Happy May, Funkysnark Fans! Comic Book Harriet here, ready to push us through another couple weeks of this horror show, much like the shambling hulk that pushed the cart through the haunted murder attraction in House of 1000 Corpses.
Many thanks to Spaceman Spiff for guiding us through two weeks of some of the weirdest storytelling to come out of Funky Winkerbean for a while now. It was like each day brought us another level down deeper into another tangent of meaninglessness. Never has a story that begins with a man buying doughnuts for alcoholics and ends with him nearly dying to save a CD player been told with such astounding lack of passion or sense.
Now we’re back to the Dinkle pandemic that has been sweeping this strip for the last year. We’ve had nearly 50 days of Dinkle since November (the traditional start of Dinkle season.) This is my third shift in a row where I’ve gotten Dinkle arcs. First he was teaching piano lessons, then he was substitute teaching, and now I get my chance to get in on the ‘Dinkle scores a choir harem’ action.
But maybe the Dinkpocalypse is coming to a close soon. Today we get an exciting celebrity cameo: the undead hell cat from Pet Semetary, Winston Churchhill. I, for one, am eagerly anticipating Dinkle getting his scrawny arms ripped to shreds like chicken drumsticks.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Yes, there’s been entirely too much Dinkle already. IMO one day is way too much. He does this sometimes, where he gets stuck on a specific character and just piledrives him or her into the ground. Like the original book-launch-tour arc that lasted for months on end or when Holly was the focus for half a year or when suddenly out of nowhere you get five weeks of Wally.
This could be fun if the cat was snarky and obnoxious like Les’ imaginary taunting writing cat, but alas, it appears to just be a regular ordinary cat. Hey, whatever happened to Kili anyway?
First Les with Kili and now Dinkle… the people in this strip who deserve the presence of cats the least are the only ones who get them.
Makes me sick.
I can’t wait for Dingle to teach the cat how to sing. I know how it would end and my cats would give Fluffy two claws up!
“We were somewhere around Centerville in the middle of the choir loft when the drugs began to take hold.”
If only he had access to Hunter Thompson’s stash (though I suspect TomBa could even make psychedelics boring).
Today’s strip is exactly what “psychedelics being boring” would look like. Seriously, WHAT is happening to Dinkle today? Panel 1 looks like someone ironed his face. Panel 2 is way too intense for just being startled by a a cat. He looks like he accidentally gazed upon Cthulhu. Why does the strip use the same visual indicator for “unexpected cat sound” and “organist dies and head lands on keyboard”? Why is the “i can has cheezburger” cat in panel 3? The whole thing looks like “Fear And Loathing In Branson.”
Maybe using that distressed musical note for both Faceplanting Organ Player and Le Shat Gris indicates that the cat is the manifestation of the dead organist, returning to wreak vengeance.
So is the cat also going to be on the Tournament of Roses parade float with Dinkle and the choir? Who knows? Who cares?
The strip, like the supply ship USS Reluctant in Mr. Roberts, “sails from Apathy to Tedium, with occasional side trips to Monotony and Ennui.”
But, but…what happened to the second-to-last Discman in the world?
So, a potentially serious storyline about Funky going to an AA meeting–what could have been the first such meeting post-pandemic–turned into two weeks of him droning on about a treadmill mishap that (just as one expects a treadmill to do) went absolutely nowhere. And now we’re back to the Dynamic DInkleberg and His Choir Loft Cuties, with a cameo by Hong Kong Phooey’s cat, Spot, covered in soot.
Dear Lord, how can even a hack such as Battyuk stretch THIS nonsense out for an entire week? My sympathies, harriet.
Upvote for the Hong Kong Phooey reference!
Although I now have the theme song playing in my head.
For those who aren’t familiar: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6dum1WJXJMA&t=8s
…that hasn’t exactly aged well, has it?
I think Dinkle is by far my least favorite character in this strip now. Les is at least the kind of bad character that’s good to make fun of, and if he’s going on about how rough it was on him when Lisa got cancer or how nobody appreciates his art, you have something to mock. But miraculously not deaf Dinkle who is now apparently leading two different senior music groups is just insufferable to me. And I still can’t quite tell if he’s supposed to be a self-absorbed buffoon or we’re really supposed to think he’s a musical genius.
But I really, really don’t like how Batiuk made a big deal of the torch being passed to Becky and Dinkle stepping aside only to just go right back to having Dinkle around just as much as always
Dinkle and Les serve the same purpose: to keep milking the only two things that ever worked in the strip. Neither of which make any sense at this point. Les should have moved on by 2009 at the latest, and Dinkle should have been left in high school at the end of Act I.
Is this cat deaf too?
Here on Earth, a cat which is near a massive sudden loud noise is not going to be found anywhere near where it came from.
This could get interesting!!!
Bahahahahaha
Yeah. Right.
Is this the first time we’ve seen Dinkle conduct in short sleeves?
He’ll be shirtless soon.
Maybe it’s McDeathcat come to call on Dinkle. Oh, wait. He’s got no soul.