Maybe it’s just me, but “Sports Hall of Fame Induction” is starting to get right up there with “John Darling, who was murdered”. I mean, is Batiuk afraid his readers won’t know what kind of hall of fame Bull’s being inducted into? He’s Bull. Don’t worry Batiuk, nobody’s going to be confused and think he’s joining the English Teachers Hall of Fame or the Cartoonist Hall of Fame.
And I’m really kind of shocked Batiuk didn’t force in some introduction/induction “worldplay”. Heck, go all out and have Dinkle pop in tomorrow saying he heard Bull needs some conduction. Oh, and you know why none of Bull’s teammates have dropped by to see him? Because sportos are greedy, selfish amoral morons who don’t care at all for their fellow humans. Actually, this being Westview they’re probably all dead. Or they just hate Bull, because he was actually a jackass for most of this strip.
Son of Stuck Funky 
@spacemanspiff85 “Greedy, amoral morons”…great callback to 2010!
Were there any other members of the team? I mean, who appeared as characters in the comic?
I seem to recall Bull running with some other guys in sporto jackets but as far as I know none of them were named or anything. It does seem sort of unlikely that he would have made no impact whatsoever on any of the many hundreds of people he played with, coached and taught through the decades, though.
Funky is a football player, I believe, in the stage musical Funky Winkerbean’s Homecoming (he certainly appears on the cover of the script in a football uniform) but I don’t believe he ever appeared as one in the strip. Maybe Derek played football in a strip or two? Most of Act I’s football strips were focused on Coach Stropp and Bull (used as a bully more than a jock in Act I) would sometimes go whole autumns without appearing in uniform.
Of course they don’t visit! At the drop of a hat, Bull will blame them for whatever indict-worthy crimes the team committed so he obviously holds them in contempt.
We did see a retcon of Bull ‘fake’ bullying Les back in April 2011, apparently to satisfy the bloodlust of three other sportos.
This dialog reads like he wrote individual words on little strips of paper and randomly pulled them out of a hat. “Hall Linda, Bull fame of induction. Bull sports of been has, what”. And the punch line (as it were) is that Bull has no old friends and this psycho Buck is literally the only person who ever inquires about him. Yeah, it’s pretty funny in a “sweet Jesus will he ever stop punishing these characters?” kind of way but it’s pretty f*cking dreary by normal standards.
So other than Buck, Bull doesn’t have a friend in the world. It wasn’t enough to squash the high school bully character once and for all by giving him a degenerative brain disease, he had to strip away Bull’s friends and support system too and turn him into a weird confused recluse whose only link to society and the outside world is some jerk who literally just popped up at his door one day. Batiuk sure is a cruel, cruel master with these characters of his, he’ll never forgive Bull for the horrible things he had him do to Les back in the day.
I know it seems dire for everybody Bull has ever known to abandon him, but remember: this means Les Moore has been out of Bull’s life for years now.
“No one from his own team”. Does that mean none of his teammates and none of the students he coached? That’s bad, even by Funky Winkerbean standards. But even though everyone except noble Buck has abandoned him he’s going to be massively feted with the Hall of Fame induction. Maybe after the ceremony Bull can re-drop Coach Strop’s ashes and then return to his basement VHS-watching misery.
Here’s a thought Mrs. B**tchy Bushka. How about you get your husband out more? Do his friends even know you’ve got him locked in the basement like some kind of inverse Mr. Rochester? You expect everyone to come visit him like an frail invalid? He’s got CTE, not quadriplegia. Crypt Keeper Lisa got at least got pushed around the park in a wheelchair. But apparently you only let your diseased husband out in the front yard at night. Because that is literally the last time I remember seeing him outside.
I call complete BullStuff on this one: What High School football coach in America does not have one classmate on the staff at some point?
Also, if Buck is literally the only one who cares enough about Bull to visit or check on him, why is he being inducted into the hall of fame?
“Bull’s been totally forgotten by everyone, and now they’re inducting him into a hall of fame.”
It’s a setup for the tear-jerking (well, he’s jerking something) finale, when Bull shows up for the induction and he, Linda, and Cinder-block-head are the only ones in attendance.
Given TomBa’s hatred fo Bull, I agree that this might be where things are heading. Which raises the question – if Bull is that unremembered and un loved how did he get elected to the Westview Sports Hall of Fame?
This “comic strip” affords us a look into Tom Batiuk’s unconscious mind. About a year ago, he must have been consumed with getting a nomination to some obscure Hall of Fame. Sad!
Linda’s hair is what I expect Thelma Harper’s looked like 30 years prior to the debut of Mama’s Family. I am not proud of this observation.
If this were Era II, I’d assume that this meant that all of his team mates were dead. Here, it’s just another “sportos are assholes” “joke.”