Only now, at the end of the week, do we get a name for our little future Motzart. Robbie even has a brother. A brother in Mopey Pete cosplay.
I wonder if Alex and Robbie are intended to become recurring characters? I mean, regardless of intent, we probably will never see them again. Because even when Batiuk seems like he’s carefully introducing another actor into this slice of life drama, he invariably forgets about them. But it would be interesting if Batiuk figures piano lessons are a good way to milk the remaining Dinkle market?
As for the art, Dinkle’s huge flesh-toned couch is hideous. The little specks on it give the appearance that the furniture has been molded from sand.
But Dinkle’s face in panel 3 makes this whole week worthwhile. The man is scrumptiously morose; hunched over, tired , his lips pursed into a thin line as he tastes the bitter defeat coating his tongue. Never has disdain looked so exhausting. When Ayers delivers, he delivers, and he always puts that effort into envisaging misery.
Son of Stuck Funky 
It really seems like the work of someone who hates humankind.
Or would, if he’d ever met any humans.
He really doesn’t think very highly of children, does he? When he features kids in the strip it’s almost always negative. Like that last Sunday strip with Rachel’s foul-mouthed re-named son. Or last Xmas when Skyler was a moody jerk, or when he was running Ann Fairgood into the ground. Once could just be an aberration, twice a coincidence, but it’s sort of an actual pattern now.
Dinkle’s head looks bigger than abnormal. Is this an, uh, artistic effort to make him appear older and somehow more imposing than the kids? Did Ayers need a bigger head to better display his morose resignation that he must spend another hour with another unhappy kid? Or has Batiuk cut a deal with someone to make and sell Harry Dinkle bobbleheads?
Did TB forget he already has characters named Alex and Robbie in this strip? Undoubtedly.
I guess Robbie is Billy now. Interesting to see Rachel when she was still a sort of haggard struggling waitress in her (late) 30s instead of the young college kid just starting out like she is now, eh?
Does he ever take notes and keep records of each character and their back story? I’ve never created a comic strip so not sure of the process but this just seems fundamental.
In Batty’s world this means taking a class at KSU because that is the only way that you can learn anything.
I doubt we’re going to see middle-aged goth lady again. She probably got picked up for the kind of thing middle-aged adults who hang around high schools usually get picked up for.
Tbf middle aged goth lady could have been cut from the music teaching team after Dinkle DID NOT APPROVE of her ideas w/r/t church organs and Bauhaus.
Didn’t this week start with the very same joke? And a comment about how tedious it is going back to square one all the time?
I suppose TomBa wants to drive home to his readers what a joyless, sisyphean struggle life is. Even his gag a day work has become depressing.
Tom Batiuk’s entire message is “Life is tedious.”
If he knew how, he’d be telling us to report to the Disintegration Chambers.
I’ve never watched the show but I assume The Misery Index on TBS is just a recap of that week’s Funky Winkerbean strips.
Never have more people hated what they do and who they are with than in this slog of a “comic”.
Omen in panel two: Dinkle dies while cleaning the gutters.
Haiku of the Day
All kids are alike
So I hate them equally
A well-balanced life
Okay, these kid’s parents have got to be sitting in a minivan across the street (getting some socially-distanced work done) while observing this whole thing and laughing out loud whenever Dinkle gets ticked off at the kids.
“Okay, he’s cooled down a bit. Are we ready to send Debbie in with her laptop?”
Panel 3: “Hey boomer, what’s your wifi password?”
I have a niece who is in the early primary grades, so she’s roughly the same age as the children depicted here, if not a touch younger. For her most recent birthday, she had a huge list of requests and one of them was a piano. Long story short, I happened to have a full 88 key MIDI keyboard not being used for years and let her borrow it for her birthday.
After some set up and research, they found an app to use on a tablet which displays as a kind of sheet music / rhythm game format for what to play, and gives a wide variety of exercises and songs to play. The app can hear the notes being played and gives feedback to the player to convey if it’s correct or wrong. After a week, my niece is already able to play the basic melody of “Lean On Me” in accompaniment with the app.
So rather than viewing electronic devices with scorn, everyone should recognize that the world we currently live in enables quicker learning with them. Rather than playing the non-instructive “Mr. Whole Note Takes A Walk”, which doesn’t need a week of practicing, new players can now begin learning how to play actual songs right away. Rather than paying a retired band teacher for private instruction which utilizes “Mr. Whole Note Takes A Walk”, an app can be utilized at far less cost with far greater convenience.
This entire week deserves the “not how the real world works” tag, though by this point it’s more of a question of which strips/arcs don’t deserve it. And it’s not like that’s ever stopped him from passive-aggressively venting his grievances, which is really what this entire strip seems to have always been about, hasn’t it.
Panel 1 Who speaks like this? Robbie doesn’t know his brothers name? Also Alex is wearing mopey Pete’s shirt.
Panel 2 The leaves they be fallin.
Panel 3 Kids !!! Am I Right ??? Even with today’s phone addicted population and the incorrigible Westview snotty kids I don’t believe Alex would behave like this.
Imagine if 7 years ago Bat Suck put a little focus on Summer & Keishas university adventures. But that would have taken effort.