In hindsight perhaps my April Fools gag might have been somewhat jarring but nevertheless, it sure was funny. God I love you guys. We’re still here, no one is suing us and as far as I know Mr. Tom seems like a very nice man who just happens to write stupid comic strips. In case you’re wondering, no, this is not a parody strip and yes, he really did squeeze “see you next Tuesday” into a strip. I wonder if he knows? The Comics Code Authority is going to have his ass when they catch wind of this gaffe. If they ever somehow become aware of it, that is. Which seems sort of unlikely because, well, you know why.
“Sort of up there in years”…in Westview that means she’s a hundred and eleven at a minimum. Westview is like a Ukrainian mountain village where everyone lives to a hundred and fifty, with pizza instead of vodka. The way BatHam continuously mines the miseries of the elderly for laughs is always annoying and often downright troubling. Exhausted old ladies driving home after 2AM…stop dude, my knees are aching from all the slapping.
Coming tomorrow: the comedy kicks into overdrive as Gladys Goodtacia hits a deer on her drive home, putting her into a persistent vegetative state and jump-starting a protracted battle over her estate among her heirs. Harry’s punch line…”oh, deer!” is nominated for a Golden HaHa award by the Comic Strip Academy. This blog shuts down because the strip becomes too hilarious to goof on anymore.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Unfortunately, they all saw this billboard on the way home and showed up next week on the wrong day.Here’s how this would really go:
Honestly, most of the women over 60 I know wouldn’t even bother with a report. The minute Dinkle whipped out that disapproving scowl at their expressed thoughts, he’d get his mug slapped straight into Next Tuesday.
“Mr. Dinkle, if I may have a word . . . well, we all agree with you that you’re God’s gift to music . . . and if you’re the kind of gift God gives to his worshippers . . . well, can you blame us for converting to Satanism?”
“No, I understand. You’d rather listen to a sermon from Les Moore.”
He does a whole long “Crankshaft”-crossover arc based around Harry becoming the new church organ player and as it winds down all we’ve learned thus far is that Dinkle is a jerk. And everyone already knew that.
And remember, Tom Batiuk said on his blog “a retired band director told me that he had a new gig playing organ for a church choir.” And this is what he does with the idea: he uses it is a forces setup for Dinkle to do his standard shtick. Except in a different environment where it isn’t in any way amusing.
“I know! I’ll have Harry behave like a tyrannical jerk!”…of course you will, Tom, of course you will.
Mister Dinkle??? What are these women a bunch of school kids?
Looking at his depiction of Dinkle over the years makes me wonder how he became popular with OMEA. Do they really think that an obsessive, bullying, egomaniac paints a positive image of band directors (and music educators)?
Also, does Dinkle already have a key to lock up the church? I can’t imagine that he’d get that already and keeping either the pastor or the sexton up until 2 am to lock up is a sure fire way to get terminated.
“See you next Tuesday?” I don’t get it. Someone please explain.
“C U next Tuesday” is occasionally used as a euphemism for the C-word. Maybe it’s a regional thing but I’ve heard that one for years. It just leaped out at me from the page.
Thanks. I’ve never heard that one before.
I wasn’t familiar with it either but it’s not obscure. According to The Urban Dictionary it goes back to around 2005 and has even been used by the writers on Family Guy. Proof (as if we needed it) that King Features doesn’t edit him.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=See%20You%20Next%20Tuesday
That would take a lot of work to cross check every phrase in every comic with Urban Dictionary.
I never heard about this either, so I looked it up on Urban Dictionary. Pretty repulsive, if you ask me. Geeze, what next? Do I have to worry now that I’ll say something like, “I forgot where I parked my car”, and everyone who spends all day on social media will start laughing because I just insulted someone’s mother?
I’m with ya. I’d never heard of that one either, and I have a kid that’s up on a lot of that lingo. Not going to blame Tom for that one. Seems we did a lot of the code language growing up, but not nearly as crude and definitely without web pages to list them. I think I discovered Urban Dictionary the day I came home from a class reunion and had to look up MILF.
Everybody has a story about the day they discovered Urban Dictionary, and it is never a good story.
Hope I didn’t inadvertently offend anyone here. I’ve just heard the “Tuesday” one before and it sort of leaped off the page at me like “whoa, THAT’S weird!”. Then again I’m in NJ where profanity can be nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, often all in the same sentence, so please don’t go by me.
Thank Christ, because i was about to *WALK* to Ohio just so i could knock on TomBa’s door and punch him in the face
1. It’s funny because the Big Dink is literally working little old lady volunteers to death like he’s a factory foreman in Bangladesh or Communist China… Makes me wonder how hard he would have worked the kids at the Westview band if he wasn’t bound by those stupid child labor laws…
2. Maybe he can blaspheme some more by demanding the reverend eliminate his sermon and scripture reading from Sunday service so there is more time for his blessed music…?
