Truly, Wally is the greatest hero of our time, next to Les, since he stared silently at a curb and had a wheelchair ramp built there.
Sadly, he had to pay for it out of his own paycheck, and Rachel won’t be able to get the treatment she so desperately and obviously needs for her hair cancer.
You know what’s legitimately hilarious about this strip? Billy, who I totally forget existed before this strip, has had more dialogue and a bigger role than Summer has had in the past five years or so of this strip.
Thanks for having me, everyone! The amazing ComicBookHarriet will be taking over tomorrow.
Son of Stuck Funky 
This Billy is not me, I swear! Though I would probably react the same way to Wally and Rachel…
This Billy is also not Rachel’s son, unless he changed his name.
HaHaHaHa! BTS you are a treasure. Another classic BatHack screw-up and you nailed it as usual.
I think it would be quite a coincidence if Rachel’s son and this blond woman’s son had the same name.
Same here. I can’t remember the last time I met someone named William.
Why oh why cannot this artist draw freaking Rachaels hair red for the Sunday strip? Is he that clueless????
Ooh, I remember that arc! This was Monday’s strip. The rest of the week was Rachel silently reading that note she found in her apron. Riveting!
He was already doing that crap ten years ago? Sheesh, put this strip out of its misery already.
I think the syndicate should fire Batty and let Jules Rivera take over this strip.
What is Mopey Pete’s surname?
Dates he remembers, but names Batiuk’s kinda shaky on.
Is it a great idea? They tend to put ramps at crosswalks, since that’s where people actually are meant to leave the sidewalk. This is a ramp to nowhere.
Or it will be blocked by a parked car.
They could have a no-parking space alongside the handicapped spot, but that would cost them a parking space. And cost Komix Korner a parking space, too, assuming any of their customers are allowed to drive.
And wouldn’t Montoni’s have a small parking area behind the building? Or has Batiuk decided they have a classic Thirties-movie style of narrow alley back there? Maybe some day we’ll be in for a week of showing us how Luigi’s handles the parking issue.
Your comment piqued my curiosity, so I took a look.
Luigi’s, or rather the building that Luigi’s is in, is not quite part of downtown Akron proper. Judging by the map and some info I found online, I’m guessing it originally lay at the north end of Main Street (with a level crossing over the railroad tracks?) before the construction of the SR 59 highway cut it off in the 1970s. The little one-block, dead-end stub of road it sits on is still named “N Main St” on the map, but you’d have to walk a fair way round to get to the heart of downtown from there, or vice versa. This does not appear to be the case for Montoni’s, so Batiuk did take some artistic license in that respect.
As for the parking, there’s plenty of it. The closest parking is along either side of a central median on “N Main St”, rather than curbside as with Montoni’s. There are also parking lots at the northwest and southwest corners of the block, with Luigi’s and its neighbors occupying only the central third of that side of the street. The back alley is indeed somewhat narrow.
The More You Know
Don’t encourage them, kid.
Only in Funky Winkerbean would two people make out over increased wheelchair accessiblity.
Batty has totally lost it. I am genuinely worried about his mental health.
Cancel this strip now!
So, in Westview any business can make physical changes to the city-owned sidewalk if they feel like it, including adding a “ramp to nowhere” that would leave users in the street? I could see if Wally applied to have a handicap space in front of the restaurant, but this–do I really have to say it?–makes no sense. Nor does it seem like the sort of thing that would turn a woman on and lead to steamy ADA PDA (“Oh, Wally, you’re so thoughtful when it comes to the differently-abled! Let’s do it right here on the ramp!”).
Also…”What do you and Billy think?” Why not ask Billy/Robbie yourself, Wallace…as if an adolescent boy is really going to have an opinion on sidewalk alterations (“#$@*! It’s too steep!”)
Maybe that’s Billy Batson, AKA Captain Marvel.
The original Captain Marvel would never curse. That name usurper from the MCU, on the other hand…
She’s a sex machine though so she gets a pass
And some spare batteries. AAA batteries, if she only has to meet Wally’s needs.
The only Captain Marvel who’s a “sex machine” was the short-lived mid-’60s hero from MF Enterprises. This Cap was an alien-built android who, by yelling the word “Split!,” could disconnect his body parts: his hands, feet, head, etc. could go off and do whatever until the head yelled “Xam!” to rejoin everything. One only wonders what erotic shenanigans his detached extremities got into.
Billy? Who the f*ck is Billy? And if I ever aimed an expletive deleted at my mother at that age I would have been punted into low earth orbit. These kids today, I’ll tell you what.
