Here comes more boring BChasm stuff! Sunday’s entry, as usual, was not available before press-time, but I’m sure we’re all craning our necks to look at a comic b0ok cover, with a couple of smirks thrown into a corner. But at least (most of) the artwork should be decent.
I’d like to apologize to Tom Batiuk. In my hasty look at yesterday’s entry, I didn’t see that Holly was clicking along with the rest, raising her bid to meet the rising demand. I thought she was just cringing, and that she won the issue with her initial demand of $10. Sorry about that, Mr. Batiuk.
Last week, commentator Aunt Fritzi noted that I was remarkably boring. The comment got disappeared, but then I Les Moore’d until it was brought back, because Cory Winkerbean. I don’t mind criticism, though I generally prefer it to be helpful or constructive rather than just a flat statement.
Still, I am, believe it or not, human. So while Fritzi’s comment bothered me a bit at first, I soon realized something: she was right. I am boring, especially when writing about Funky Winkerbean.
But let’s face a couple of facts: when a comic strip is deliberately constructed to be as boring as possible, how can one write about it in an interesting fashion? Because I honestly think that’s what Tom Batiuk is doing–making Funky Winkerbean so dull and uninvolving that it becomes critic-proof.
Critic-proof works like this: if you go to see someone’s violin recital, and the musician plays terribly, you can easily say why he was terrible. He was out of tune, he played the pieces too fast, he missed notes–there are objective standards for performance that you can apply. (Unless the performance was intended to be ironic, but let’s not go there.)
Suppose, though, that you’re not watching someone play the violin. You’re watching someone buy a comic book at a drug store. No matter how observant you are…what can you say? “The way he pulled the five dollar bill out of his wallet–that was masterful!” “Yes, but I thought he was too hesitant when he accepted the change–it took all the tension out of it. And when he asked for a bag? My God–talk about getting the fundamentals all wrong!”
See how that works–or rather, doesn’t? Critic-proof, baby, critic-proof.
Besides, Aunt Fritzi, if I may quote a well-known Pulitzer-nominee: “If you don’t like it, then don’t read it!”
Son of Stuck Funky 
It’s true, sometimes this comic strip is so confoundingly dull that it’s almost impossible to find anything remotely humorous or interesting to say about it. Those are known in the trade as “weekdays”. But seriously, yeah, he often times leaves one with very little to work with, like that Saturday strip from a few weeks ago where Jessica silently drove to the local prison. Fortunately though, it’s almost as badly drawn as it is poorly written so there’s usually something to goof on in that respect, like Jessica’s bizarre Bulgarian car, for example. But it can be tough, I’m not gonna lie.
Today’s SJ “homage” is no prize, but it’s at least distractingly weird enough to enable the reader to ignore that pointless Winkerbean idiocy in that rather intrusive arc-wrapper-upper bubble. Why is SJ all old-looking and dressed in rags? Why does he have a robot butler named Isaac? What is that thing he’s holding?
Anyhow, I guess the big SJ mega-arc will finally end when Holly exhausts all possible ways there are to buy comic books. So far we’ve covered attics, Ebay and creepy stores run by weirdos. So there’s still basements, yard sales, conventions and the big annual KK sidewalk sale TB does sometimes.
Well, it’s a Mother’s Day strip that doesn’t genuflect at the Shrine of Blessed Saint Dead Lisa, so that’s a plus.
Coming next week: Holly learns through Cayla that Les retcon slipped a copy of SJ #312 (an extremely rare key issue where SJ’s despised robot butler Isaac is killed on every page) into Lisa’s retconned coffin before she was retconned buried. This sets a dark, perverse and slapstick series of events into motion as Holly has her sights set on obtaining the issue at any cost, including but not limited to her husband’s very soul (and hilariously balky heart).
This week’s guest artist is Michael T. Gilbert, creator of one of the most consistently amusing super-hero spoofs of the 1980s (“Mr. Monster”). Which makes this comment one of the rare moments when you’ll read the words “consistently amusing” in conjunction with Funky Winkerbean.
Well, now that we’ve had the obligatory reminder of Batiuk’s active hostility to anyone who “cheats” and “kills newspapers” by reading this dreary, listless mush on a screen instead of holding newsprint in his hands like a REAL American, let’s hope that tomorrow shows us a different means of getting our daily allowance of suburban ennui.
This reminds me of an article in Cracked that called Matthew Lillard a second-string Horseman of the Apocalypse called “Irritation”; perhaps Batomic Comic Obsessive is “Tedium.”
“Coming next week: Holly learns through Cayla that Les retcon slipped a copy of SJ #312 (an extremely rare key issue where SJ’s despised robot butler Isaac is killed on every page) into Lisa’s retconned coffin before she was retconned buried.”
Wasn’t St. Lisa cremated so her ashes could be scattered all over?
Yes, she was. Too bad Superbatiuk Prime might just as easily punch history so that we might be treated to that last issue being clutched in the hand that’s all that’s left of Private FutureCannonFodder.
What if Holly is contacted by someone she outbid – the person was collecting Starbuck Jones on behalf of a paralyzed Army vet dying of cancer. Would Holly “do the right thing” and turn it over, free of charge? Obviously that other person’s misery index is pretty high.
The cover itself is, as usual, decent work. I do enjoy the robot butler, whom i believe we’ve seen before. That must have been the “breakout character” of SJ.
In keeping with TB’s odd continuity, compare this to the description given by DSH John in Wednesday’s strip. “First appearance of the octo-shark that becomes a major nemesis”? The cover implies that the octo-sharks are just animals surrounding SJ. Does one of them become his Great White Whale?
I got nothing on this strip, it’s meh, which is the low bar of standards set for this strip.
One thing occurs to me, though. Wouldn’t the John Darling arc have worked more better if they ended it on Father’s Day. Though, .I doubt the Batiuk or the syndicates give two turds about this comic to think or even plan for something like that.
We have seen the robot butler before–on the first issue of Starbuck Jones presented here, Jones was cradling his dead body. Uh, “spoiler alert” I guess.
Saturnino: Yep, that’s why it’d be retconned. This is the Funkyverse, the past is very flexible here.
“Saturnino: Yep, that’s why it’d be retconned. This is the Funkyverse, the past is very flexible here.”
Yup, the past is prologue.
No, it’s epilogue.
No, it’s right now.
Well, it was a second ago………..
I have to stand in line for guest artist Michael T. Gilbert. The artwork, composition, and writing are excellent, amusing, and snappy. I especially like that the robot is named Isaac, a nice reference to Isaac Asimov, arguably most famous for penning the Three Laws of Robotics, which are criticized here succinctly and interestingly, two adverbs rarely associated with Funky Winkerbean.
Too bad that Gilbert can’t take over the strip itself. He might be able to do something else not usually associated with the Funkyverse: care about these boring people and their dull, catastrophically insular lives in their forgotten little bedroom community.