I guess this could be considered a “happy” strip, and Lord knows there aren’t many of those. The joke seems to be that this is a collection of tiny, tiny dreams, and–surprise–these are the very dreams that these folks desired the most when they were young. Okay, now it’s kind of depressing, honestly.
It might be that only Harry is really living his dream, and that the others are thinking “Jesus wept, Harry. Thanks for reminding me how far I’ve failed.” No one looks happy in the last panel, except Harry, who looks deliriously happy. One might almost call him “Crazy.”
When I was in high school, I dreamed about my future as well…and it was never anything like “co-owner of a restaurant” or “clerk in a comic book shop.” My dreams were rather more grandiose. Admittedly I haven’t achieved them, but at least I had them, and there’s always hope.
I guess in Westview there’s never hope, so it’s best to keep your dreams small, because that’s all you’ll get as life slowly crushes you under its heel. If you don’t die first, that is. Then, you win!
After a week of pretty bad artwork, this episode shouldn’t be unexpected, but wow. Those faces in the last panel are just awful. And what’s going on with Les and Funky in panel two? Funky is a shrunken old man, half a head shorter than Les, while Les seems to be missing half of his head. Suddenly in the last panel Funky is taller than Les. Also in that panel, Les is smirking so hard it looks like his beard is trying to tear itself off his face.
Well, if I wanted to nitpick the artwork, I’d be here all night…and in fact, the Guest Host SoSF chair has tossed me out! Watch Monday as DavidO takes up the reins (or as Tom Batiuk would say, the rains) as the strip continues to hurtle Hellward.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I like how Les is trying to force his own head off his body in the last panel. Harder Dickface, harder! Otherwise though, bleh, what a pile of dreariness. “In your spare time…” yeah, every ten years or thereabouts Les finds a few spare moments to toil over whoever died most recently…dream fulfilled!
Manager at a failing pizza shack, awful high school gym teacher/football coach (who was ready to quit WHS as recently as a week ago), a “part-time writer” and (get ready for it) an assistant at the lowest-budget comic book store in the entire mid-central Ohio valley. Aim high and dream big, young Westviewians, for this could be you in thirty short years.
Two more things: first of all, everyone hated Bull back in high school, mainly because he was routinely torturing them all. And I never mention this much but I absolutely HATE Crazy’s Act III hair and beard. The guy is about as “crazy” as a trip to the podiatrist and three times as dull.
Beckoning: thanks for a great two weeks! And we’d never kick you out, you’re too funny and besides, you know your way back too well!!!
I’m really curious to know what preceded this, that Les felt it necessary to say “Penny for your thoughts”. I get the feeling that Crazy Harry was just sitting there silently for a quite a while, staring into space.
“Penny for your thoughts”, I better make this worthwhile (turgid, pointless, and depressing) for Les or I’ll never see that kind of money again, thought Harry.
“Crazy, didn’t you work as a mail carrier for years before getting laid off, selling your comic book collection and taking part-time menial labor in order to survive?”
“I’M HAPPY DAMMIT!” *desperate sobs*
Does Harry’s wife have a job/career? I know the younger children have been tossed overboard, but any explanation as to why it makes economic sense for him to pull down $100 per week? I assume he has a sweet postal office pension, but still…
Less’ pose/expression in the last panel work much better if you imagine him swinging from a gallows pole…
The final panel should have been of St. Les the Righteous Smirker with his “heavenly aura” shining down upon him.
It’s appropriate that Crazy Harry – the postman – would be the happiest person in the room. After all, Batom® has been literally mailing it in since launching Act III.
This is what has happened to America! Low standards of the flyover states. Get thee to Los Angeles, or Manhattan. At the very least, Chicago
One would hope that such a strip would mark the final stroke of the Funky Winkerbean saga, as the characters reflect on the past 40 years., where they’ve been and where are now, a full, perfect circle of the culmination of their lifetime achievements, as a new, better strip takes its place Monday morning. Alas, this is most likely just pointless filler.
And I’ll take that penny.
What really irritates me is that Batiuk actually does seem to believe that this is a positive message. “Aim low so you can’t miss” is not a positive message. “Live in denial” is not a positive message. “Feed Les’s monstrous ego” is not a positive message.
Bring back those kids…
I think I may have finally snapped! Why does Batiuk mistreat everyone so?! We get it. They grew up. Lisa is dead. Life is hell for them all. Why does he take as many opportunities as possible to rub this in our faces?
This is just insulting to readers. ALL readers. Snarkers and “funkyfans” alike.
“Lisa is dead”
Lisa is the luckiest one in the strip
And not just for him. Batominc has retconned old Funky’s bulbous nose onto teen Funky’s yearbook face in the title panel. Worst. Rhinoplasty. Ever.
Les looks like he’s taking a Mark Trail punch in the last panel. Nice!
Yes Jeffcoat…. Today’s strip would be a great final strip….ever.
I hope to wake up tomorrow morning to find FW gone.
In (partial) defense to Crazy, his wife (from the few times we’ve see her recently) isn’t as ugly as Holly and Linda, as dead as Lisa, as one-armed as Becky, or as utterly forgettable as
CaylaLisa II.And because Batom® wrote Maddie out of the strip, she won’t be subjected to the hell that consumes everyone in Westview not named St. Les the Righteous Smirker.
By those obscenely low standards, I’d be thrilled beyond belief at a life like his.
The odd thing about today’s strip is that it reminds me very much of a blog post I’d written years ago about how the end game of Winkerbean would look a lot like this.
“Yes Jeffcoat…. Today’s strip would be a great final strip….ever.
I hope to wake up tomorrow morning to find FW gone.”
Sort of like the final episode of NEWHART?
For me, the only way Funky Winkerbean can be concluded is if the entire Funkyverse was all revealed to be imagined through the eyes of an autistic 3-year old Summer Moore, playing with a Montoni’s snow globe while St. Les the Righteous Smirker and a fully recovered St. Lisa the Chew Toy look on and wonder what she is thinking about.
Another way the comic could end:
St. Les the Righteous Smirker wakes up in bed, by himself. He’s 20 years younger, it’s 1997. He hears someone singing in the bathroom and goes to investigate. And stumbles on St. Lisa the Chew Toy in the shower saying, “Good morning!”
Kinda like this.
When you think about it Les looks young enough to be the other guys’ son.
Unseen last panel: Tommy Batyuck, sitting in a director’s chair, with a beret covering his pointy little bald head, yells, “CUT! And that’s a wrap. Thanks everybody.” The curtain then falls — for good.