March 2015 – Page 6 – Son of Stuck Funky

The Enthusiasm of the Prey

Once again, we’ve shed every member of the “official” Funky Winkerbean cast, and replaced them with losers. Look at those faces in panel one. The dialogue in today’s strip is completely irrelevant–these people are talking about how the Funkyverse has crushed them.

Much as we make fun of Tom Batiuk’s artwork, this image–

–is perfect. This is the face and the stance of a man who not only hates what he does for a living, he hates himself for doing it. This man has seen every bubble of his soul popped cruelly in front of his eyes, and he hates himself for not turning away. Just put one foot in front of the other for another couple of hours, man, he thinks, then let the endrunkening commence.

This man, on the other hand–

–this man doesn’t hate himself. Oh, if you asked him he would say he sure does, but this is the face of a man who has had all emotion crushed out of him–like an Amazing Mister Sponge that’s been twisted in the hundred evil hands of the evil Doctor Centipede, to borrow an image. He wishes he could hate himself; at least he would feel something then. So what if I don’t have the energy to get out of my chair, he thinks, it just means my body will be found here tomorrow rather than weeks later in my apartment. And that’s the best I can hope for. Open casket, before I start to decompose. Yeah, that’s my only goal now.

The boredom and depression are now the only friends these men have, now that it has fully sunk in what this new job entails–ginning up enthusiasm for changing the “The Amazing Mister Sponge” from 1940’s Captain Marvel to the 21st century Batman. White Shirt Man hopes, if that’s the right word, for a fatal paper cut. Glasses Man fears the future so hard all he can do is repeat his punishment, as the only reality he will ever know.

Moments after panel one was drawn, White Shirt Man succeeded in casting off this veil of drears; his replacement, Cardboard Cut Out Man, looks up to the task. Glasses Man perks up at the idea of getting the internet to do his work for him, holding back the knowledge that casting off this task will only make the oncoming ones to follow even worse. Later, alone, the tears will come. They always do.

We Love It THIS MUCH!

Link to today’s strip.

Ah, the fickle world of publishing, where the trashing of your dream character, just to stir up sales, is a regular event. Where palpable alarm and twisted anger morph instantly into fervid enthusiasm. Look at the guy in the white shirt in panel one–now that’s someone so angry he’s warping his face. Hope it doesn’t stick that way, buddy. Dopey McGlasses, on the other hand, goes from stunned to happy with such ease he even does that Hummel thing with his hands to show how much he loves this idea.

My impression of this arc is that we are meant to disapprove of the way in which publishers demand that characters transform from happy and bright-eyed to dark and gloomy. I hope I’m wrong, because this, coming from the man who writes and draws Funky Winkerbean, is too ironic by half.

Anyway, I’m glad the Mega Men are all enthusiastic. Because the actual readers of this comic strip can share in none of the emotions on display here–not for us the gobsmacked alarm, the face-melting rage, the burning anger (look at GroverShave) or the unbridled enthusiasm of the last panel. Because we’ve all been locked out of this story. It’s people discussing a comic book character we’ve never seen. We don’t know if sales are down, or if the character is in danger of irrelevancy, or if the book might get cut if not for Pete’s clone-strategy. We’ve never seen a bit of Mister Sponge as he is currently, so his new direction means nothing. Even “Sophomore Sightings” made a few appearances in the strip and, apparently, it was not requested that it become dark and dreary like poor Mr. Sponge.

Of course, there is a bright side for us in today’s offering–the surety that we’re not idiots. Today’s strip reminds us that we don’t require t-shirts or easels to know where we are and where we’re working, unlike the intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic who need these things to work at Mega Comics. That easel in particular is great–normally, one might expect a sales chart or something, but that would require actual story-telling ability, a hint of what’s at stake, so instead it’s just the logo. Just sitting there, like a prop. I bet it has to be on display at every meeting or there’s a panic: “Oh Hell, where are we working? What are we doing? Who am us, anyway?”

On second thought, I’m betting this isn’t anywhere near “Mega Comics” headquarters. This is just a bunch of Pete’s friends all play-acting. They’re sitting around wondering why they got fired and fantasizing about being big shots in the comics world.

I think that’s a much better scenario; the only flaw is that it requires Dopey Pete to have friends, which is pushing things a bit far.

And, just to leave you with some entertainment….

Ex-Sponged

Link to today’s strip.

