Some observations about today’s strip:
1.) Dinkle’s curtains are that horrible pubic hair texture we often see on Funkyverse couches.
2.) You can faintly see leafless trees outside through the window. Which is a unusual amount of effort for a weekday strip. I’m getting used to characters conversing in strange gradient colored voids punctuated by door and window frames, like some kind of weird, artsy, theatre project.
3.) Dinkle is using a saucer under his coffee cup. When loitering needlessly at the highschool, I have never ever seen him use a saucer or coaster under his coffee cup. Instead he sticks the dang thing right on top of the piano, probably leaving behind more ugly rings than a thrice divorced Kardashian.
4.) Isn’t that just like Dinkle? To care for his own property, while treating the property of others with thoughtlessness.
5.) Seriously, Dinkle is just the worst.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Clunky wording makes it sound like a tautology.
“That sounds like a dumb name for a song.”
“If you think the name is bad wait till you hear the tune.”
It’s going to snow by the end of the week, which won’t surprise the kid. He must already feel like he’s been in there long enough for the seasons to change.
If he hates it that much why do it? I get it, everyone’s supposed to be miserable but for the love of Dead Saint Lisa why do we have to be tortured by Dinkle!
Who the hell would pay Dinkle to give their kid piano lessons?
“Hey honey, you remember that band director weirdo who used to make children march around in torrential downpours? Well, he’s giving piano lessons now and you did say you wanted to develop little Ethan’s musical aptitude, right?”
Although in fairness he’s no doubt the only music teacher in town except for Becky and no one counts her. I like how he’s totally miserable, just making wry weary wisecracks and being a huge cynical asshole, which everyone knows is the best way to reach children.
I can tell you this: if I had a comic strip kid and I was driving him to his piano lesson and I saw that big treble clef plastered on the front of Dinkle’s house I’m gonna keep on driving thank you very much. Like I said yesterday, though, at least it’s a sort of different Dinkle premise for once, as opposed to those horrible Claude Barlow weeks he sometimes does.
We may still be forced to endure a Claude Barlow reference. It wouldn’t surprise me if Barlow turns out to be the composer of “Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk”.
I can only imagine that you’d hire Dinkle as a teacher only if you are looking to kill your child’s love of music.
“I’m worried about Billy, he says he wants to be a musician when he grows up. Is there a way to stop this? ”
“Not to worry – i know just what to do”
Conversation Between TB and His Publisher on Today’s Strip:
“And then on Tuesday I’ll center everything around a song entitled ‘Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk.'”
“That sounds like a dumb premise for a joke.”
“If you think that’s bad…wait till you see it in print.”
Mr. Battyuk needs to “take a walk”…off a short pier. Exactly what is the joke here, that a child who doesn’t seem to like music is learning piano from a teacher who hates the selections he’s teaching him? Indeed, in the Funkyverse why have any enjoyment in the things one supposedly is doing for enjoyment?
On a positive note, I do appreciate the fact that the plant and coffee mug/saucer are still on the piano, the clothes match up with Monday, and Dinkle’s young padawan is still sitting on a pillow. Nice attention to detail.
Batiuk: “When my family moved to Elyria, Ohio, my father, who played the violin in high school, joined the community orchestra. Soon his practicing was joined by my sister and me as we worked on our piano lessons through which I became acquainted with Chopin’s “Nocturne,” Bizet’s “Carmen,” Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” (which I personally preferred; by No. 12, I thought he was starting to run out of ideas), and “Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk” by the ever-popular Anonymous.” –From The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume Two
“Soon his practicing was joined by my sister and me…”
I’m calling a foul on that use of the passive voice.
Tom Batiuk sure does like to criticize artists who are a lot better than he is.
I’d like to hear Mr. Dinkle takes a walk… off the pier.
Meant that to be an upvote !
Haiku of the Day
The joy of music
Is above your skill level
Suffering comes first
Actually, when it comes to poetry on this topic, it’s hard for me to beat Ogden Nash:
—
PIANO TUNER, UNTUNE ME THAT TUNE
I regret that before people can be reformed they have to be sinners,
And that before you have pianists in the family you have to have
beginners.
When it comes to beginners’ music
I am not enthusic.
When listening to something called “An Evening in My Doll House,” or “Buzz,
Buzz, Said the Bee to the Clover,”
Why I’d like just once to hear it played all the way through, instead of that
hard part near the end over and over.
Have you noticed about little fingers?
When they hit a sour note, they lingers.
And another thing about little fingers, they are always strawberry-jammed or cranberry-jellied-y,
And “Chopsticks” is their favorite melody,
And if there is one man who I hope his dentist was a sadist and all his teeth
were brittle ones,
It is he who invented “Chopsticks” for the little ones.
My good wishes are less than frugal
For him who started the little ones going boggie-woogal,
But for him who started the little ones picking out “Chopsticks” on the ivories,
Well I wish him a thousand harems of a thousand wives apiece, and a
thousand little ones by each wife, and each little one playing “Chopsticks” twenty-four hours a day in all the nurseries of all his harems, or wiveries.
—Ogden Nash
I can’t think of anything to say about this one. So here goes.
It’s the very essence of boring. It’s the Platonic Ideal of boring.
A 21st century Dr. Terwilliger.
If this story arc ends with a “very atomic!” explosion, I will take back every criticism I’ve ever made about this script.
Strip. Not script.
Tomorrow: More from Mr. One-Note.
I wish I could up vote this twice!
So, Batiuk creates a superficial sidewalk cutout story that is not based in reality, but he can’t be bothered to tackle what could be a compelling arc: a man who has dedicated his life to music but is slowly going deaf (over the course of six decades, apparently, but I digress).
I know, it’s probably been mentioned here ad naseum.
It deserves repeating. For as much as Funky Winkerbean loves to inflict misery on its characters, it never makes them deal with any implications from it. Someone’s going to be unfairly deported? Call in a favor with an ex-president! Les has to raise a daughter as a single father? Skip ten years! Dinkle, whose life revolves around music, loses his hearing? Magically give it back to him! Batiuk can’t even be bothered to draw a hearing aid in his ear.
I still say the strip should have left Dinkle managing the nursing home band. That was a great ending for him. He found a way to keep doing his life’s work, and bring a little joy to some people who needed it. But this world is all about what Tom Batiuk wants for himself, so they get a recording contract and a tour.
Oh, this is Dinkle’s house? I thought he lived in a van and drove around playing music (or selling ice cream, if you’d rather.)
You know that kid’s parents are just waiting to hear the pitch about the Musical Lesson Turkeys.
Say billy, why don’t we take a break and watch a Gladiator movie?
“Surely you must be joking, Mister.”
I’m not joking, and don’t call me Shirley.
Hey Billy wanna toot my flute?