November 2018 – Page 3 – Son of Stuck Funky

He’s Smirking Because He’s Got Speakerphone On, And Likes Humiliating His Daughter

So apparently Rana can’t speak for herself, and Wally has to clear this with her mom, because she’s eight years old and not a grad student. Wait, that’s not right.

I mean, why would Becky object? It’s the first time in like ten years Wally’s even been aware he has a daughter. Becky’s got to seize that moment while she can. And this will allow her and John to have a romantic Thanksgiving alone. Who am I kidding, of course it would be the two of them and Crazy Harry.

And it’s one thing for an individual to say that they personally are putting on the “freshman fifteen” (grad school fifteen is just lame and continues the long Batiukian tradition of thinking just switching two words is enough to be hilarious). It’s another thing for Becky to “joke” about this totally behind Rana’s back to her dad. It just comes off like complaining about her getting fat, which is laughable, but totally in line with the general mean-spirited nature of Batiuk’s strips.

Coming Soon: Montoni’s Baghdad

Link To Today’s Fine Strip

Based on appearances I’d say that age gap is maybe five years or so. Honestly, it doesn’t look like an age gap as much as a “Funky is a lot fatter” gap, since Wally doesn’t look like a young buck or anything.

It’s funny, Batiuk passing off forgetting the basic relationships between his characters as “oh yeah, that was a joke all along and you didn’t get it”. I assume coming up soon someone will say they call Pete by the wrong last name to be funny.

Adeela Develops Winkerbean Nose in Two Panels

Link To Today’s Strip

“Dine like an Iraqi”? What does that even mean? And how has she been doing that? I assume we’re supposed to think they’ve been in this coffee shop more than once, apparently. I don’t think I’d call “doing schoolwork in a coffee shop while drinking coffee” any kind of dining at all, let alone Iraqi style dining. Or are they actually going out to dinners now? Because I don’t think Rachel would be thrilled with that. Actually, being a female character written by Tom Batiuk, “thrilled” is probably exactly how she’d react. And Wally has actually lived in Iraq. I have a feeling he would have learned how to “dine like an Iraqi” then.

Also, Wally apparently had no plans to see his daughter, who lives in the same town as him, on Thanksgiving. I really, really hope at some point he tells Rana “how Americans do” something. What a goofy guy.

I Predict Band Turkeys

Link to Today’s Strip

So, of course Adeela and Rana are friends. All Muslims know each other, after all. Since Rana is apparently getting her Master’s in Education, what is Adeela studying, that they’d have the same classes, and that she’d also share a class with Wally? Unless they just met in a Muslim student group. Which, if this school has one, you’d think Wally wouldn’t have gone six years or more without being near a Muslim.

And what is it with people in this strip never referring to anyone by name? Crankshaft is always “that cranky bus driver”, and Adeela only refers to Wally as “a goofy guy”, and not “Wally”, “the vet”, or anything else that would make sense. I mean, you know a guy named “Wally Winkerbean”, and can’t ever remember or mention a name as silly as that?

Becky Gives It One Thumb Up

Link to Today’s Strip

Given the fact that this is Rana’s first appearance in this strip in years, and she hasn’t been mentioned at all since, I don’t think her going to “teach in Afghanistan” would make much of a difference at all. If this was Act 2, this would no doubt foreshadow an upcoming Very Serious Storyline. But this is just Batiuk being cheap and thinking just saying a character is going to teach girls in Afghanistan is Edgy and Relevant and Important, because I’d be incredibly shocked if this strip ever shows that. Or ever shows her again at all, honestly. And if she does she’ll probably just be teaching at Westview with no mention of Afghanistan. And then I’d be impressed that Batiuk even remembered she was supposed to be a teacher.

Adeela sure is fitting in well in Westview, sitting quietly and smiling while the male in her life talks about what interests him.