Fortunately, today’s strip stays in one time line. It also quotes one of Bob Dylan’s best-reviewed songs. Well, that’s two positives to the… end-ish? of this very maudlin special story arc. FYI: A donation has been made to the Boston University CTE center, presumably so readers will remember what this story arc was about last month.
So was Bull a member of the local Dylanist congregation or is that the only house of worship in Westview anymore? Both?
And with that, I am relieved… both to be done with my posting stint and, come tomorrow, by the incomparable Spacemanspiff85.
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Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Tagged as Becky, Bob Dylan, Buck, Buck Bedlow, Bull, Cayla, character death, characters everyone hates, Cindy, crappy ploddinng stories that never get anywhere, CTE, death, Dinkle, endless piles of leaves, endless tedium, Falling leaves, funeral, Harry Dinkle, impending doom, insufferability, Jinx, Keisha, leaves, Les, Les. Cayla, Linda, Linda Bushka, Mason, Mason Jarr, Mason Jarre, Mickey, Now Cindy, old Harry Dinkle, one of those arcs that just never seems to end, rain, RIP Bull, sheer idiocy, Summer, things that make you seriously regret ever starting to read FW in the first place, things that never end, traffic fatalities, welcoming death
Son of Stuck Funky 
Why is it that all the graves point in one direction (east, presumably, toward the sunrise) while Bull’s box is ready to be lowered into the ground at a right angle to everyone else? Is Buck Futt going to smirk about Bull’s inability to point his toes the right way?
Ooooh, wait until the padre finds out he’s planting a suicide in consecrated ground! Will he have Bull exhumed and buried outside the cemetery? That’s something cruel enough to be on Batiuk’s cultural horizon, isn’t it?
Protestants are wacky.
This brings up something I’ve been wondering: do the characters know he was a suicide? It doesn’t seem like they do, but the police brought Bull’s football helmet to her, which makes the crash difficult to interpret any other way.
Yeah yeah yeah, a dreary rainy windswept leafy funeral, that’s pretty much stock footage around these parts. No need to, you know, finish the story or anything, not when you can just throw some depressing imagery out there and call it a wrap. Bull is dead and it doesn’t even matter why, in fact there’s a 90% chance that by Thursday I’ll have completely forgotten that Bull even existed. Suicide, faulty repairs, foot dyslexia with accompanying spasms, who the f*ck knows what “really” happened? At least now Linda can impress her support group properly, so some good did come out of this whole thing after all.
You made me lol! “Foot dyslexia with accompanying spasms” – that’s rich!
I’m waiting for “November Rain” to start.
Yesterday everyone was walking away. Now they’re back at the graveside. Batiuk finally broke his time-pogo-stick and his characters are condemned to relive their smarmy hypocrisy until the end of time. Enjoy your immortality, creeps!
Thank goodness Fred didn’t/couldn’t speak at the funeral. Another positive!
LOL wow, bet you he hopes this one remains buried. It’s not the worst gag ever, though. If he ran this one tomorrow it’d be the highlight of the last fifteen years or thereabouts.
He still did more with his life than Fred did.
I know we’re in a much different era now and there’s no way a punchline like that would get past the editors; but that’s the first genuine chuckle a Funkyverse strip has gotten out of me since probably back when I was in high school…
Womp bop a looma a womp bam boom!
BC You’re dead-on accurate!
And there it is, the payoff. A crappy quote and a tiny link.
So that is what the comics are these days….just a cheap ad.
Screw. This. Strip.
“No, I don’t think Corch Bushka was a Dylanite…I believe he was a member of the First Presleyterian Church in Westview. Some folk say after he married that Mexican woman, she converted him to Elvislam.”
I wish I could up vote this more than once.
A seasonal comic for Marvel fans.
And here we all are, watching these stupid people send one of their own off in a stupid manner so a stupid man can make a stupid point so he can finally get an award to wave at people who call him incompetent. It’s like watching some crook get religion and say that makes up for years of being a dicktard.
Oh! Blocked in the EU for legal reasons.
Presumably ‘Funky Winkerbean’ contravenes European legislation on the import of materials that may be hazardous to human health.
Or Batiuk didn’t get legal permission for the Dylan quote. Lawsuit, lawsuit, rah, rah, rah! (with a tip of the helmet to Bull).
* A tip of the Funky Felt Tip to Bob “The Man in Black” Dylan!
So Summer and Becky really are identical twins who even dress alike.
And is that Keisha standing next to Summer?
It looks like the extent of TomBa’s research into BU’s CTE research program was limited to finding the link to donate.
