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Link to Today’s Philosophical Dialogue.
And now consider this: If this person who had climbed out of the basement were to go back down again and look in the same freezer as before, would he not find in that case, coming suddenly upon the myriad of frozen packages and frost, that his clouded eyes be filled with confusion?
Now if once again, along with his wife, the married person who had looked there had to again engage in the business of digging and searching about the freezer– while his eyes are still weak and before they have readjusted, an adjustment that would require quite a bit of time — would he not then be exposed to ridicule down there? And would she not let him know that he had gone up to say the thing is not there but only in order to come back down into the basement to look with his ruined eyes — and thus it certainly does not pay to go up at all.
And if she get hold of this searched for thing, finding it there all along, and takes it in hand to bring it from their freezer and to carry it up. If she could kill him, will she not actually kill him?
She certainly will.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Garbage dump week…sigh. This one was CLEARLY in the “I don’t think so” pile, as this is a bad, poorly-worded FW gag even by FW standards. It’s kind of odd how he’s still running 2021 reject strips here in the middle of January, but that moronic Dinkle arc interrupted BatYam’s annual end-of-year bad gag dump, so here we are.
So was Holly planning on having warm salad or unthawed hamburger at this meal?
That idiot was going to wait till the last minute, try to thaw it and end up with a half cooked, half raw block of hamburger to mix in with her Hamburger Helper.
Funky’s response is probably something Batty once said to his wife.
They could both get salmonella. That’s an arc I could get interested in.
Well, P2 is funny, in a way, if you imagine Funky speaking in a Curly voice while his Moe Howard fingers prepare to jab him in the eyes.
So, we can assume that this situation happened to Tom IRL, and this was his hilarious off-the-cuff reply? And it’s now immortalized in print?
Guess we’ll have to wait for the intro to the upcoming “The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 18”, to get the confirmation on the complete creative backstory!
But remember — pre-order volume 18 today, and you’ll get 20% off with the bonus code “CANYOUBELIEVEIGETPAIDFORTHIS”.
Oh, I for one cannot WAIT for the self-congratulatory “Match to Flame” post in which he explains, in English that almost passes the Turing test, how the Muses bestowed upon his fevered brow the inspiration for this brilliant strip.
BTW, I continue to insist that “Match to Flame” is incoherent fake-profundity.
It should either be “Match to Tinder” or “Spark to Flame.” Or he should just say what he means in plain English, but he can’t, because he himself has no idea what the f%#k he’s trying to say.
I continue to insist that “Match to Flame” is incoherent fake-profundity.
I have to agree. Those blog posts try so hard to describe the very empty creative process of “I get ideas and try to write stories from them.” And he uses so much flowery language to describe it, like —
— oh, you meant the title “Match to Flame” is fake profundity. Yeah, that too.
Nearest I can guess is that Batiuk is the unlit match, and when he nears the flame of creativity, he catches fire with inspiration. But I don’t know, the only language I know is English and Batiukian grammar might work differently.
beckoningchasm, you just made me actually laugh out loud, an achievement I don’t think Tom Batiuk ever managed.
“When the unlit match that is I, The Artist, approaches the Sacred Flame of Creativity, a Combustion of Genius occurs, a chemical reaction like a thunderbolt from Mount Olympus hurled by Prometheus to enlighten a waiting world. That is how I burn with brilliance.”
I doubt he ever even asked himself what “Match to Flame” means, but if he did, you probably nailed his thought process.
“Match To Flame” is a reference to Fahrenheit 451. Specifically, it’s the title of a book which detailed the 10-year development process of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, via letters, essays, and short stories Bradbury wrote from 1943-1953 which were later used (sometimes indirectly) as the source material which formed the novel. There’s also scholarly commentary about the novel-writing process.
Yes, Batiuk’s equating his work — and his work process — to that of Ray Bradbury. Hard to believe that the title was an even more pretentious choice than you previously thought, isn’t it?
Holy moley! I still don’t understand what it means unless it’s a reference to striking a match that is elucidated in one of Bradbury’s texts. I’ve read some of Bradbury’s work, but not Fahrenheit 451. You, Tom, are no Ray Bradbury.
Fahrenheit is about a dystopian future where books are forbidden, and when found are burned by “Firemen.” It’s an idea I can get behind if they found stacks of “Lisa’s Story.”
This isn’t fun bad. It isn’t even bad bad. It’s just room-temperature dogshit you find under your shoe after coming indoors. Except less funny/appealing than that.
Exactly. Unsnarkable™️. What can you say? “Ha ha. Look at you there on the bottom of my shoe, dog turd. Not a very dignified spot, is it? And you’re so brown. Very brown indeed, LOL! And you do not smell good either.”
Actually, come to think of it, that works for today’s strip too.
Stepping on a dog turd at least makes sense. Funky Winkerbean is more like stepping in barbecue sauce at a pet store. It’s not the worst thing you could get on your shoe, but its presence raises some very concerning questions.
Ray Bradbury would fit in perfectly with Batiuk’s “high school freshman English class” tastes in literature. Nothing against Bradbury or Asimov, but most avid sci-fi buffs I know can name something they like that’s a little less mainstream than that. I can just imagine TB’s interpretation of Animal Farm.
Les asked whether Funky named his car “Snowball” as a nod to
*Animal Farm,* didn’t he?
Oh, good lord, Batiuk thinks this is “writing”? I would hate to know how he defines other things that seem to be self-evident.
**Sigh** Once again I need a Funkyverse punchline explained to me, and it seems to be happening with increasing frequency these days…
You know, I looked at today’s dialogue with my eyes, and then I did it without them. The latter version was funnier.
Philosophically, as in (apologies to Rene Descartes) “I stink, therefore I am.”
Funkito, ergo sum.
A man cannot look into the same freezer twice. For it will not be the same freezer, and he will not be the same man.
About 20 years ago I kept looking in the fridge for one last beer and after several times I found one wedged under the crisper on the middle shelf.
This is another annoying Funkyverse trope: the forced, baroque answer to a very simple question. and then trying to build a joke off of that. Nobody on earth talks like this.
Batiuk’s done it. He’s created The Unsnarkables™️, a series of comics so nondescript that they can’t be mocked. Like a piece of driftwood, a discarded gum wrapper, or a random rock in a park, they just exist uselessly without making any kind of impression, leaving no openings for snark or humor.
I admit defeat. Tom has won.
If anything, unsnarkability is the secret to Funky Winkerbean’s continued existence. It’s incoherent, insulting, incompetent, condescending, self-serving and its characters are all detestable jackasses. But somehow it’s so easy to ignore.
And you can’t even parody it, because the characters simply never do anything. It’s devoid of action. It’s just a bunch of talking heads smirking at each other. The “Funky Cancercancer” criticism doesn’t even work anymore, because the strip has moved into full-time self-congratulation and wish fulfillment.
I have no idea why TomBa could think this conversation would be funny. (And I agree that it probably reflects something he said at one time.)
In the real world, Holly’s answer to Funky’s initial snarky remark would probably be, “I see the cataract surgery was unsuccessful. I’ll have to go look myself.”