Pizza Twat. Right now, he’s attempting to get busy with a chick his wife knows in a place that his wife works at!
This might be the most inept attempt at an affair in the history of cuckoldhery (is that even a word??….I’m so upset I’ve lost complete grasp of the english language!!! Darn it)