Here’s another in the long line of Batiuk’s insults to the expanded space comics get on Sundays. Literally copying one panel and repeating it four times is pretty sad. (You can tell since that little line above the coffee mug is exactly the same). I don’t think the strip would have suffered at all if there had been a little variation-snow falling outside the window, a bird landing on the windowsill, a TV on in the background, or even that little line above the coffee cup changing. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a Sunday strip in either this or Crankfshaft that couldn’t have been told just as easy in one or two panels.
Oh, and having cataract surgery clears up your vision. Expect Funky to start cheating on Holly just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Thanks for having me! Taking over tomorrow is Comic Book Harriet. I hope Cayla gets COVID or something, just so CBH has something to write about.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“It’s like someone turned on…AAAGGGHH!!! Ye Gods, when did I marry myself!?”
Not even a shitty off-topic Sunday strip to break the monotony. Now if we were still in Act II, Funky would remove the bandage and discover he was totally blind in that eye, which would segue into a months-long drinking binge where he’d alienate everyone and eventually consider suicide as his only way out, at which point Lisa would save the day by referring him to a support group for one-eyed men. AND we’d see the meetings, too.
But alas, this is Act III, where things move at a somewhat more languid pace. And there’s a lot more wordplay, tons more dumb metaphors and similes too. He can take literally any human experience and distill it down to nothing but wry remarks and stupid wisecracks. Sometimes there’s nothing else to do but just look on in awed boredom.
Funky cheating on Holly? Please. His vision could be clear as glass, and she could look like a bad PS1 model of a shaved bear textured with jpegs of colonoscopy footage and he still wouldn’t be able to do any better.
I have no idea where you came up with that comparison, but it’s hilarious.
More evidence that this whole story could have been a “prestige arc” with Funky worrying about this or that–certainly eyesight is a major worry to those over 50.
But Funky’s NOT one of the anointed…and his fate could not have impacted Les, so it’s another leaf thrown onto the fire.
Oh, I played this game after surgery many years ago. Turns out the leg that hadn’t been broken could bear weight. Go figure…
I suppose TomBa intended this to be a public service announcement to encourage his readers to have cataract surgery so they can see the web address for selling his books that he’s included between panels two and three on the bottom row.
This arc has changed my life. I laughed. I cried. I got goosebumps. I made up with my three estranged children. I finally underwent a colonoscopy and got my shingles vaccine. I returned a stolen library book.
God, this strip is just so fucking brilliant.
Once again, the joke isn’t exaggerated enough to be funny. One side should look like The Wizard of Oz in 1939, and the other should be even more blurry and gray. Or, if that blurry mess is what Funky’s vision realistically looked like before, he shouldn’t have had to go to the doctor to discover the problem. Or, if the joke is that vision problems slowly sneak up on you, that could have been emphasized in the dialog somehow. Strike one, strike two, strike three. Failure of humor, failure of realism, failure of storytelling.
Call 911. WHS marching band has been missing for over a week.
Who the heck would cheat with Funky? Idiots like Cayha don’t come to town every day.
Who would hook up with any of these characters under any circumstances? The people of Westview are the most unattractive, unlikable, unappealing group of characters in reality or in fiction. There isn’t one plucky underdog you can root for, or one basically decent person whose flaws you could tolerate. 100% of them have crippling emotional problems, maturity issues, and the mistaken belief that they’re a Seinfeld character. And they’d let you die in a fire rather than give up their comic books, band practice, old video recordings, or whatever dumbass high school thing they can’t let go of after 45 years. I guess it’s right the characters hook up with each other, because nobody else would. Westview is the weird small town that other weird small towns stay away from.
This is structured like a little mystery (“What’s going on? Oh, that’s what’s going on.”), except the title panel shows Funky covering one eye, which rather spoils the reveal. And even your local newspaper omits that panel, any readers who know that the strip is in the middle of a multi-week cataract surgery arc (e.g. us) could guess the ending. So I think the readers who would most enjoy this strip are the ones who don’t care about FW in the first place.
Should say, “And even IF your local newspaper omits that panel…”