3. It’s funny because instead of praising the Lord, the Big Dink is using this musical opportunity solely to idolize himself in a house of God… If there is any divine justice, Dink will drop dead mid-note just like his predecessor.
4. Didn’t he use to conduct some kind of Jazz Band over at the nursing home? A band that became known all over the country, went touring and even scored a fat record deal? Whatever happened to them?
5. It’s funny because out of all the “Dinkle is the Greatest” storylines, I don’t ever seem to recall anybody saying Dinkle was actually *GOOD*, much less great at his job. Yes Dinkle is dedicated, yes he clearly loves music, he’s obsessive about the details, he puts in the hours and then some, he’s the world’s foremost historical expert on John Phillip Sousa, and obviously if you’re holding some kind of chocolate bar/holiday turkey fundraiser, Dinkle is your guy since he can fuckin’ sell sand to the Saudi Royal Family…
But Dinkle doesn’t compose, he doesn’t create, he doesn’t experiment or improvise, he has never stepped out of his musical comfort zone into new genres and he’s seemingly won endless amounts of awards for doing literally everything else but the ONE thing that defines his entire existence…
Re #5: Dinkle isn’t any better at selling than he is at anything else. Having to store unsold product in his garage has been a staple joke of the strip. In real-life fundraising, that would be a problem. He would soon be relieved of any buying decisions.
I was thinking more about the Belgian government awarding him their highest civilian honor for selling god knows how much chocolate and singlehandedly keeping their national economy afloat during the Wilfried Martens era… But that was almost certainly another Bathack retcon.
I’d figured the record candy sales were a Beavis & Butthead-type situation, but then Dinkle probably isn’t as quick-thinking as Beavis & Butthead.
Have we ever seen Dinkle actually play an instrument? Ever?
“That dirty old man kept the women’s choir at the church until 2 in the morning? You know they weren’t singing hymns that late!”
I was rather shocked about the dialogue’s near-vulgarism, thinking “Surely Batiuk’s heard of this, why is he putting this in his comic strip?”
Then I remembered Batiuk hasn’t heard much of anything outside of Flash comics.
My first thought was that everyone was going to think it was an April Fools parody strip. I have to assume he has no earthly idea. Sure is weird, though.
Not everyone lives to a ripe old age. Direct? No, Mr. Dinkle. I expect you to die.
I know I’m edging toward the tin-foil hat rabbit hole, but the timing of this makes me wonder if it’s some intentional insult. The day this strip is running is Good Friday. Also, the whole arc has run during Lent. It makes me wonder what he’s going to run on Easter Sunday.
He’s working on something with Lil Nas X.
Rare hint: it will involve poo.
“Mr Dinkle?”
“Hey, my father was Mr Dinkle. And he’s dead now, I made sure of that. I’m DOCTOR Dinkle, and don’t you forget it!”
I said this yesterday, but the tone doesn’t work. Dinkle bullying high school kids in the “zany hijinks” Act I version of Funky Winkerbean is one thing. Him doing the same thing to old people in Act III is just elder abuse. It’s as if Lucy got bored with pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and poisoned his food instead.
What the actual what. Dinkle is a god among BAND directors, as has been established ad nauseam. What the hell business does he have directing a CHOIR? Is this part of the audition? Has he actually auditioned? Where is the pastor?
I do suspect that I’m giving this too much thought, but it does look to me like an intentional misogynist “Easter Egg” that he set up throughout the arc. Here’s my evidence
1. He takes pains to highlight that there are no men in the choir, even going so far as to write about a drafting error that never made it into the published strip. Why the insistence on this?
2. Immediately following today’s panel one we have the exchange between Dinkle and Lillian –
Lillian: Mr. Dinkle … if I could I have a word?
Dinkle: Certainly…Is there a problem?
3. The panel two dialogue is almost a direct response to the reaction to those who caught the “Easter Egg”.
If that is the case, we’d have to give him credit for the most planning he’s put into this strip in years.
When to comes to Funky Winkerbean, I believe in “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by laziness.”
The FW blog’s “Flash Friday” entry for today evidences some odd chronology from TomBa. In the review of Flash #271, he remarks on Julius Schwartz’s departure as editor with that issue, saying, “ I was off at college at this point and focusing on other things, so the change wasn’t quite as traumatic as it could have been.” Flash #271 is the March 1979 issue, about ten years after he graduated from KSU and about seven years into FWs run. Weird?
Good eye. Also, Tom Batiuk would have been 32 years old at the time.
That kind of explains Summer being in college for nine years, sort of.
What a fun story arc for Easter!
I wonder if TomBat TRIES to write the most loathsome characters possible.
Tries? No. He puts the same lack of effort into them as everything else.