August 2018 – Page 6 – Son of Stuck Funky

The Ups And Downs Of Being Funky

In a strip where elderly Alzheimer patients cut albums in Memphis and surf the web like pros and people take sixty-plus year breaks in their careers, this whole daffy premise is pretty tough to swallow. It’s astonishing how little Holly and her mother think of Funky, which is supposed to be the joke here I guess. He can’t even count on his own wife to have his back, as she has no qualms at all about forcing him to close up shop and take a four thousand mile round trip with his mother-in-law, which would be valid grounds for divorce in at least forty-nine US states but unfortunately for Funky, not in Ohio.

Poor Funky, the FW character you always laugh at, never with. Every single other character in the strip is a wry wisecracking wordplay machine, snidely smirking after another unbearably clever pun or smart-alecky remark, but never Funky. Funky just shuts up and takes it, week after week, year after year, decade after decade, all because he was the “normal well-adjusted” kid in high school and BatNom will never let him live it down. The guy survived crippling alcoholism and an even more crippling car crash to become the local president of the chamber of commerce and the ~~only~~ most successful businessman in town. He’s convivially and generously hosted and/or catered literally every single major social event the town has ever seen, he’s employed a bevy of family members and pals at his restaurant and he’s acted as a kind and patient landlord too.

His reward? To be kicked and kicked again, over and over. His family doesn’t respect him at all, his friends mock him, he suffers from a litany of health woes and he’s fat, old and physically repulsive. The guy who writes this thing never stops heaping abuse on him and (oddly enough) it just makes it impossible for me to truly hate him like I hate Les and Lisa and Darin and Dinkle and Pete and Holly and Cory and Summer (whoever she is) and Chester and Mason and Cliff and Becky and Cindy and Vera and Crazy and Owen and Cody and Nate and Cayla and that bus driver (I forget his name) and the other characters (except Buddy, as I really love that dog).

Let that be a lesson to all those kids out there just now discovering FW (guf-faw) for the first time: don’t peak in high school. Pick a thing (dork, stoner, “it” girl, baton twirler, jock) and f*cking run with it because living down your high school identity will be the most important thing you ever do. Also, invest in comic books and whatever you do do NOT get involved in the pizza industry, although eating it three times a day is fine. See, there’s actual educational content in this strip, you just have to wade through forty-plus years of crap to find it.

And The Bland Played On

Link To Today’s Strip

The good news: no comic books!!! The bad news: mail is still playing a pivotal role in the strip.

Let’s take a moment to talk about shitty storytelling. Holly has apparently just opened her invitation to the Big Band Alumni Reunion Event (sigh), which oughta be a real barn-burner by the way. Yet somehow, despite just finding out about it, she knows that a) her mother was also inexplicably invited, b) she wants to attend and c) she wants them to drive to Florida to pick her up. Which opens a whole host of mysteries best left unsolved, which they no doubt will be.

I don’t remember Holly’s mom being a character in the strip at all, which seems to indicate that the “goal” here is a) more “adorable old coot” humor and b) another excuse to trot out Holly’s Act I flaming baton trick persona, neither of which has generated a lot of clamor among FW’s (chortle) fan base as far as I can tell. Anyone who’s had anything whatsoever to do over the last forty years has forgotten all about Holly’s baton silliness and if FW contained any more “adorable old coot” gags it’d come with a year’s supply of Coumadin. Unless this Big Band Alumni Reunion Event (sigh) is just another excuse to have the loathsome Dinkle wobble down Act I Memory Lane yet again, which seems sort of likely given the premise here.

It’s Just the Wasted Years So Close Behind

Link to today’s strip.

So: this makes a walloping four times a strip has been unavailable for preview during my latest hosting period. That’s gotta be a record of some kind.

Of course, two of those times were Sundays, and Sunday’s strips are always unavailable for preview. Because why should he give us time to point out the shortcomings practically leaping all over his work?

