Looks like they were going to see some weird foreign film. Anyhow, today we see a desperate and frightened Adeela reach out to the only person who could possibly help…Wally. Yep, this should end well.
Why is Rachel smirking at Buddy like that? She’s a real odd duck, that one. And check out Buddy, it’s like he KNOWS there’s trouble. What a good boy.
Son of Stuck Funky 
As near as I can tell, that movie title is “Lamest.” Or “La Mess.” Not satisfied with desecrating English, the Lord of Language has turned French into Eurotrash.
Nope. Batiuk didn’t put that in. It’s Ayers subtly letting us know what he thinks of this arc. “Lamest La Mess I’ve ever had the misfortune of visualizing. And I had to illustrate a saccharine storyline on Alzheimer’s caregiving.”
This will end up with the charges being dropped through a plea bargain: “You guys haven’t paid for the pizza you ordered! Release our employee or we’ll charge you interest when we bill you!”
Wally’s a great person to call if you get arrested. He can tell you how he skated on that DUI back when he got Becky’s arm lopped off.
For all Walleye has done for Adilly, she’s gotten pretty goddamn demanding.
So Wally’s phone display told him Adeela was calling, even though she’s calling from a ancient pay phone. That’s amazing. Who’s his cell provider?
Hm, a cellphone that can identify callers through futuristic technology, which may include cameras magically being everywhere and possibly a way to instantly match voice recognition data with a massive private database.
What would he rename Huawei? Nowei? Something like that.
(ps: Police Ice has no access to this kind of data, for reasons, lest we think things through for more than a single second.)
Say, it that phone Adeela’s using the last landline in Ohio? TV Channel 1 should send out their top newswoman and cameraperson to interview her for her feelings on that before she’s deported.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s strip, where Wally gets a call from Cory telling him that, before he goes to save Adeela, he has to stop by Montoni’s to make a couple of deliveries because their heretofore unseen drive still hasn’t come back.
Especially since the “last landline in Ohio” story in Crankshaft is taking place essentially 10 years PRIOR to this Funky Winkerbean.
Next year, Wally and Funky discuss how they bought the last landline phone in Ohio at the estate sale for that old bus driver from Centerville. Wally will proudly mount a plaque saying so next to the phone. Then it will be forgotten, just like that “Reserved for Veterans” parking sign he installed in front of Montoni’s.
A cell in an ICE lock up, you silly goose!
I’ve never been able to tell if his deranged “one development a week” format is the result of his uncannily terrible story telling abilities or if it’s merely a way of lightening the yearly workload. I mean what would he have to lose by picking up the pace a bit? The only drawback that comes to mind is that he’d have to come up with more stories to make up for the seven or eight weeks he’d be able to lop off interminable snorefests like this piece of crap, which strongly indicates it’s all about the workload. Then again, he’s nothing if not stuck in his ways (Lord knows BatHam is stuck in those ways of his) so maybe he simply doesn’t know any other way. Maybe he really does believe all this padding builds suspense.
Nothing has even happened this week! It”s just the characters telling each other things we’ve altready seen.
Yep!
Week 1: Adeela gets arrested!
Week 2: Adeela tells Wally she’s been arrested!
Week 3: Wally tells Funky Adeela’s been arrested!
Week 4: Les is still an insufferable ass!
Week 5: Wally and Funky wonder what they’re going to do now that Adeela’s been arrested!
Week 6: Still wondering!
Week 7: Wally and Funky decide that…… zzzzzz.
I read somewhere that it’s a common thing in serial strips, and goes back to the time when everyone read newspapers. One major action gets spread over a week, for the benefit of people who might look at the comic strips once or twice a week. Seriously, doesn’t it take more effort to find a way to show an action five or six different ways over a wee, than to show it one day and then move on to the next step?
He’s been using “one development a week” almost since the strip’s very beginning (well, the first year and a half is pretty light on anything that would be considered a story arc), but man did his pacing used to be brisker. Lisa’s famous pregnancy took place in less than a month’s worth of strips! Seems unbelievable today.
The strip has gone from Plan 9 to Manos. The former a terrible film that is recognizably put together as a film and is thoroughly mockable. The latter a film so incompetently put together that it reduced even the vaunted MST3K crew to simply shouting “do something!”.
One positive of the “one development a week” bit is that it makes diving through the archives a lot easier. Pick a Monday and you’ll know what the week is about. Not what you are looking for? Pick the next Monday.
If you read FW every day you can’t help but marvel at the tricks and gimmicks he uses to fill in the dead space both before and after the one weekly development happens. The absurd silent strips, ending each day on a mini-cliffhanger so he can repeat what’s already happened again and again, he has these tactics down cold.
Re: the teen pregnancy arc, that IS remarkable. Here in Act III it’d take years and years to play out. And even back in Act II it wasn’t like the stories just raced along, they were leisurely and stuffed with filler too, but it was like light speed compared to now.
A drunkenbeard blast from the past. Our first glimpse of Adeeler.
Wow, she turned into a frumpy old lady quickly….I guess all that pizza and toxic air will do that to you.
You know, if you showed someone unfamiliar with FW the above strip next to any of this week’s, they’d probably assume–based on Adeela’s appearance–that she made her debut during Operation Desert Storm.
Wallyeye hires Adeeler.
Obviously she loves pizza crust. She’s gained 30lbs since this strip printed.
“Adeela, why are you calling me?”
“Because your mother is the best lawyer in the area!”
“But Lisa died years ago!”
“Exactly!”
Oh, they went to see “Lame Lise”, the Scary Movie-style parody of Lisa’s Story.
Honestly i’d say that Wally is a very slender reed to be leaning on there Adeela – surely you had people you dealt with when signing up for college and the like – wouldn’t they be better people to get in touch with? With Wally I think you’ll be luck if you are not both deported.
And as a side note she does seem to have gained an awful lot of weight yes? Well an all pizza diet will do that.
Ok, I always say I’m going to read all the existing posts first, before posting myself. One of these days I will actually do that.
The old Universal Movies at the end of the film would say “a good cast is worth repeating” and then list the players again. A good point is worth repeating I would say.
Yeah really. Also, the order phone at Montoni’s is a landline! Again, Batiuk’s two strips are in a disconnect about the central premise.
Was supposed to be in response to J.J. O’Malley above.
Here’s a chance for Adeela to tell the feds that a bearded English teacher in Westview is the leader of a terrorist cell. His “book tours” are cover for meeting with other terrorists, and he started the massive wildfire in California while visiting Hollywood. He won’t confess easily, so you’ll need to water board him. Repeatedly.
Anything to wash the smug smirk off his face.
If the waterboard wont do it, a belt sander might.
Buddy’s concerned look in the first panel is the most unintentionally funny thing in this strip in a long time.
I can just picture the storyboarding meeting:
TB: “sure Rachel can have a ridiculous smile and be staring at Wally’s shoulder, but the dog MUST look concerned!”
CA: “you got it boss!”
I agree. I picture him looking in on Les dancing by himself on New Year’s Eve with that same look.
Batiuk style of writing is from the great Russian novelist Tolsty War & Peace… and especially Dostoyevskys’ Crime and Punishment
Since we’re moving THIS goddamn slow, I can just recycle yesterday’s comment since it still applies:
3. So Adeela’s FIRST fucking phone call isn’t to a family member, it isn’t to a fellow Iraqi refugee, it isn’t to her attorney, it isn’t to the Iraqi embassy, it isn’t to the State Department, it isn’t to USCIS, and it isn’t to ABC News… It’s to WALTER FUCKING WINKERBEAN(!) What the hell is he supposed to do exactly?