In a universe where a book (graphic novel, whatever) by a teacher from Ohio about his wife’s breast cancer battle has ’em lining up in bookstores from coast to coast…what’s not to believe about an Ohio high school band director publishing a 17-volume autobiography? “Keeping busy these days” indeed: between his “Dinkle Diaries” and the epic Claude Barlow bio, where does Harry find the time to go down to the school and pester the living shit out of Becky?
On Wednesday I Photoshopped a gag panel of Dinkle talking about “reading a book in the morning” and holding up a copy of Lisa’s Story. But Batuik doesn’t need me to cross-promote his books…there’s another publishing franchise that just this year published its ninth volume: The Complete Funky Winkerbean. Each volume contains three years of strips, and we’re up to 1996-1998. At this rate, “only eight more” volumes would take us through 2022. Perhaps Dinkle’s friend—dammit, we still don’t know his name—isn’t the only one contemplating retirement? Don’t let us down, Tom.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Okay, I’ve only written one volume so far, but I’ve posted it to Amazon nine times. It seems they can only sell each copy once, so I have to repost it once every other year. And I’m telling you, each time that Post Deleted guy gets away without paying for it! At least he’s a devoted fan!”
This week has been like reading a rejected Seinfeld script.
Oh, it *dreams* of being rejected by Seinfeld. I’m pretty sure it’d be rejected by *any* TV show.
Sure, why not? If a retired band director can sell band candy for a living, Harry Dinkle can have a 17-volume autobiography. Even though he sold a presumably complete autobiography door-to-door years ago.
It’s like an episode of Spongebob Squarepants where a gorilla shows up, and Spongebob says to the camera “wait a minute, how can there be a gorilla underwater?” and scares it away.
To be fair, he never said that autobiography was complete back when he and Lefty where schlepping copies door-to-door in 2014, only that it was Volume 3.
From Volume 3 to Volume 9 in five-and-a-half years… He works faster than Les even as he somehow spends MORE time at Westview High than Les does.
I actually remember this one. Check out that robin’s egg blue car in the background. There must have been a sale over at Crazy Vaclav’s House Of Automobiles.
Yes Tom, we all remember when Harry Dinkle was a megalomaniacal madman who cooked up all sorts of grandiose and daffy schemes. He wore a funny hat all the time too. Yep, I’m imperceptibly amused a touch over baseline right now just thinking about it. Those sure were the days all right and so forth.
“Harry talks to some guy about band candy and his autobiography”…so he’s totally given up on premises too now? That’s a really, really weak one, even by FW standards. Maybe he’ll become a sort of band directing Forrest Gump-like figure, sitting outside Montoni’s and sharing his litany of band directing anecdotes and observations with any passing band directors who happen by. And he’ll have a pizza box on his lap.
Dinkle always looked like a tinpot dictator, which I liked. The hat bit was stolen from Mort Walker. How often did Beetle Bailey show his peepers? It was a big deal to see Dinkle without his hat for the first time.
When did Dinkle first remove his hat to expose those basilisk eyes? Was it after Garry Trudeau finally pried the football helmet off BD’s head?
Arcs like this make me think TomBat writes the strip just to get a reaction from us snarkers. He’s trolling us; unless he actually finds this entertaining which is a scary thought.
“Published”? “Published”? Some book company out there is doling out good money for Dinkelberg’s worthless life story, tepid tales of selling candy and turkeys, and moldy music-themed puns? I could see if he had said the first nine volumes had been “written” (an unlikely amount, but still possible), but unless he’s using a vanity press and paying for it himself, there’s no way in the name of Les “Dead St. Lisa” Moore or even Lillian “the Reptilian” McKenzie that someone is actually printing this waste of ink and paper. Why is Battyuk so obsessed with this recurring theme of mediocre authors seeing their works published and gaining global praise and…oh, I think I just answered my own question.
I hope we don’t have to wait for him to tip his Funky Felt Tip to this man to find out his name.
I honestly thought the other band director was a woman until TFH pointed out his gender today.
Hm, an interesting idea to regard “The Complete Funky Winkerbean” series as Dinkle’s autobiography.
Well, Dinkle has certainly helped his friend make a decision regarding his retirement, huh?
There really isn’t a conversation that Dinkle or Les has that they can’t turn back on themselves. Perhaps that’s why these two haven’t been shown talking to one another: they’d just end up saying things at each other about themselves without context or sense.