Month: May 2014

The Eternal Question

Link To Today’s Strip

Yes, whenever one is advised You need to start exercising or You need to change your diet, the question is always, “Okay, but when can I stop?”

I guess it’s akin to You need to put jokes in your comic strip about young adults.  “Okay, but when can I stop?”

Today’s offering is nowhere near as good as those earlier in the week, but there is one positive aspect I’d like to point out.  It’s this:

You’re probably thinking that there doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable about it…and I agree.  It’s what isn’t there that’s interesting.  Think how easy it would be to turn that panel into this:

It took me about a minute (which is why it’s so shoddy).  Tom Batiuk has been doing stuff like this for ten years or so; it’d have been easy for him to toss out something like that.  Really easy.

Something to ponder on–something to stay the hand when it reaches out innocently for the whitened pebble, the veined stone, the dead, unmoving rocks of our planet.

Under Pressure

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Well, if you’ll recall my baseball talk from yesterday, I think we’ve got another single.  It’s funny, goofy in a non-realistic way (wouldn’t a blood-pressure band around the neck kind of kill Funky?), and I do get a kick out of the last panel–Funky’s strangled panic combined with Nurse Greenhair looking at us like, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”  Maybe it’s a double.  I really do enjoy that last panel.

So…it’s a good strip, it continues in this week’s surprising “humorous” vein, and it is to be applauded for that reason.  It’s just not the topper to the run.   (“Topper”?  OMG, I’m starting to use Funky Winkerbean terms without even noticing!)

And I have to complain about two things–Nurse Greenhair, for one.  At first I thought, “When did Trainer Greenhair find time to get a haircut?  She was just pouring oil on Funky’s treadmill not two minutes ago!”   I know that Tom Batiuk couldn’t use blue hair, because Superman, but maybe red?  Purple?  Burnt Sienna?  Raw Umber?

Secondly, Mr. Batiuk, when sending out a casting call, you need to emphasize that the actors need to resemble the character.  Hiring Jimmy Durante for panel one was not a good idea.

Still, this is another funny one, as far as I’m concerned.  Bravo!

Cue “Yakety Sax”

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Seriously, doesn’t that second panel conjure up images of Benny Hill racing around in fast motion?   (Here’s a more appropriate one.) I hereby nominate it for the prestigious BChasm Award for “Funniest Thing I’ve seen in this Comic Strip in Living Memory.”  Remember, though–it’s only a nomination.

My (minor) quibble with this one is the word “challenging.”  I think what Funky means is “interesting,” or “engaging,” since clock-watching and falling asleep aren’t making the exercise routine more tolerable.  “Challenging” would typically mean to a trainer, “harder, more difficult.”  Which she has dutifully achieved for him, ha ha ha.  I’ll hazard a guess that Tom Batiuk thought “interesting” would be too belittling to the exercise folks, but still–hey, if I can’t find something to pick at, I’m out of a job!

Anyway: the third surprise single from Tom Batiuk means that the bases are now loaded.   What will happen tomorrow?  Will we get another single, or a foul ball that hurls into the stands and knocks the hotdog out of Sluggo’s hands?   Or a genuine grand slam home-run?

Wow.  I’m actually looking forward to reading Funky Winkerbean.  And they say there are no miracles.

If It Ain’t Broke–

Link To Today’s Strip

–try it again.

Hey, it’s another joke!  Well, actually it’s the same joke, but at least it’s a joke.  It’s been so long since this strip has featured any jokes that Tom Batiuk is probably kind of rusty at it, so I’m willing to give him a mulligan on this one.  Free advice: It might help the “humor” aspect if Funky didn’t look as if he was dying right in front of us in panel two.  “Argh, I’m melting, melting!  What a world, what a world!  I’m also losing even more of my hair!”

As I noted yesterday, working out on the treadmill is very boring…to the point where I’m surprised Trainer Greenhair hasn’t suggested a portable music device of some kind to help pass the time (or at least keep Funky awake).  One of the things a trainer is supposed to do, after all, is help you to enjoy exercising.  Would a Sony Walkman(c) cassette player be considered evil in Westview?  You can actually still find tapes…if there’s a Goodwill store in town.

I’m hoping that tomorrow’s joke (assuming there is one, after all–two in a row is damn rare here, three in a row might shatter the universe) won’t be a third variation on “exercise is boring” but..well, baby steps, man, baby steps.

The Return of the Punchline

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Hey–what gives?  This is actually funny.  Not laugh-out-loud funny, or even chortle-inwardly funny, but there’s a definite sense of a constructed joke.  A pretty good joke, I have to say.

And it’s even a well-observed joke.  I’ve worked out on treadmills, and it’s an unbelievably tedious way to exercise. With some routines, there’s a sense of accomplishment; on a treadmill, you do the same thing you do in real life to go from point A to point B, yet never end up going anywhere.

Most people at the gym–I mean, workout center–tend to have iPods or other media players just to break the tedium.  (I used to bring a portable DVD player.  A BChasm Exercise Tip:  Ahnold movies tend to work really well.)

So, a joke, and a fairly good one.  Kudos to Tom Batiuk!