So if I told you that one of the weekly Sunday funnies contained a Nazi land mine, how long would it take you to realize it had to be a FW strip? In fact, I would venture a guess that FW has contained more land mine-centric plots than every other daily strip combined. Anyhow, the “you must love Cory” campaign continues today as Holly and Fatso toss and turn over the Courageous Corporal’s dangerous army assignment…again… as Cory’s disembodied army head hovers above them, silently judging the parenting skills that landed him in the explosive ordnance disposal detail, his snappy army helmet hiding his beady felonious eyes. I have no idea how long a modern stint in the army usually lasts but Batom is clearly enjoying this, so my guess is that Holly’s silent terror over Cory will be a semi-regular feature for a while. Hilarious.
I sort of enjoyed the comic cover tribute today, as I used to read loads of those war comics as a kid. Sgt. Rock…now THERE was a guy you didn’t f*ck with. That unit would have eaten Cory’s dumb ass alive. In fact, if Cory had been in Rock’s unit I believe “Dumbass” would have been a fitting nickname. Either that or “Petty Thief”.
It’s been quite a wild two weeks, but now it’s time to pass the SoSF baton to your old pal Beckoning Chasm for a spell. Stay Funky and see you next time!!!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Holly should have bad dreams more often. They’ve taken 40..nay….50 pounds off of her!
WO: Re: Holly, I noticed that too, wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination or not.
Vegas over/under odds on the death of Cory? I say 30 days, it can’t be soon enough to spare us from more of this crap.
Well it is a plot that you can’t really criticize without people saying Batiuk’s writing about the hardships soldier’s families face. Obviously a bonus for Batiuk.
Of course it’s all going to be about the family. I think we’ve seen Cory in Afghanistan once so far.
Anyone know if Batiuk is just showing actual comic book covers now, or “painstakingly” recreating them with the Funky felt tip? If the former, it’s just incredibly lazy. If the latter, it’s also lazy. He used to try to incorporate his own characters into the covers, he seems to have stopped that.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been feeling that nearly every strip Batiuk has been leaving for us lately has been a “land mine”, if you get my drift.
I hope the little bastard died. Slowly and painfully.
I think Funky’s dialogue would be a lot better if he said, “Another dream about a comic book tribute?”
Is it wrong that I’m now praying for Cory’s death to put an end to this endless hand-wringing? Yes, parents have children in harm’s way overseas and it’s a difficult thing, but like every Very Serious Issue Batiuk does the message is delivered in an aggravatingly ham-handed manner.
I can’t help but imagine that Batiuk is ripening Corey up like a Christmas turkey. You know, piling on jejune and inoffensive domestic warmth on Corey to make him ‘sympathetic’; slow-burning Holly’s anxiety over several months; then when the Cindy/Funky drama reaches its crescendo and Batiuk needs an escape hatch for the plot — BAM!!! Corey dies to a landmine or sniper or whatever. It’s the trifecta for him: fake topicality, angst, and thinning off the secondary cast.
It’ll be, uh, interesting to see how this whole Cory thing plays out. Part of me wonders if he’s setting up some sort of huge grim prestige arc down the line. But another part wonders if perhaps the Starbuck Jones comic book thing IS the very thing he’s, uh, building toward.
I mean is it possible that all of it, from the first time we saw Cory doing chin-ups at that county fair army recruitment booth through Cindy skulking back home in shame, was all done with the SJ arc in mind? I know, it sounds ridiculous, yet it’s exactly the sort of needlessly complicated yet totally brain-dead direction this strip frequently takes. While I also might be allowing TB too much credit for planning ahead, isn’t getting a chance to display his make-believe comic book covers exactly the sort of thing he’d be excited to do?
Obviously I could (and probably will be) wrong, maybe the comic book crap is merely one part of the overall story. But would it really surprise anyone if it wraps up with Holly presenting an intact Cory with those stupid comic books and that’s it? Dullest common denominator.
I’m a long-time lurker of the awesome front page snark and of the overly self-important comic strip in question. I only periodically check the comments, though, mostly because there’s only one or two at the time I typically visit this site. For that reason, I’m not sure if my supposition has been made on here before. If it has, I apologize.
Many of you are predicting Cory’s death. While possible, I think Batiuk created Rocky for some enduring reason. Nay, friends, I believe the Pulizer-hungry artiste is preparing us for a medical drama. I predict this site will soon need a tag for “rolled-up pant leg” (or “legs”).
Stop the presses…alert all of comicdom…
This is a day late, but that last panel in Saturday’s Funkalunk featured the closest Batiuk has gotten with making a current character look reasonably close to actually being the thirty years later version of their old selves. And TWO of them, at that!
I can die a happy, fulfilled man…
Yes, because when I’m concerned about my son in Afghanistan, I dream of 1960s comic books set in World War II with landmines with swastikas on them. Batiuk is just being lazy now.
Epicus: I’m pretty certain Batiuk said in an interview linked here last year that the SJ covers are the big story arc this year, and how much ‘fun” it was for him to beg different artists into doing versions for him to use. FW is just a means to an end, Batiuk’s comic book fantasies revolving around his preferred career choice.
@SOSF-Lurker – Good theory. We’re about due for another missing limb. Certainly if a character is maimed instead of simply killed, he can really drag out the misery factor.
–Many of you are predicting Cory’s death. While possible, I think Batiuk created Rocky for some enduring reason.—
Tom Batiuk does a lot of things for no reason. Insanity does not require reason.
Okay this is a woman who until she started her Starbuck Jones effort knew NOTHING ABOUT COMIC BOOKS and is now DREAMING IN WAR COMICS. Absurd doesn’t being to describe it.
Rusty: Cory and his land mines, Cindy getting canned and Holly’s anxiety, is all just for the sake of doing those SJ covers. It’s almost unimaginably self-indulgent. But not surprising.
Many of you are predicting Cory’s death. While possible, I think Batiuk created Rocky for some enduring reason.
Yeah, I think Rocky’s pretty much doomed, as it will make Cory all mopily tragic and stuff for the rest of his life. I’m far less convinced that Cory’s going to eat it, for the simple reason that he’s the only son of his generation. Yeah, some of the other original cast have sons, but how many of them could you name, and how many of them have appeared in more than one strip over the last five years? The only reason why I think Cory might get exploded is if Batiuk is pretty much giving up on the next generation, and looking at how he’s treated Summer since she left high school, that’s a very real possibility.
“Holly and Fatso”? Don’t you mean “Fatso and Fatso”?
It looks like a real Sgt Rock cover (I used to read those), so I did a quick google for the title, and found this: “The artist most closely associated with Rock, Joe Kubert illustrated #119’s memorable fable ‘A Bazooka for Babyface!’ wherein a kid who’d lied about his age made it to the Front, but didn’t fool the indomitable topkick. Of course, by the time the fighting died down enough to send him back, the Babyface was a seasoned combat veteran…”