So, here’s Tom Batiuk’s actual “Black Friday” joke…if “joke” is the right word. Selling books instead of turkeys is hilarious? In both cases, the terrible odor from the unsold items would be intolerable as they fester.
Note that with a little change of tense (“didn’t have” for “don’t have”) he could have run this on Saturday and had something a little more traditionally holidelic on Thanksgiving, but when you’re giving Harry Dinkle a soapbox, well…priorities, baby, priorities. Thanksgiving Day comes and Thanksgiving Day goes, but Harry Dinkle is interminable.
Whenever Harry Dinkle appears, you can be sure the boredom will come thick and fast. He basically short-circuits his own content by being so utterly obnoxious that he’s his own heckler. If you ask him what time it is he’ll give you some insufferable response that boils down to “find a clock somewhere after I finish regaling you with irrelevance.” Actually, the only question I can imagine asking Harry Dinkle is, “Do you want me to punch you again?”
What’s really striking in today’s episode is Becky’s left ear. Look at that thing–has her face been torn open at the back? (We can always hope so!) I cannot imagine how, with her face positioned the way it is, that her left ear should be visible at all. Once again, I am guessing that Tom Batiuk had a bit of gold ink on the brush and didn’t want to waste it, and that meant drawing an ear to hold that earring.
In a strip drawn as badly and as lazily as this one, Tom Batiuk at least manages to draw his avatars–Les Moore, John Howard and of course Harry Dinkle–with a loving consistency. The other characters not so much, but this…this is kind of a landmark.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday!
Wow, this one is especially terrible. TB manages to reference Black Friday, band turkeys and Thanksgiving leftovers, all without it making even a lick of sense, complete with moronic smirks, bad artwork and steam lines thrown in for good measure. Selling items no one wanted was a good idea because they won’t have any leftover items? What?
Yeah, that Becky drawing is particularly egregious today. That ear is bad but that pinned-up sleeve is just so “in your face” today, almost as if he had to remind his readers that the generic-looking woman is in fact Becky, the current one-armed band leader. And check out Dinkle on panel one, yikes is that horrible.
See, crass consumerism is only terrible when other people do it.
I would’ve liked it if it turned out that Dinkle just bought the entire order of turkeys and then begged Becky to let him go around claiming his books were part of the fundraiser just so he could get rid of the (many, many) copies nobody wanted.
@SpaceManSpiff85 – That scenario could only have occurred if somehow Dinkle could have worked it in that his book was simply too good for ordinary people to appreciate. Then you’ve got a Funky Winkerbean story.
(**Happy belated holiday to all!**)
Becky is so obviously uninterested, it’s almost funny. Her main focus is her desperate struggle to keep that darn sleeve rolled up properly, while Finkle over here is too busy pomping it up to care to lend a hand.
Look at that face! I wouldn’t be surprised if she is slowly and carefully plotting plans for his demise.
There’s off-model, and then there’s Batom® off-model.
What’s really shocking to me is Dinkle in the first panel. Good Lord, that is the worst hatchet face I’ve ever seen. You’d think he was auditioning for “Pac-Man: The Musical.”
Becky is… just there, a one-armed albatross. Probably the boringest character in the Funkyverse that hasn’t been written out or killed off yet.
The stupid thing should be set at the outpatients wing at the hospital where one nurse tells the other that the one good thing about the high school band selling books no one will read is that the traditional E coli outbreak isn’t going to take place this year.
“What’s really striking in today’s episode is Becky’s left ear.”
It’s a prehensile appendage just starting to develop.
This strip screams how little Batiuk cares for the younger generation of characters, and is just going to keep forcing the originals upon us. This old dope shouldn’t be allowed on the school premises, yet it’s all about “we” having a band fundraiser. Go home and take some Viagra, people have jobs to do.
“This old dope shouldn’t be allowed on the school premises, yet it’s all about “we” having a band fundraiser.”
Just about every place has the one old guy/gal who retires and then continues to come back to hang out. Until they are told to get lost.
“Selling items no one wanted was a good idea because they won’t have any leftover items? What? ”
Like selling the school levy to the voters?
Hey, isn’t it about time for that arc?
My new Card against Humanity: FUNKY WINKERBEAN.
“There was a younger generation of characters?,” I ask sarcastically.
Again, Batom® spends an awful lot of time lurking around the campus of Midview High School supposedly for “inspiration.” Either life as a typical Midview student must be boring as hell, or Batom® has untreated ADHD and doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings.
Thus, crappy, forgettable storylines with a crappy characters who doesn’t offer anything besides her pinned-up shirt sleeves, and a character who should have been written out with his retirement, but can’t let go.
This strip today symbolizes all that is wrong with Batom® and the Funkyverse.