Garbage dump week continues with a big heaping load of a Sunday strip, one that was perhaps best left in the “emergency only” folder. It seems that Ol’ Man Winkerbean likes to be on “E” before he leaves the house, which is way, way more than we really need to know about Funky if you ask me.
So this is the last Sunday strip of the 2010s. I’d really love to see the whole lot of them assembled in book form, he could maybe call it “Meh…It’s Just The Sunday Strip” or something equally catchy. Just think, there have been over 500 of these over the last ten years and I’ll be damned if I can really remember more than seven or eight of them.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Who throws a formal event on December 28 during a blizzard?
Well, they’re both wearing black, so I assumed they were going to a funeral.
They didn’t go to Bull Bushka’s
Just hearing about Bull, eh?
Yeah, the postal service was late delivering the invitation.
If Les is throwing another New Year’s party I might really regret taking the coming week. Shudder.
I want to see his karaoke performance of Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself.”
It snows every day from Thanksgiving through April out on the Ohio tundra. Nothing is postponed or cancelled. Not school, not parties… These hearty Ohioans just hop in their two cylinder East German Batyuckmobiles and plow through the snow like it’s not even there.
Batty needs to show it snowing so we idiots know it’s winter.
Men, thinks Frau Frump. They complain that a woman takes forever to get ready, then pause at the last minute to hit the bathroom. Or the bathroom floor.
Speaking of books, there have been way too many “Funky has to pee” strips. I can totally see Batiuk publishing them as a book and then bragging about tackling the very sensitive subject of prostate health or something.
I’m pretty sure these strips are the result of Batiuk forcing himself to sit at his desk for the two straight hours on January 1 it takes him to finish the next year of strips.
Proposed title: My Name Is Funky… And I Have To Pee
Really, Tom, what was the point of having Holly NOT smirk in the penultimate panel? Why stop her string of half-bemused, half-resigned risus sardonicus reactions to every nonsensical uttering her spouse utters?
Also, where is Holly’s matching pink pillbox hat to complete her “Jackie Kennedy sure has let herself go” ensemble?
Panel #8: “You might as well turn on the tv. I’ve gotta take a shit, too.”
So is this a setup for a “Funky gets a prostatectomy”?
It’s exactly the kind of story Tom Batiuk would do: one that affects him.
Stay tunes for the next Marvin Winkerbean, where Marvin fouls his Depends at the gala.
I’ve gathered every Sunday strip from 2019 here, so you can experience FW the way Sunday-only newspaper subscribers do. Not surprisingly, the Sunday Funkiverse makes even less sense. I also did a very rough breakdown of main topics for each strip. Some touched on more than one topic, e.g Ruby Lith/comic book cover/Atomik Komix, but I just went by the main theme. Including today’s strip, Funky and Holly have figured in 10 of them. Here’s the breakdown:
Funky and Holly 10
Darin and Jess 5
Bull 5
Westview High School 4
Comic book cover 3
Montoni’s 3
Ruby Lith 3
Dinkle 3
Atomik Komix 2
Les and Cayla 2
Butter Brinkel 2
Becky 2
Wally 1
Funky 1
Ann and Fred Fairgood 1
Holly’s mom Melinda 1
Komix Korner 1
Book signing 1
Cindy 1
Amelia and Amanda 1
His weekly strips typically follow a pattern…premise x4, kill time, wry resolution…but the Sunday strips are totally haphazard, there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all.
Funky and Holly are his go-to “marital bliss” duo now. It used to be Les and Lisa but she’s dead and Batiuk doesn’t know what to write for Cayla.
Funkwad closes the bathroom door. Instant grunting, farting (dry AND wet) and splashing sounds. Then a courtesy flush. Then it starts over again, but even more intense and violent.
WigFunky takes off her coat and settles down in front of that 14 inch TV they keep on a coffee table. “I’m sure they’ll hold our table at Montoni’s.”
As someone whose brother seemingly couldn’t leave the house without dropping a massive deuce, especially when it was my house, this strip is giving me bad flashbacks.
And of course it was Funky. Crazy is too “delightfully wacky” for such a pedestrian punchline. And Les is too dignified for someone to suggest he goes to the bathroom, even though showing him and Cayla going out somewhere might bolster the fiction that they have any kind of relationship whatsoever.