SoSFDavidO here, filling in for folks far funnier than I for the next two weeks!
There’s a word for old men who hang around high schools long after they’ve graduated and we had to watch a film strip about them called Stranger Danger. In Today’s Strip, Harry Dinkle just can’t get enough of lurking around high schools with a creepy Sandusky-Esque look on his face.
Son of Stuck Funky 
A one-paneler with a joke this weak does NOT bode well for the week, snarkers!
What bodes worse is that this is now Week Three of “Harry Dinkle Hangs Around for Some Reason”.
Why do I get a creepy “Papa Joe Paterno” vibe from Harry Dinkle? That smirk sure doesn’t help, either.
Huh?
Aging high school band directors are the remaining core audience for FW. Good luck with that.
…Que?
Did someone take a razor to Harry’s mouth? His smile is all the way past his jaw!
Another week of Dinkle? Now that’s just cruel.
Great, A week of this imbecile pestering his daughter again because he just can’t not stick his face places.
Why do these characters look like Pac-Man nowadays?
So, I guess there was another school levy and it passed this time, because I remember some guy named Jim telling the other teachers that choir was cut because of lack of funds.
This strip is excellent, being mercifully free of speech balloons filled with walls of wooden dialogue and bloviating pontification.
In this case, Batiuk’s pointless shadowing of people at Midview High School (where he gets no material for his strip whatsoever) is lived vicariously through Harry Dinkle.
Because of that unrealistic self-decapitating smirk, I hope that Dinkle’s third autobiography isn’t titled “Touched.”
Paul: His daughter? His daughter is Halle Dinkle, not Becky.
Has TB never seen a human smile … oh wait, that explains soooo much about this strip.
Of course, because Batom® doesn’t give a crap about storytelling or character development, who would know that he’s walking past the room where his daughter teaches choir?
It simply comes off as a creepy old man wandering the halls of a high school for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
I’d like to know who thinks that this is a legitimately funny strip today. The trolls on Comics Kingdom don’t count.
@ SpacemanSpiff85, beckoningchasm & Paul Jones Just wait’ll next spring, when we’re treated to three or four weeks of the Dinklemeister attending the state music teachers’ convention.
Nate Green is the worst principal ever. On his watch:
* The English teacher takes off for weeks and months at a time working on terrible manuscripts or book tours.
* Said English teacher is caught in a compromising situation with a fellow teacher, but the blame is all laid on her.
* The AD and football coach interviews for other jobs on school grounds, on school time.
* A long-forgotten band director is allowed to roam the school halls, apparently without having to even register at the front office.
He is not a good steward of the children with whom he is entrusted for their education and safety. On top of that, does anyone buy his Vietnam vet story? Fire Nate Now!
Bad news for St. Les the Rightous Smirker as he prepares to pick up his vanity graphic novel in Hong Kong.
Methinks that the Chinese government saw the Variety piece on Batom® and immediately acted to ban ALL crappy wordplay.
In a clever bit of Cyber Monday advertising, Harry Dinkle’s mouth is sponsored by Amazon.
It makes some sort of sense… if Dinkle can sell thawed raw turkeys, copies of his terrible autobiography, “Football Fields Are For Band Practice!” posters, band shoes (which apparently are a thing), then surely he can sell Fire phones. He really can’t do much worse than Amazon is doing now.
Dinkle’s Marching Band Shoes? Good Lord.
@Nathan Obral They must not be very high quality, since the most expensive pair I could find on that site was 50 bucks and most are only in the 20s and 30s. Of course, considering they’re named after an unlikable character in a crappy comic strip, I shouldn’t be too surprised.
Interesting…I had no idea that Dinkle’s daughter taught at Westview High. Assuming, of course that this is Westview High…the badly-taped sign is the only real clue, but that may be universal in Tom Batiuk’s Ohio.
This strip could only work if the characters were universally beloved, so that people would be aware of them even if they didn’t read the strip regularly. As an example, a strip with Charlie Brown holding a scraggly kite-string which is spread all over the yard (with Charlie simply announcing “Rats!”) is funny because people know who he is and know of his continual frustrations.
The problem with Batiuk’s characters is that they are universally loathed, but only by those who actually read the strip. Others are happily ignorant of them.
Do you suppose this classic album cover informed a young Tom Batiuk’s style when it comes to drawing grins?