And it appears this marks the finale to TomBa’s “take revenge on the sportos” arc.
I just love that “Rest in Peace” being showcased. It’s Batiuk screaming to his audience “Look, a graveyard! With dead people! Who died! And aren’t alive anymore! Because life is a tragedy! I’m even quoting Bob Dylan, who is very serious and stole a Nobel Prize that should’ve been mine! He’s very serious and deep, too! Please, give me an award!”.
Great. Now I have to take this song off my funeral playlist. Thanks, Batiuk.
I’m having this played at my funeral.
No one bothered to tell Fungy that Bull died. Why else would the eponymous character be absent?
1.) Hey look, a minister. But ministers should be seen and not heard.
2.) I DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND, that this tiny showing is the crowd Bull would get at his funeral. He was a teacher and a coach and he died relatively young, so his coworkers, classmates, heck his PARENTS could still be alive. His funeral should be a packed house.
3.) In this entire arc, going all the way back to the first diagnosis, we have not gotten a single word about or from his kids. This is what infuriates me the most about this entire story.
I DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND, that this tiny showing is the crowd Bull would get at his funeral.
Batiuk just included everyone he could make his lame punchlines around. Anyone else would be superfluous.
Funky’s father is still alive, and Holly’s mother is still alive. It would make sense for at least one of Bull’s parents to be alive.
“A donation has been made to the Boston University CTE center, presumably so readers will remember what this story arc was about last month” – or, so some combination of TB and KKS won’t have to make a “donation” to whomever owns the rights to those lyrics, ald their lawyers (“You’re suing us after we donated to a hospital?”)
I’ve got bad news for Batominc: quoting a Nobel laureate will not earn you a Pulitzer Prize. It won’t even get you a pullet surprise at the diner.
I think this is how it works, now.
Batiuk scans the news for something that’s been getting some publicity, and thus some public attention. Just as an example, there’s been news recently about leprosy reappearing in Los Angeles.
He then looks to see if there’s an organization devoted to this problem. And he finds The Council on Leprosy Awareness and Prevention (CLAP). And he decides Crazy Harry is going to get leprosy.
He then uses his media connections (after almost fifty years, he must have a lot) to hint that he’s going to be tackling this MAJOR issue in an upcoming story arc, and would they be able to help him spread the word?
Well, when there’s a terrible disease, of course you (as the media contact) will do what you can to spread awareness, so you tell him there’s a New York Times writer who needs a theme, and you put the two of them together.
The New York Times writer then writes a story about the upcoming arc, mentioning that a major character is going to get leprosy, and of course including (thanks to Batiuk) mentions of the previous topics this brave cartoonist “tackled.” And, of course, the writer mentions the Pulitzer nomination! That has to be in paragraph one. And the story duly appears in the New York Times.
Now, the head of CLAP is made aware that a comic strip is going to do a story on leprosy reappearing. He finds that there is a story in the New York Times. This is great! he thinks. And when the story appears, he signs up for an account, and comments “Thank you, Tom Batiuk, for bringing attention to something that is far too often ignored. We appreciate you!”
Part Two.
The New York Times story duly appears, and thanks to Batiuk’s connections, more people sign up to comment on the NYT article. And (as one would expect) the comments are variations on “How brave to address this topic. Thank you, Tom Batiuk, when the rest of the world’s cartoonists are silent!”
And when December rolls around, and the CLAP people are organizing their annual awards ceremony. The head of CLAP is asked, “Hey, who do we nominate for the ‘Media Awareness’ award?”
And the head of CLAP thinks for a long time, and then says, “How about that cartoonist guy? I didn’t read the strip, did any of you? …no? Well, let’s give the award to him.”
And Tom Batiuk get’s another “Award-winning” scalp to tie to his totem pole.
You might notice that the CONTENT of the actual strip is not mentioned at all in this scenario.
That’s deliberate, and purposeful. Of course, the actual content of the strip doesn’t mean a thing.
This is a very plausible scenario. But it could all go very wrong if the head of the charity actually reads the arc.
Where are Funky and Holly, or Crazy, or Darrin or Darrin’s stepmother who helped Bull coach the state championship girls basketball team? (yet Cindy who wasn’t close to him flies all the way from California to be there) Bull’s funeral didn’t even draw much of the FW cast to attend. Was he not well liked?
And where are the past and present Westview Principals, Bull’s bosses for decades, Nate and Fred Fairgood? Guess Nate couldn’t be bothered to take an afternoon off from school to say goodbye to his longtime football coach?