Just three days into my turn to “make the donuts” around here and I’m ready to throw up my hands…or just throw up. What the hell is today’s strip about, aside from padding this pointless arc out to six, maybe seven days? “Read a book in the morning”? Please tell me he’s not talking about taking a dump. I suppose a retired person has opportunity to read just about whenever they feel like it. What about “in the morning” makes Harry cock his head like that and raise his eyebrows? Where is joke?
Book ’em, Dinkle
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
Well, yeah, but it’s always the same book: your painfully unfunny pun-filled Claude Barlow biography. Always good for 10 minutes on the porcelain podium in the a.m.
“And by noon I’m ready to wipe!”
Typical BatYam, even a novelty vanity arc featuring one of his real-life friends can’t inspire him to put any effort into it. Imagine you’re this real-life band director who’s been anxiously awaiting the FW arc where he actually gets to interact with the legendary Harry Dinkle, then it turns out to be this boring pointless plod. This is exactly why he isn’t more popular, by the way.
I don’t give a shit if he retires, doesn’t retire, fake retires or drives through the guardrail up on Steep Hill Road, as I’m already wondering what next week’s arc will be. This one was over on Monday, but God forbid an arc wraps up in less than six days, as that’s the format.
“It was a book about squirrels! I managed to turn it into a comment on my career, about fostering nuts and then burying them! You should read a book about squirrels! I’ll lend you mine! If you don’t want to read about squirrels, then you’ll have to be destroyed! And then buried! I have spoken!”
Oh yeah, the squirrel arc. That was a real baffler. Batiuk is obviously completely out of Dinkle ideas, a trend I would expect to continue.
Batiuk wanders around his house blindfolded, throwing darts, to decide what to put in his Dinkle arcs. Books, pizza, computers, candy. But he’s not allowed to throw the darts outside anymore.
I hear the ASPCA did everything they could for that poor squirrel.
He really needs to step away from that studio window for a while. “It’s raining…(sigh), no. Wait, are those fallen leaves? No, (sigh), they’re from last year. (Sigh). Hey, a squirrel! Maybe Dinkle could identify with squirrels because they’re both a little nuts and (grabs pen)…yeah! That’s another week right there! Thanks, trusty studio window, you’re truly my window on the world. Get it?”
Dinkle isn’t retired! That’s not even a joke about how he’s always pestering Lefty at the high school, it’s a stated fact in this strip’s universe.
OMG – I never noticed before but the in comic version of Lisa’s Story says By Tom Batiuk? He’s seriously so proud of this stupid collection of maudlin comics he calls a ‘graphic novel’ that he doesn’t dare let Les get credit for writing it in the strip?!
TFH: I feel you, man. You know how the luck of the draw works but wow, this one blows even by FW standards. This one could very well be the single most pointless FW arc of 2020 so far.
Funky never did get to see that amazing buzzer beater…
We still don’t know the other band director’s name, but he’s compelled to address Batiuk’s second-most-well-known character by name every time he speaks.
You know, it’s almost as if TomBa’s displaying an interior debate.
Just because he can read a book in the morning doesn’t mean that he does. We have endless proof of that every time he drops in on Lefty Pinnedsleeve for ‘a chat.’
Leave the feces-focused “humor” to “Marvin”, BatBoy! You’re death, despair, and comic books!
This week is a good example of how Funky Winkerbean‘s desire to tackle serious topics is undermined by its own poor writing and shallowness.
Retirement can be a difficult thing to face. Perhaps especially so for the monomaniacs who become band directors. This unnamed character seeks Dinkle’s advice about retirement, but we know Dinkle never retired in any meaningful way. If Batiuk had let Dinkle ride off into the sunset, instead of constantly dragging him out for dumb band arcs, he might actually have something useful to say here.
Thinking about Harry shooting the Deuce is not how I wanted to start my day.
In the second panel the two old codgers look like ghostly apparitions!