I wonder what “business” requires “the Funkman” to travel by plane. He’s not visiting the franchise locations, since the New York shop closed up years ago.
We’re all familiar with Batiuk’s use of “photo album corners” and sepia tones to depict past events. Today he thoughtfully employs a similar visual cue, the “squiggly-bordered panel”, lest the reader become confused by the abrupt jump-cut from Montoni’s to some airport.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I bet the rest of Harry’s sentence was “…fly before the holidays without a dead wife ghost to call in a bomb threat in order to reveal a mechanical problem with the plane and save my life.”.
Isn’t going out of town for a few days, you know, something that you mention to your friends? I mean, I can see why Les wouldn’t know that since he has a very, very hard time thinking beyond his own ego, but Harry must have overheard something…
Squiggle borders…the most interesting FW development in many, many months (arguably years). Just in time for the holidays it’s time for some Batiukian misery porn featuring his favorite whipping boy, the Funk Man himself. I mean the odds are pretty slim that he’s going to Vegas or something, it has to be something at least moderately awful. Like an IRS audit or identifying a corpse, maybe.
Plus, if you’ve followed FW for any length of time you know that air travel is never good. And what does he mean by “flying home”? Does this imply that whatever he was doing is already finished? Weird. He’s got me a little flummoxed here as I can’t possibly imagine what he’s planning for poor hapless Funky THIS time, but there’s no way it’ll be anything less than depressing.
Also, why does Harry assume “going out of town”=”flying”? Can’t people leave Westview by car anymore?
SpacemanSpiff85: That just suddenly occurred to me too. And what does he mean by “not like I didn’t see this coming”? He was sitting around waiting to suddenly be called out of town on unexpected business? There’s already a weird annoying time-wasting cryptic undertone to this nonsense that’s rapidly getting on my nerves.
Coleman Francis Batom® continues to break new ground in the world of anti-humor.
It’s the Clevelander in me, but squiggly borders immediately makes me think of this more than anything else.
So, Funky is “flying home”? Isn’t home in Westview?
Where the heck is “home”?
As noted above by tf, Funky no longer has any business concerns other than the original Montoni’s. Did he fly to Florida to massage Tony’s feet? All of his business concerns can be handled by picking up a phone and ordering more cans of tomato sauce and soon-to-expire flour.
Panel 2 Harry: “Boy the last thing I’d want to do is…leave Westview ever for any reason.”
Another day of nothing. Not like we didn’t see THAT coming!
And we set ourselves up for another four days of “Funky whines and pouts about easily foreseeable minor indignities that he inflates into soul-scarring horrors.”
Nancy 2 FW 0
@SpacemanSpiff85: Travel by car out of Westview is now impossible after ODOT blew up all of the highways leading in and out of town.
You know, Bootsy Collins is from Ahia, as are The Ohio Players. Both are bastions of Funk and all of them should be beating down Battic’s door about now to exact retribution for the abomination that is Harry’s reference to “The Funk Man”.
Found at the Comics Beat website (illo for an unrelated story), from 2007:
Funkman, from the town of Westview
Waits to fly home from Fort Worth.
Three folks behind Tom Selleck’s hair-do
In a TSA line devoid of mirth.
Of course, what really irritates me is that for all intents and purposes, Summer, Keisha, Jinx, Maddie and Rana might as well all have died off camera. Despite his promises otherwise, Batiuk simply can’t seem to find a way to work them into the plot without revealing (mostly to himself) how boring his original cast has always been.
Epicus Doomus wrote: He’s got me a little flummoxed here as I can’t possibly imagine what he’s planning for poor hapless Funky THIS time, but there’s no way it’ll be anything less than depressing.
Five’ll get you ten Batty’s going to rip off Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
I think the best explanation for all this is that the writer wanted a joke about airplane travel problems, and didn’t really think much about making it make sense. Otherwise you have all sorts of questions about why Funky is traveling anywhere by plane, why Les didn’t know, why they’re doing this around Christmas at all and so on.
It will all become clear when Lisa phones the airport and tells Winklebean to stay off that fuckin’ plane!!
“On some business.” Is the answer vague like that because Flunky — I’m sorry, Flunkman — has so many business interests around the country, and he’s always jetting hither and yon? I don’t really think so. In that case, you’d think she’d be a little more specific about why he’s out of town, since it’s really a rare occurrence.
Oh, wait, I forgot. Batwit has this problem making his characters talk like actual English-speaking Earthlings. Never mind. I expected too much.
But… Benefit of the doubt.Restaurant Executive “Flunkman” routinely travels for meetings with:
1) Montoni, Inc Corporate HQ in New York.
2) Cyndi Summers, to discuss an opening she needs to have filled.
3) Tony Montoni, to get a loan, since he never has paying customers.
4) Comic book stores, so he can pick up those slabbed key whatever issues.
Either way, count on something forced and contrived, that ultimately goes nowhere. SPOILER ALERT!
Because Batom® does everything at Midview High School but actual research for his comic strip, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he killed off Maddie, Jinx, One-Armed Becky’s kid who’s name I can’t remember, and placed Keisha and St. Summer the Kancer Kid in the Witless Protection Program.
It’s all down to Owen, Alex and Cody now. And those three poorly designed characters are the least interesting of the Act III brigade.
It’s been mentioned how sometimes it seems like he’s writing these little stories based on stuff that he overhears on the TV in the background. Like shoppers stampeding on “Black Friday” and air travel being difficult around the holiday season.
Just off the top of my head: the white courtesy phone and Les freaking out on a flight then arriving home just in time for the aftermath of Summer’s knee explosion, Cindy skulking back to Cleveland in shame, the confusion about Corporal Cory’s helicopter…no siree, air travel in the Funkyverse NEVER leads to anything good.
Maybe this is the prologue to Funky getting killed off in a crash. And then comes the end of the strip like John Darling (or–HORRORS–this strip officially becomes “Les Moore”).
@Dreadnought: Nah, this strip ain’t goin’ nowhere until at least March 27, 2022. Batty’s gonna ride this dying nag to it’s 50th anniversary.
My knees are raw from slapping, because air travel sucks, amirite? I can hardly imagine the hilarity to ensue. Really. I can hardly imagine it.
Sheer laziness.
I mean, let’s ignore the fact that they wouldn’t have their sausage tasting convention around Christmas for just the reason mentioned, that it’d be a huge pain in the ass to travel at this time of year. Let’s instead note how absurd it is because it’s not as though they all don’t have other things they really needed to get done at this time of year.
And this stupidity was the cover for a joke about airport delays. Batiuk purposely wrote something nonsensical because he felt the joke was worth it.
Why would Funky need to go out of town on business? He owns a local pizza parlor., He closed his out of town stores years ago. He has NO out of town business. Unless this is a storyline where Funky is about to sell Montoni’s or something, it makes no sense. Don’t act like Funky has some office job where he has to travel, he doesn’t.
Funky doesn’t have any out of town business. He owns a local pizza parlor! He sold his out of town stores years ago. Funky does not have an office job which requires travel. Batiuk shouldn’t pretend that he does just to get a xmas storyline. Unless of course Funky is traveling out of state because he is looking to sell Montoni’s?
Either Funky is selling Montoni’s, or he’s sneaking out to pick up Corey in NYC and fly him back to Cleveland.
The latter is more likely, because Batom® will kill off Corey beforehand in some “accident” that defies the laws of physics. And it will add to the pain… not of Funky and Holly, but of the reader trying to slog through this garbage.
Funky won’t die, that would be too easy. No, TB will torture him, humiliate him and otherwise flog him half to death with his whip of misery and woe until the character wishes he was dead, but no way he kills him off.