Organ, organ, organ…it’s like he’s making sausage here or something. “Our current organist wants to stop playing the organ and the previous organist died.”
“Shhh! You’ll scare off the organist and we’ll still need someone to play the organ as our new organist!”
“So, Mr. Dinkle, will you take over as our organist and play organ music on the organ?”
The way he just consistently beats selected words or phrases into the ground just drives me nuts. It’s really hacky too, it reads like dialog a child would write just to pad the word count on a homework assignment. I’m sure my fellow SoSF contributors would agree, there are times when you just can’t believe you’re typing “band mattress” or “Xaxian” or “Lisa’s Story” again. By the end of this week I’ll be able to type “organist” in a millisecond, which will never, ever come in handy again.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Let’s not forget “John Darling, my father who was murdered.”
Ooo, are we doing Wednesday’s strip early?
I guess this finally puts the “is Funky Winkerbean still ten years ahead of Crankshaft” argument to bed. Now we can all return to not caring about the time difference, because it wasn’t interesting in the first place.
Oh boy, did I oversleep!
As my good friend Sheev would say, “A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.”
“Whoops” he said as he quietly backed out of the room.
I could ignore the constant use of the word “organ”, if the women in panel 1 weren’t all looking at his crotch. The one in green looks unimpressed.
Scare him off? Pleas… passing away at the organ is nothing! One, I’m pretty sure Dinkle is immortal and two…do you know how many band kids have been maimed or worse due to Dinkle’s insanity?! These choir ladies are the ones who should be scared.
Passing away playing with his organ…that’s the dream, Dinkle.
As if someone dying could ever scare a Westviewian off. It’s gonna take a whole hell of a lot more than that, ladies.
Wait a minute…I thought St. Spires hadn’t had a male choir member in a decade. Who’s that shaggy-haired dude in the center of panel three with the Fu Manchu mustache?
What’s that? That’s supposed to be a woman and those are supposed to be jowl lines of some sort? Cushlamachree!
By the by, in case anyone is keeping score, the word “organ” or a close derivative thereof has already been used six times this week to date, the same number as all of last week’s strips. Any bets as to how many times TB can slip “organ” in between Thursday-Saturday?
Boy, now I don’t have to stay up until 10:30 tonight. Thanks, Epicus!
You’re quite welcome. It’s just this time only, though. 10:30 PM is the snarking hour.
I guess the unnecessary recounting of the decade-old death of the organist who preceded Lillian serves the dual purpose of padding out this shaggy dog story and reminding memory impaired readers of the Crankshaft pseudo-crossover that sparked it.
1. Church choir ladies need to be drawn like characters out of the Addams Family.
2. Hairy L. DickTinkel walking into a church is sacrilege at best.
Damn AM/PM button got me again. Oh well.
To speak to the defense of Epicus (who needs no defense, but still)–
This might be too much “inside baseball” but anyone who guest hosts here can agree: The new WordPress editor is the 3rd Worst Thing Ever (after Les and Dinkle). The scheduling function in particular is unforgiving, if you click anything wrong there’s no “Are you sure?” dialogue. Actually, it delights in shifting days and times for no discernible reason; it seems to be actually working against you.
And don’t get me started on that stupid floating “Formatting Bar” that plasters itself over what you’ve just written if you start a new paragraph.
The whole thing should have a (c)Bantom chyron.
It’s the most annoying thing since Windows ME. It’s wicked sensitive too, if that cursor just happens to brush “AM” you’re going live at 10:30 in the morning.
Gads yes. Last week they forced it onto my blogs and I am amazed that the new posting system has not made one single piece of my workflow any better. You’d think just by chance alone they’d have come up with something that was easier but, no, everything is harder and more clicking around.
And the scheduling is absolutely the worst. I need like four mouse interactions to do what used to be just typing in the date and the time.
Joseph Nebus knows. It wasn’t broken to begin with and didn’t need fixing, but here we are.
Okay, so it’s now ten years later. And it’s said that Lillizard had to quit playing because her hands are giving out. But wasn’t she shown as being a bad player right after she replaced the dead one? Do I need a Batom Secret Decoder Ring to figure out what’s the words really mean?
No, we never saw her play ten years ago. She was only shown playing after the action moved from Crankshaft to FW. That’s why we started arguing over the timeline: Batiuk wanted us to understand that Lillian’s organ skills had declined with the years, but he forgot to show us that she was any good beforehand, so we were unsure if any time had actually passed.
It also doesn’t explain the problem of why ten years passed in one world but not the other. Or why the choristers talk about Elenor’s death like it happened last week. Or why this choir has seen no personnel changes in a decade. And no one appears to have aged. It’s a half-assed handwave to a problem that exists only because of Tom Batiuk’s laziness. He didn’t want to invent a church for Dinkle to work in when he already had one in Crankshaft. And yet it’s still a better continuity fix than that dumbass “we haven’t had a man in the choir” business Batiuk spent so much time congratulating himself for.
Also that 10 years ago, Lillian was at least as old as Crankshaft, yet she hasn’t aged a bit and Crankshaft is a wheelchair bound empty husk.
Long time lurker, first time poster,
I can’t even comment on the stupid story because the “artwork” here is making me SO FREAKING ANGRY.
Back in the Bronze Age (2003) I did a hand-drawn comic for my college newspaper, earning about $30 a month, and I would have NEVER have turned in something that looked like this! I know Ayers has Batty’s writing to work with but JESUS H. CHRIST!!!
