“To sum it up, Bull, you inspired me when I had my pants off. I’m so happy we can’t quit each other. I’m less happy about this creepy stranger glaring at me from underneath that bush, but you can’t win them all, I guess. Boy, you sure would know a thing or two about that, eh, buddy?”
Also apparently spending all your time in your basement watching TV and reading the sports section while having no human contact apart from your wife and a random stranger who showed up one day is “not quitting” by this strip’s standards. Which, I mean, Bull hasn’t just ended it all, which really actually is inspirational for Batiuk.
And you can totally take this as “Bull was a moron who didn’t know what the word meant, and he still is because of the CTE ruining his brain”, which is a fun spin on it.
Wind Beneath Buck’s Wings
Advertisements
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
I thought the Sports Hall of Fame was indicting Bull- so what’s Funky doing in his place in panel 2?!
“But he sure knew the meaning of the word ‘lose!'” The crowd erupts with laughter and carries Buck out on their shoulders. Bull wonders aloud, “So what’s the final score?” . .. Batuik has given me a nervous breakdown. Sorry, it’s late.
To be perfectly honest, Buck being diagnosed with CTE scares me a bit too, as it means he is a time traveler from a future where diagnosing CTE in living people is a thing (yes, I know a process to do this is presently being worked on) and said people are then allowed to time travel unsupervised.
Back in 2017, Gil Thorp ran a concussion/CTE fear-countering story arc that I think treated the issue too lightly. It did, however, correctly point out that the oft-cited Boston University study of deceased football players involved the brains of players who had experienced issues when they were alive, not a representative sample of all football players as many people have (often unconsciously) inferred. That story did also espouse the fair point that CTE is not an inevitability for a football player, even if it is a clear risk from playing the sport.
I bring this up because this Gil Thorp story arc was not well-received or regarded as an especially well-informed look into the issue of head trauma in football players. It did involve at least a cursory level of research… something this Buck-Bull CTE business very very extremely clearly does not. TB’s appallingly uniformed look into CTE clearly indicates that his interest in the topic is limited to the fact that he can hitch his trademark pathos to another “current event”. This is both infuriating and terribly sad.
2020’s “Blackface arc” should be interesting.
Yeah, Bull’s been a real profile in courage since his retirement. This whole light-hearted “we’re just waiting to forget everything” tone is really, really objectionable on lots of different levels.
As mawkish and poorly researched as this mess is, there is one upside: no Les.
Yet.
The most terrifying word in the English language.
I love how Buck (but really BatHack) has such disdain for Funky, that’s he’s talking about himself the whole time, making it about him. “ME! ME! ME! and funky….”
Bull spends all his time in the basement, with barely any human contact. This is presented as an inspiring story of perseverance. Apparently, not having killed himself is the big triumph, as SpacemanSpiff points out.
It brings to mind a far better take on this matter, from “Married With Children”. One of Al Bundy’s despairing-yet-triumphant rants about his miserable life that ended with: “…and the the fact that I haven’t put a gun in my mouth makes me a winner!”
Once again the utter failure of “Funky Winkerbean” as a comic strip reminds one of the existence of actual comedy and story-telling.
Batiuk reminds me of that loud guy in the diner (in various TV shows and movies). The one who’s always shouting at the staff, “Hey! Hey! How about some service over here?!”
Substitute the word “awards” for “service,” of course.
He aims for poignant, but he hits repugnant.
This reminds me of a bad after school special
“Bull doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit’, but we don’t know whether that’s due to his brain injury, his innate stupidity, or the crappy education that he received at Westview High.”