Well, Darin sure looks dumbfounded by today’s revelation, but I suspect that’s his default state anyway. And across town, at Mega Comics headquarters, that one editor (who looks like Sesame Street’s Grover has shaved his face) looks equally astonished. He may be thinking, “Haven’t we gone over this road several dozen times in comics? Spider-Man was a clone for a while…comic books these days seem packed to the gills with clones…”

(That’s my hazy recollection. Unlike some I could name, I haven’t followed comics for several decades so all my info is second-hand.)

GroverShave may also be thinking something along the lines of, “Say, isn’t this a really stupid idea? Why would a hero’s arch-enemy clone that hero, rather than kill him? Is the clone programmed to let Doctor Centipede free just as he’s about to capture him? Isn’t that kind of annoying, having his schemes stopped all the time by his own creation? Should Pete go back to his old job of bringing us coffee, while simultaneously shutting up?”

And here we have the number one problem with “tell, don’t show.” Since we’ve never had a glimpse of The Amazing Mister Sponge (or TAMS for short), much less any hint of his adventures, none of this means anything to anyone. So what if TAMS is a clone? It changes nothing. Our lives, hitherto untouched by TAMS, have not had their courses altered in the slightest by this latest development. Even the characters here are just chatting–there’s certainly no hint at all of Pete bemoaning that he is being asked to change the nature of his signature character into something else. There’s no sense of loss, or dreams slipping away, or anything…it’s just another day for Pete, and like most days, it ends with your creations ground down under commercial pressures.

Or so we assume, again. Pete looks excited in the last panel, but is that because the idea appeals to him, or is he simply desperate to keep his job? Without a hint, we’re just looking at bad drawings spouting bad dialogue, with nothing to tie either to any human experience.

I hate to say it, but the scenario below has more of a connection with an audience–any audience.

Yes…above, everything revolves around Les, as Tom Batiuk clearly wants. But at least in this scenario, there’s someone we can hate. The Amazing Mister Sponge? I have no opinion about him one way or the other. I’ve been given no opportunity to form an opinion of any kind…which, given the reception Mr. Batiuk’s work usually gathers, may be by design.

The Invisible Man Gets A Makeover

Link to today’s strip.

Once again, Tom Batiuk goes with “tell, don’t show” and graces us with a wall of text about a (fictional, in-universe) character we’ve never even seen and care nothing about. In a strip well-known for having stupid character names, The Amazing Mister Sponge is really up there in the top ten. Were I a super-villain (and I’m not saying I’m not), if one of my henchmen called out, “Hey boss, the Amazing Mister Sponge is after us!” why, I’d probably collapse from laughter and be unable to launch my scheme. So maybe he does have a super-power. I imagine it loses its effectiveness the second or third time, though, and starts being annoying. “Why can’t one of the good heroes try and stop me? This is embarrassing…”

It really makes me curious about how Mr. Batiuk decides on a storyline, what factors come to play that cause him to deliver…this. Don’t you love how the episode ends on a cliff-hanger, the idea being that we’re all on pins and needles to know what Pete’s scheme is? In reality, we know it’s going to be a crashing bore, except “crashing” implies something happening. If this is Tom Batiuk’s depiction of the pressures of being a cartoonist, there’s a much better solution than wasting space: retire. Sure, you can spin your wheels until the glorious 50th, but here’s a cold hard truth. No one is going to buy The Complete Funky Winkerbean: 2010-2015. No one.

I guess one thing is that Mr. Batiuk seems to have lost any enthusiasm for drawing. That Starbuck Jones face on the wall, for example, is a terrible drawing. If that’s an example of Pete’s artwork, no wonder we’ve never seen this Sponge-Head.

As for the “real” characters depicted here, Darin is a bland smiling blank–the kind of image you’d see if TV stations still used “test patterns.” And Pete has clearly been rejected from The Muppet Show for “looking too lifeless.”

Bores!

Link to today’s strip.

Well, those of you who thought we were going to get more of Les’ genius today are in for a real treat! Because we don’t.

Instead, we have two boring characters chattering in an episode where the drawing is utterly irrelevant. The only thing of note is how Pete’s happy(esque) expression immediately morphs into a weary mask when his own work is brought up. Darin must know how much Pete hates his own stuff, as he lights up a rather predatory grin when switching subjects.

I can’t imagine why Tom Batiuk thinks we care at all about The Amazing Mister Sponge. So far as I am aware, we’ve never been allowed a single peek at the character, so we know it has to be underwhelming. Instead, we’re given a scene of two minor, dull characters talking about him. Wow, talk about action-packed.

And another week of crashing boredom gets fully under way.