Well after today’s strip, Amicus’ moronically repeated “subpoena their evidence” idea looks a LOT better… Never mind trying to get Mr. Clinton to intervene in Adeela’s predicament, just the suggestion to call up a former POTUS is, at best, a pretty awkward fit with this:
“Any cartoonist takes things from their life to put into the strip and Funky is so close to real life. I’m only a quarter inch removed from real life so I pull everything.”
“Batiuk lets real life play out in both of his strips with serialized stories, drama and time jumps mixed in with the gags. A Batiuk character can live, laugh and die in the world he’s created. He says both his strips are ‘about a quarter inch removed from real life.'”
“I’ve found you really have to reach inside yourself and try to pull out your experiences. But what I have found is the closer you get to your real, true experiences, the closer you get to the real, true experiences of your audience.”
Son of Stuck Funky 
“Why sure, Holly! Let’s see, is he under B for Bill or C for…there we go. It’s ringing. Hey, Bill, what’s up? Yeah, it’s the Funkmeister General. Ha, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, no, ha ha ha! Yeah, yeah, she still is pretty hot for her age, I know. Listen, our substitute night driver got picked up by ICE and they’re deporting her and…what’s that? Oh, really? Cool! Hey Bill, thanks a lot! And if you’re ever in town you gotta stop by and…hello? Hello? Oh well. Yeah, he’s says it’s done.”
Sure, Tom. Like the president of the United States wasn’t on autopilot while he was pretending to give a shit about you and your crummy pizzeria, right. Leave it to Batiuk to dream up a plot twist so stupid it makes the rest of the story seem sane in comparison. The magical Queen Of The Robots was more believable than this and the boozing murder chimp was real, real close too.
He does go on autopilot.
Here is a perfect example, this was right after the White House correspondent dinner, during it Bill Clinton did a silly video and it showed him washing the Presidential limo.
Well that year Clinton stopped by my city my dad was city manager at the the time. So Bill Clinton goes down the line my dad was like the third or fourth person whose hand he shook. Well when Clinton got to my dad they did the greeting and my dad goes “my car could use a carwash.” Well Clinton goes down 2 to 3 people and then he realized what my dad said and comed back to and smiles and laughs and said “Good one” then goes back down the line.
So yeah Bill Clinton isn’t going to remember 1 person out of the hundreds or thousands he has met especially one from a piece of crap pizza place.
Anyone notice that Flunky is drawn to resemble an 85 year old man? What’s the great old stain maker going to look like?
Clinton’s recollection remains to be seen, but Holly clearly doubts Funky’s memory as she explains the photo.
I can’t really blame her, though. President Clinton may have been the last person to actually eat at Montoni’s and not just sit at the counter and drink coffee.
Nobody forgets a Montoni’s pizza, but therapy helps them live with the memories.
Trying to forget a Montoni’s pizza without professional help is not advised. Do not try to bury it deep down. Please do not turn to drugs or alcohol to dull the pain. We have specialists on the line, ready to talk you through your experience.
Wow, Funky looks really angry here. Almost as if someone said “The Flash’s secret identity is Billy Allen.”
I prefer Wally West
Jay Garrick. The winged Mercury hat rules.
It’s as if someone said “you know, Les, Lisa wasn’t really that special.” Look how angry Funky is at this non-slight. He wasn’t this angry at his own government for abducting one of his employees. He wasn’t this angry at Amicus Breef for wasting what little time they had to help her. He wasn’t this angry at Rachel for recommending his useless ass. No, he’s angry at Wally for suggesting that a former president might not remember one photo op after 27 years. Because that’s the most important thing here: that a Montoni’s slogan is adhered to 100% literally: nobody forgets Montoni’s pizza. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.
This is just like Les’ “you can watch the Lisa tapes” moment during the cataclysmic wildfire. Lives are at stake and time is crucial, but the story has to stop for someone’s emotional moment over some shit Tom Batiuk likes. These are the greatest emotional stakes in Westview. Not the death, disease, terrorist attacks, amputation, suicide, and the many other things these people just roll their eyes at.
Fuck. This. Strip.
There’s one true Flash, and his name is Jay Garrick! Winged helmets are cool!
Where the fuck did Corky go and why isn’t he wiping down the fucking counter?
Calling Bill Clinton is going to take all week, isn’t it?
