Know Your Rites

Of course “you don’t qualify for the grace period”…Ohio has no grace period when it comes to driver’s license renewals. And if “last year” means your license expired over six months ago, Ohio law requires you to get a permit and then re-take the driving test. Now there’s a rich vein of humorous material to be tapped. But the word “grace” suggests “holy,” I guess which suggests, to Batiuk, “last rites” are in order for Funky’s expired as in “dead” license.

17 thoughts on “Know Your Rites”

  1. Funky is a lot like Ralph Kramden now, only without the jokes, a funny sidekick, physical comedy and regular threats of violence. He really nails the obesity and bungling ineptitude though. Shouldn’t it really be Bull going around forgetting various things instead of Funky? You know, like showing up for basketball practice with a hockey stick, forgetting to use his turn signal, stuff like that. I mean he DOES have a degenerative brain disease and all.

    Anyhow, Funky (who, as pointed out in yesterday’s comments, took two domestic flights just last week) forgot to renew his DL “last year” sometime, like the raging imbecile he’s suddenly become. Oh sure, he’s always been a dimwit but not to this degree. Or maybe he was, I don’t know. It’s all a big blur of Funky appearing shocked and dismayed by things for days at a stretch, it wears you down after a while. Batiuk right now is like a boxer methodically working the body, each seemingly mundane punch slowly taking its toll on his foe (the reader, of course).

    Funky having to re-take the driver’s test? I can see it, although it seems just a little too normal and ambitious for this strip. Obviously he’d fail and his “loved ones” would relentlessly mock him about it, then six months later we’d see Funky driving his car as if nothing happened, which is this entire strip in a nutshell.

  3. Looks like the Westview DMV is a mirror into an alternate universe where Les has Funky’s body and Cayla never changed her hair.

  4. As much as Batiuk worships comics, he really should try harder. I guarantee that lots of kids are going to stop reading comics forever after reading that first panel.

  5. It’s entertaining to replace Funky’s face with that of Les Moore.
    Suddenly the smug superiority of that clerk would vanish, while Les’ waspish impudence would be given full play. Sure looks like, in comics, you can pick your heroes, your villains, your sidekicks…and your bystanders.

  6. Flummoxed, panicked, befuddled, hapless….poor Funky’s been through it all in this “Supeclinic/Estate Planning/Expired Driver’s License” mega-arc.

  7. Please tell me that Crankshaft will cross over into this arc. Maybe Funky can back over a mailbox at the Keester’s house during his driving test.

  8. Great. Watching the lump retake his driver’s test should be a totally not boring way to burn through the rest of the month. Maybe next month, he can moan about the horrors of having to do his taxes.

  9. Gaaaah, that is not the way to tell a joke if the scene is supposed to be lighthearted. I mean, I notice that nearly every “funny” moment has to be sone type of wordplay that’s usually combined with some form of gallows humor. No wonder readers snark at your strip, TB…who knows exactly *when* we’re supposed to laugh? Or be as horrified as Funky looks right now?

    Oh, well. Regardless, happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! 🙂 ❤

  11. Funky Winkerbean is in his late 40s, right? Why is Funky drawn to be a dude in his 60s? It’s a trivial thing, but I feel compelled to bring it up because Funky’s apparent age gives a very different tone to these jokes. Instead of this and last week and the week before that feeling like classical Working Class Blues Comedy gags (which they ARE) they feel more like a universe is picking on a doddering old man.

  12. @Frank Bolton: Time is a very fluid and flexible thing in the Funkiverse. When Batiuk rebooted the strip in October 2007, the official FW site had a “Meet the Cast” page (since deleted) with model sheets showing the characters as they “now” looked. If Funky was “46” then, he’s pushing 56 now, but TB depicts him, in appearance and behavior, as being much closer to Batiuk’s own age of 69.

  13. Oh, I just noticed that the guy in the traveling green shirt waiting in line in the background of panel 3 is some sort of tapir-man. You meet all kinds at the DMV…

  15. OK, so let’s say you’re a young person looking at getting into comic strips

    (I know I laughed at that thought, too!!!).

    Let’s say you stumble onto Tom Batiuk’s strips.

    On this very day, here are you choices for a comic strip

    1. Funky Winkerbean – which involves a elderly man trying to get his license renewed at the DMV

    2. Crankshaft – in which a bunch of bus drivers lead are going bowling.

    Riveting, action!!

  16. It’s the noses that drive me crazy. Other parts of the face puff-out and droop and change with age. But especially in a comics medium NOSES should remain a constant throughout adulthood, a way of telling that the character is the same from year to year to year. But Batty keeps forgetting who has what nose and now gives everyone that ridiculous roman bridge that connects directly to the forehead.

    Where is the plastic surgeon in Westview? He makes more money than Montoni’s.

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