You know how sometimes a rarely-seen FW character will suddenly re-appear and you’re all like “wow, long time since we’ve seen him/her!” and it seems all novel and fresh for half a second but then within a day or two (tops) you’re already violently sick and tired of that seldom-seen character? Yep, Harriet.
On the other hand, you have (ugh) Dinkle, who’s around way, way, way too frequently. Once every six or seven years would be plenty. Unfortunately for everyone else, BatYam feels otherwise. This arc is exactly like digging out your driveway after a heavy wet snow and watching the snowplow roar by as it buries your driveway once more. In some ways it’s even worse than that, as snow doesn’t typically cackle.
Coming next week: in keeping with Funkyverse tradition, Dinkle dies while playing the organ. Commenters on SoSF are ecstatic, at least until Ghost Dinkle visits Becky for the very first (but not last) time. “Harry’s Story…The Other Marching Shoe“.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Here! At last! The long-lost Harry Dinkle Organ Audition! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX68-uzIvI0
It’s from the little-known Funkyverse compilation movie, And Now For Something Completely The Same.
I would have much preferred it if the bloody lip was because he couldn’t bite his tongue, told off the choir ladies who questioned his experience, and was beaten to a pulp with hymnals.
They’d have to throw the hymnals away.
Did next Saturday’s strip run by accident? Seriously, what made him bit his lip? I have no clue.
Nope, I double-checked.
When that old lady asked if he had musical experience…
Okay, but that doesn’t warrant this reaction at all. When you apply for a job, you will be asked basic questions about your background. And this one is barely a softball interview-opening question; it’s more like pre-interview small talk. Yet Harry Dinkle finds it so goddam funny he has to cause himself physical pain to not laugh at it. “Can you believe these people in another town asked me, Harry Dinkle, THE BAND DIRECTOR OF WESTVIEW HIGH SCHOOL, if I had experience playing music? Ha ha ha!”
Which was apparently all he had to do to get the job. He doesn’t even get ASKED a question about the pipe organ. Much less show that he can play it. And apparently he did the entire interview with blood gushing out of his face, which didn’t cause him any problems.
So one of Batiuk’s pet characters acts like a smarmy asshole for two weeks, gets everything he wants, and the story skips over the parts where he’d have to do anything to earn it. Another day in the Funkyverse.
Dinkle didn’t find it funny. He found it upseting that these ladies had never heard of him and had to bite his lip/tongue before he got too indignant at the slight. I mean, how DARE they not know who he is!
Agreed… The Big Dink was offended that any mere mortal should question his credentials and he was about to cuss those old ladies out of their wigs and dentures until Batiuk remembered The Dink was in a house of God…
WHAT AUDITION??
So…
Dinkle got the gig because of course he did.
We aren’t shown the actual audition because Batiuk’s pet characters must never be depicted as *working* for their rewards, only accepting the rewards as their due as the pet characters. I was expecting all of that.
But P3 makes me want to puke. “Oh golly gee Harriet, I was so nervous. I thought for a moment I wouldn’t exactly get what I wanted when I wanted it, even though that’s all that’s happened to me for the last 50 years.”
Batty, don’t try to make your pet characters relatable. That’s actually when they become the most repulsive.
Very true. For example, when have you ever seen Les experience a setback?
And if he does, it’s always someone else’s fault. Greedy, sleazy Hollywood fails to make Lisa’s Story the right way, Cayla needs instructions from beyond the grave on hot to care for Les, his senior literature students are dopes who pester him with stupid questions…and on and on.
Hey! Les didn’t get his very prestigious comic book award at Comic Con that one year, remember? He just got nominated! That’s a pretty steep setback for Les.
Au contraire, that setback gave Les a chance to show his courage in the face of adversity. Wasn’t he just awesome as he gracefully reminded everyone about how well he took this humiliating treatment?
“Wait a minute…this isn’t blood, it’s lipstick! Who did you have to —- to get this ‘gig,’ Harry!?”
And so once again Battyuk spends days if not weeks building up to an event and then simply glossing over it in his best “tell, don’t show” manner. How did Bill Clinton get Adeela freed from deportation? What happened to the Westview band students at the Ohio Music Education confab? What did Marianne Winters think of the Dead St. Lisa tapes? No point in actually showing a storyline’s payoff to your readers when you can skip ahead to the aftermath. I assume in a Funkyverse “Star Wars” TB would spend two weeks pouring over the plans for the Death Star, a week for Les Skywalker climbing into his X-Wing Fighter and the Rebel fleet approaching the station, and then immediately cut to Les getting his medal from Princess Lisa.
Oh…and just imagine if Dinkleberg came home today and told Harriet that he couldn’t hear the organ’s pipes properly and DIDN’T get the gig. How much potential would that twist have contained?
The best place to play seven minutes in Heaven is in the choir loft’s closet… Those old ladies sat in a circle and spun the Geritol bottle till they wore a whole in the carpet.
Apparently Harry Pfingsten passed away on 3/25. He supposedly was Bathack’s inspiration for Harry Dinkle.
What a horrible burden to carry. Inspired a Wankerbean character. Rest in peace, old man.
I guess we can expect a Sunday comic book cover and a tip of the Funky felt-tip to Harry Pfingsten in about a year.
This is the most real life Funkyverse thing ever, even the part when the home team was getting their asses whupped 31-6 at the half:
“From the shores of majestic Lake Erie, the band is known for pulling out its trademark herald trumpets at Avon Lake Memorial Stadium before the start of each game.
Former Avon Lake band director Harry Pfingsten purchased 16 of the 100 trumpets which were used in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
A tradition since 1985, Avon Lake is the only place in the state of Ohio where people can get the chance to experience them up close.
“We take them out if it’s a home game, and I think it makes them feel a sense of pride and tradition knowing they were actually played in the LA Olympics in 1984,” Pfingsten said. “They have an appreciation for the history.”
https://www.morningjournal.com/news/ohio/avon-lake-marching-shoremen-highlight-commitment-to-music-education/article_1fc3921d-39d1-598a-b079-26421a05e1de.html
Dinkleberry has signed his own death warrant.
Batiuk doesn’t want to tip his hand too early! Seeing Dinkle play the organ would be a special treat for all of us Dinkle-heads out here. That’s why he’s saving it for the final strip of the arc. He’s leaving his readers hungry for more!
…OK, I think that fulfills my sarcasm quota for the week…
Dinkle’s got a bloody lip because that sort of thing just happens to demons that tread upon hallowed ground.