Yes, and they’ll finally get though on Sunday
With Bill Clinton as a super hero in a sideways comic.
Expect at least five panels of a hand picking up a phone and pushing the buttons, with each image of the phone and hand bigger than the last. Ain’t a slow zoom dramatic?
The way this is all headed, Holly had an affair with Clinton, so, “of course, I remember you!” I hate this arch so much!
Family Guy did it better.
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“Whuh…I was asleep. Who’s calling us at 2 a.m., Hil? Who? Funny Winkelbahn, from Westwing, Ohio? No, I don’t remember any…wait a minute. That goofy high school band rally. Oh, yeah, someone punk kid served me a pizza that gave me the runs for the next five days. McLarty sent some intern to get me Imodium and that was how I met Monica…er, just hang up on him, Hil.”
Oh, and WHERE are the delivery car and insulated bag?
They’ll get Al Gore right on that.
How stupid is this? Consider this:
Whether you think it’s deserved or not, Bill Clinton does not have a reputation that’s beyond reproach. And as to this situation, there’s a specific allegation against him that’s regularly been brought up about his corruption for nearly twenty years. (Marc Rich)
So how would this play out?
He gets a call from a guy who he met *once* over a quarter of a century ago.
The guy asks him to use his power as ex-president to intervene in an immigration case affecting one of his employees.
Since Batiuk won’t want to devote strip space to the actual manner in which this would play out if everything was on the up and up, and because he would under no circumstances investigate how this would transpire in that case, the resolution is going to be ludicrously simplistic. This makes it look as if Bill Clinton merely leaned on the right person to override the decision ICE had made, rather than intervening to right a wrong. It’s a powerful person not wanting a government agency to do something they’re tasked to do, so they don’t. It’ll come off as textbook corruption.
ICE has made the determination (right or wrongly, it doesn’t matter), that Adeela is in this country illegally.
So Clinton overrules an ICE deportation order on someone in this country illegally, and since, again, Batiuk won’t go into the messy details, no legitimate determination will be made whether Adeela’s here legally.
So Bill Clinton intervenes in an immigration case to keep a potential illegal *MUSLIM FROM IRAQ WITH PRIOR EVIDENCE SUGGESTING PREJUDICE AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE US MILITARY* in the country.
And he does this because an assistant manager of a pizza place he met once a quarter of a century ago asked him to.
Try to imagine how this would play out if the media got a hold of it. Try to imagine how it would play out even if all of Clinton’s actions were completely legitimate, which this sequence most certainly does not show. So it’d be worse than that.
If Clinton does this for a pizza guy he met 25 years ago, what sort of dodgy shit is he doing for people he actually cares about, or who might actually be able to give him something he wants? Does Batiuk seriously not understand how many people Clinton knows?
So consider just how much risk Clinton would putting himself into in this situation. He doesn’t know Adeela at all. Could you imagine if she does something illegal in the future? If she kills someone? If she becomes radicalized?
It’s absurd, so much so that it’s gone beyond offensive. I read this and realize that Batiuk has absolutely no fucking clue about anything, and he’s dragging a real life person, an ex-president for Christ’s sake, into this, and he doesn’t even realize how fecklessly corrupt and stupid he’s presenting him. And he’s supposed to be the hero who comes in and saves the day!
You’re right about how clueless and careless TomBa is. This isn’t too far removed from last year’s implication that the Ohio Highway Patrol falsified the report of Bull’s suicide.
It’ll be extra hilarious next week when Adeela blows up the newly built Bill Clinton Post Office in Westview.
First she finds out they never delivered her paperwork to immigration, then she goes down and blows it all up.
PS: it is the USA Moore Post Office.
Came for the snark.
Stayed for the dissertation on federally mandated organizations.
Well done!
Charles, your (excellent) post reminded me of something else.
When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, some of her email messages were routed through a privately-managed mail server instead of official State Department hardware. This caused a controversy and was a presidential campaign issue in 2016.
This Funky Winkerbean story requires Bill Clinton to have the same cell phone number now that he did in 1993. Which suggests that Clinton gave Funky his private phone number, while he was acting in an official capacity as President of the United States. Almost exactly the same thing that got Hillary Clinton in hot water in real life.
Making the plot require this is rather bad taste towards the Clinton family.