Welcome! Many compliments on your name choice. Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie since Wrath of Khan.
Wanted to let you know, I got that reference.
If there were any justice, Dinkle would be made to suffer at the instrument-that-shall-not-be-named by a fellow traveler/asshole martinet.
Dinkle having to answer to authority would be a great story line. Or at least a great one-off gag. But Batiuk will never, ever do it. He will never subject his self-insertion Mary Sue characters to any pushback, resistance, or sass. Les, Dinkle and especially Lisa must be 100% unquestioned at all times. Not even as the butt of an incredibly mild gag, like Harry Dinkle being told “practice starts at 5 AM” and then looking at the reader with a frightened look on his face.
By the way, here’s how comic strips typically deal with the problem of different panels happening over a long time frame:
https://assets.amuniversal.com/36d15e706cb901301d46001dd8b71c47
Was that so hard? This story just needed a narration box that says “ten years later.” Batiuk has used narration boxes before, to tell us how “Optima Thule” was pronounced in that side-splitting Kablichnik gag. Would it violate the principle of “quarter inch from reality” too much for him to tell the reader WTF is going on in this story?
The box would have to read “Crankshaft plus 10 years” or something like that, otherwise we’d have a third time jump for FW. At least I think that’s how that would work. I’ve lost track…
By the by shouldn’t someone who works for the church be talking to Dinkle?
Is Blondie the church’s music director? I can’t be bothered to go back and look. If so, then she might have some input into hiring for this position, but you’d think the pastor or church secretary or somebody with any say over the budget and/or the quality of services might want to be checking in on this done deal. In my (admittedly long ago) experience with the church choir, the organist played processional, recessional, and filler music during communion in addition to playing accompaniment for hymns; plus was generally available for special services like weddings and funerals. It’s actually a pretty big job, and somebody whose expertise is “marching band winds and brass” is unlikely to seamlessly transfer to “pedal organ.”
I don’t understand how this hiring plan works. Did the classified ad say “come in whenever for an interview”? And do these ladies, who are somehow in charge of finding a new organ player, just hang around the church all day in order for that “just walk in” policy to work?
I mean, they weren’t expecting him, so he didn’t have an appointment. And these ladies have made no attempt to make this a formal interview, with them trampling on each other talking about something that Dinkle wouldn’t have to know anyway. Why does he have to know about why they’re looking for a new organist? Why does he have to hear the story of Lillian becoming the organist, which has already been covered in TWO comic strips in the last month? And if Lillian’s always hanging out in the church such that just wandering in there whenever would allow you to find her, when does she find the time to write her books, run her bookstore, be harassed by Crankshaft or wander in to add to the annoyingness of a Les Moore book signing?
My question is shouldn’t the freaking pastor or reverend or whatever be having some say in the decision? Are any of these biddies even deacons?
Unrelated Funkyverse news item: There’s a viral TikTok of some idiot proposing to his girlfriend while cosplaying as the cartoon character “Ben 10.” It didn’t go well.
https://comicbook.com/anime/news/ben-10-viral-video-proposal-wedding/
And here’s Tom Batiuk, five days ago, waxing nostalgic about Les and Lisa getting married in their department-store Batman and Robin outfits:
https://funkywinkerbean.com/wpblog/match-to-flame-144/
Les and Lisa’s wedding with all of its promises, fears, hopes and dreams, and more twists and turns than could have been predicted by a drunken gypsy fortune-teller. Plus, they’re married on Halloween dressed as Batman and Robin (there’s that comic book stuff again; maybe they do rot your brain). We see the early discussions about marriage and the preparations, the near derailment of the wedding more than once, and the wedding itself—life all moving along in an approximation of a real lifetime as fate and fortune weave themselves into time’s fabric
Oh, fuck you, Tom. Your comic book-themed everything is not in any way charming, realistic, or desirable. And this video shows exactly how a real woman would react to such a proposal. Granted, Lisa has such abysmal self-esteem that she’d jump on any boat of the harbor. But desperation plus Underoos is not the foundation of the Greatest Love in History you keep telling us this is.
First rule of public marriage proposals-make damn sure you’re certain she’ll say yes. And Banana Jr.-“desperation plus Underoos” is the phrase of the day for me :).
Batman and Robin?! Is Batiuk really that sick in the head?
YOU MEAN TO FUCKIN’ TELL ME LISA COULDN’T HAVE BEEN 1. Wondie 2. Batgirl 3. Supergirl 4. Huntress 5. Black Canary 6. Hawkgirl 7. Catwoman 8. Poison Ivy 9. Zatanna 10. Any number of female Green Lanterns 11. Raven 12. Starfire 13. Lois Lane 14. Vicki Vale 15. One of the dozens of instantly recognizable mainstream heroines from the Marvel multiverse 16. The list goes on…
Oof. Batiuk hates the Adam West Batman because it’s too campy, but he tried to play that silliness as the height of romance? And yeah, it’s telling that Lisa is the sidekick instead of a female DC lead (plenty of whom have dated Batman in one iteration or another).
Nothing like getting dressed up as someone else to begin your lives together. (Full disclosure: I was an internet famous cosplayer back in the Middle Ages when it was a lot easier to be an internet famous cosplayer. I hate cosplay weddings. If there was ever a time to be yourself, wouldn’t you think that would be it?)
God damnit, Batiuk…
Just give us another Les in Hollywood storyline again already… I’m just curious to see if Los Angeles still exists in the Funkyverse, or if it’s still a smoldering crater…