It’s bad enough that I keep picturing poor Buddy sitting there all alone in that shitty apartment with no master to serve or guide, but now we’re discovering that Rachel’s kid, who doesn’t even have a consistent name yet, is a foul-mouthed street urchin and apparently totally rudderless. The situation there has gone from pitiful and dull to somewhat alarming. Not a literal alarm, of course, as that would really freak Wally out.
“Billy? Who the f*ck is Billy?”
That was Rachel’s reaction, too.
If that’s really her son this his comments are beyond creepy
Yeah, get a room. Lie on the floor, read comic books, seductively share the chocolate chip cookies. That’s next week’s plot.
And… Rachel’s just not going to comment on the initials in the cement? We just assume she thanked Wally off-panel, or what? Oh, and her hair color changed again.
Haiku(s) of the Day:
Aphrodisiacs:
Chocolate, ginseng, Spanish fly,
And this wheelchair ramp.
–
Handicap access
Sparks a fling with a cute blonde
On Sundays only
Wow, so great… don’t know what he did exactly but Tom gets to circle jerk.
And what might this “Billy” be saying there? “F*ck! Get a room”?. No they’re not in New Jersey so it’d make no sense. “Shit! Get a room”? That doesn’t really make sense in anything but a surprise scenario, which this is not. “Bitch! Get a room”? Nah, I just can’t see that. None of the various anatomy and sex-based obscenities make any sense there either.
“Ewww! Get a room” would probably be the logical dialog here, but then he wouldn’t have that “language” punchline, which makes the whole thing even stranger as it means the profanity is the key to the whole thing, which makes its unidentifiabilty that much more vexing. Huge fires, Halloween gunplay, foul-mouthed street urchins, Bill Clinton, possible animal neglect…this strip has taken a turn toward the darkness lately.
I suspect little Billy is taking the name of the LORD in vain.
You mean he said “Lisa Moore, get a room!”?
When I was a kid my older sister told me that she knew what specific grawlixes meant. it is embarrassing how long I believed this.
Thanks for the grawlix interpretation. It’s like the kid is casting a level 3 magical spell on the rampsterbeans.
In all seriousness, how does this Rachel have a child?
What the hell is wrong with these people? They just turned this poor kid into a serial killer. And they lost a potential customer.
Way to #$@*! it up!
Maybe Billy’s a British chap and he said, “Bollocks!” or “Bloody hell!” or “Sods!”
The sidewalk is so narrow. How can they manage to place tables out there, much less accommodate foot traffic where pedestrians don’t break their ankles on the ill-conceived ramp?
Looking back over the week, it dawned on me that even TomBa realized that the arc he started couldn’t fill an entire week. He had to throw in Cayla congratulating Les on his high school essay and the COVID-ignoring Election Day panel to stretch things out.
Personally, I think that he wrote the one-off for Election Day first and then worked in the arc around it. The Monday strip may have been intended as a kind of “bridge”; it thematically links the Tuesday/Election Day strip and the subsequent arc together with its message of “America should be inclusive”, but doesn’t actually introduce any action that the Tuesday strip would interrupt.
Speaking of grawlixes, is that Harry Dinkle in the masthead? Piss shit crap ass, indeed!
Boy, that Billy is such a poorly behaved young man. I wonder what’s going to happen next week? Maybe Ruby Lith can convince Pete that she was the inventor of zipatone and get a huge laugh!
I spent the whole week assuming the masthead face was Pete.
I’m still not convinced I was wrong.
Maybe “Billy” will be the new Cory? Sullen, poorly behaved, non-smirking… Welcome, Billy!
Does Wally discuss _anything_ with his wife/staff? Giving driving lessons during working hours, adding signs to the windows, getting the city to install curb cutouts, all of which come as a surprise to her. There was a huge discussion over Adeela changing up the lighting, but that was some girl’s idea, I guess. Wally can do whatever, and we don’t even see Funky’s reaction.
1. Who the fuck is Billy??
2. Who the fuck still says “Get a room?”
I know it’s late, and I haven’t read the other responses to know if someone’s already covered it, but…
That’s a couple in their mid-40s making out in the middle of the sidewalk over a ramp that the guy initiated the installation of. Just… mashing face for several moments at least, out in public, where everyone on the street can see them.
It’s gross. It’s inappropriate. It’s way out of proportion.
And I can only hope Batiuk’s not going to have everyone start doing this.
To be fair, if I had a wife who looked like that I’d be dry humping her on a public street, too…