BTW, if Batiuk were consistent, that old sequence with Clinton would feature Cindy being bowled over by his charm, try to fuck him, and get turned down.
Now THAT would’ve been amusing. It also would’ve been a great starting point for Cindy’s epic insecurity about her attractiveness and concomitant value as a human being.
Knowing Batiuk he’d be probably have Clinton seduce Lisa and turn out to be Darin’s bio-dad, and he’d allow Atomic Komix to move into the White House and become a federal agency.
Haiku of the Day:
You ate a slice, Bill
Hellish contract, signed in blood
Montoni’s owns you
nOboDyForGetsAMonTOni’sPizZa!
I am down with this Lovecraftian nightmare.
I see it more like this. After you’ve finished your first slice, Funky asks you how you liked it. Then asks if you want to know what the special ingredient was. And he puts a photo on the table of one of the many characters who’ve totally disappeared from this strip. And says “Nobody forgets a Montoni’s pizza. And then one day, you’ll become a Montoni’s pizza, too. Now how about a pop while you finish off the rest of the Maddie Special?”.
After reading those interviews…Man, Batiuk is full of shit!
That old Plain Dealer article and Batty’s commentary…bleh.
He acts like hie did this great service, but was just chasing awards. If anything, people may contemplate suicide after reading his non stop misery strip.
Contemplate suicide? Naah. This strip makes me want to stay alive and enjoy life, just to spite Batiuk.
Now I realize why I have such animosity towards the strip. With the exception of Buddy the wonder dog there is not one character that is worth caring about.
“I have found the closer you get to your real, true experiences, the closer you get to the real, true experiences of your audience.”
No, Tom Batiuk, you don’t. You’re so far into your own “real, true experiences” that you’ve completely lost contact with anyone else’s. Human beings simply do not act like your characters. And they haven’t for a very long time.
His experiences are so unlike anything I have ever experienced. And a child has a better handle on how things actually work in the real world.
Given the inconsistent Funkeyverse time skips, have we considered the possibility that Bill Clinton is currently president in the 2020 Westview timeline?
Yeah because Bill Clinton gives his phone number when he takes pictures with somebody one time.
I am glad you read this nonsense of a strip so I don’t have to.
Also, he doesn’t change his phone number over 27 years. Not even when leaving office.
No. Just no. I expected that this arc would devolve into something stupid but dear lord not THIS stupid. They might as well ask for help from Zanzibar the talking murder chimp who as far was one knows could have a law degree by now.
I’m guessing the one guy Les could whip in a street fight is that immigration attorney.
Has Amicus Breef, Ace Attorney, even filed a lawsuit? IANAL and I certainly don’t understand ICE procedures, but I do think that the deportation would have to be suspended while a legal proceeding was ongoing.
He would need to do that first, yes. You can’t just ask courts to do things without it being related to an existing proceeding. But Adeela’s lawyer could request an injunction to block her deportation while legal proceedings commence.
What I meant was that he doesn’t appear to have made any attempt to initiate emergency legal proceedings of any kind. (You certainly can’t subpoena evidence unless you have an active case.) I’m beginning to think he might not be a very good lawyer.
Methinks Rachel is having some impure thoughts as she gazes at that pic of Willie.
Not to be a beady-eyed nitpicker, but hasn’t said picture been hanging on that wall every single day she has been employed at Montoni’s? Wouldn’t it stand to reason she has seen it a time or two thousand before?
My father and brother once met Dr. Roberta Bondar and had their picture taken with her. Apparently she’s a great public speaker and very down-to-earth (LOL.)
So if anything bad ever happens to me in outer space, I guess my family knows who to contact in order to come to my rescue!
(Also, Rachel is about to swoon upon seeing a photograph that she has to have seen almost every day of her life since starting employment at Montoni’s…)
Is that Kent State alum Joe Walsh on today’s masthead?
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“I’m sorry, Funky. I, Bill Clinton, got some stuff going on so I can’t help you right now. Your name came up while I was talking to Joe Walsh the other day. Maybe he can help you.”
Joe Walsh brings The Eagles to town to play at the Free Adeela 5K Run that Less has organized. Less doesn’t know who Joe is but is glad that he helped raise $1,267.34 to help spring Adeela from Gitmo.
I thought it was hung over Mark Hamill.