Over at Shankcraft, for example, Apple Annie is about to sign her first author: Lillian. But–

–didn’t Ann have Les as a client? It seemed only a short eternity ago that Lillian was hosting Les’ launch party for his book about John Darling, who was murdered. I thought the story was, Les, seeing as he and his book were both garbage, tossed his manuscript into the trash (where it belonged, and where it was happy*). Ann, then a bag lady, fished it out (making it unhappy) and got it published (terrifying it), thus leading to the greatest display of egomania ever shown on the comics page. Way to go, Ann. Thanks (said all sarcastic-like). But no, apparently continuity is for losers if you can score cheap points about schizophrenia. It’s supposed to be touching, but it shoots right past maudlin and treacly and lands right in the middle of gorge-rising.

Why is it that Tom Batiuk is completely incapable of creating sympathetic characters? Does he think, “Well, she’s got a terrible mental condition, readers will love her, because they won’t dare not!”? Someday I’d like to ask him about his methods, and I don’t mean that as something nasty. I’m honestly curious about how his mind works.

Anyway, based on what’s coming next week (trust me, it’s not a superpower anyone wants), I’m thinking Sunday will be a stand-alone strip. I’m going to take stab and guess Funky’ll be in it. But who knows? All we can really say is that it will be uninteresting in every aspect.

And speaking of next week, my time in the chamber of horrors has come to an end, for now, so please give a warm welcome to your next host, snarker extraordinare Epicus Doomus!

*I have an idea about a children’s book, about a manuscript that knows it’s bad, and wants to be thrown away, but it keeps getting passed from hand to hand until it’s published. It has a happy ending, in that no one buys it and the author never tries again. Does anyone have Ann Apple’s phone number?

Perish the Prat

Link to today’s strip.

Okay, that envelope looks as thick as one holding five (or so) pieces of paper. Definitely less than ten. Since Dullard was going to send “some” of Atomik Komix (gah) latest issues to Jessica, what exactly are they producing in that office? I’m thinking, something not really worth the effort to print and mail.

Which leads me to this. I’ve got the persistent feeling the whole Atomik Komix (gahk!) scenario is nothing more than a fever dream concocted by Dullard, who is currently in a coma in some hospital room. Jess pushed him out the window when she discovered he was going to waste needed money on the Flash Museum (or selling comic book art to benefit Lisa), and he fell three stories. Unfortunately for all of us, he landed on his least vulnerable spot–his head–and instead of dying instantly, he has been on life-support since. Jess and Skyler have long since abandoned him, and are living life to the fullest in LA, while he lies in bed dreaming of comic books.

Oh, and this is bad news for Pete, since that means Mindy’s affection for him is also imaginary (which it would be in the real world).

As for the art, I put it to you that Dullard in panel 2 is just as stranglable as Les was last Sunday. In fact, I’m having a hard time resisting my throttling hand…. MUST CRUSH MONITO

Seven Years (In One Night)

Link to today’s strip.

See, this is what happens when you half-ass it.

Tom Batiuk had this hilarious joke about how only old people use the post office, but he lost that joke somewhere on his desk, so we got this one instead:

Because it might have been “okay” if the length of time was a week, or a month, but if it was a year? Man, the laughs just don’t stop. Mainly because they never start.

The problem seeps in when we look at what he wrote on the 31st of July.

So, the “always like” seems to imply that he’s done this more than once. But the “this year” above seems to imply that he only does it once a year or so.

Which means that Jessica is still in Los Angeles, while Dullard has been in Cleveland for a year.

Or, what I think is more likely, Jessica has jettisoned his sorry ass and is living a successful life elsewhere, and Dullard just likes to “pretend” he has a relationship.

Either way, it makes Dullard look bad, so thumbs up from me!

PS: Speaking of artwork, it almost looks like Commissioner Gordon from the Tim Burton Batman movies checking his watch, and is that Chuck Ayers himself in the beard?