Today’s strip is so dense, every single panel has so many things going on…
My last day of the shift and I wind up with Batton Thomas, again (it could be Jff, actually, but nah)?! I know I am no longer the only one who runs into him, as he’s inexplicably turned into a semi-regular, but I still draw his appearances all too often. What a terrible coincidence.
Worse, though, is that it is like these characters know that they just followed a week of Les and are trying to match his insufferableness. They can’t, of course, but what an effort! Hope next week finds us somewhere else, though I can never be too optimistic that a change of scenery will improve things in this strip. The good news is that we’ll have the legendary Comic Book Harriett taking us through it… and through the 50th birthday (!!!) of this comic strip.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“I haven’t got a clue” describes my answer to the question, “What is the point of today’s strip?”
Batton, you’re wearing your mask incorrectly. We can still hear what you’re saying.
Orville Redenbacher?? I get the comic variant/COVID joke, but I don’t see the connection between popcorn guy and groaner humor.
“Corny”
Two compliments in one reply: conservation!
1. Y. Knott interprets and clarifies Batiuk perfectly. Thank you, cause I didn’t get it until you. “Corny”
2. 10 cheers for Billytheskink! For 2 weeks of Him-centered hell. God bless you for duty above and beyond.
Wow, nice call Y, as this one zoomed right over (under?) my head too. Man, that’s a stretch.
“Corny?!”
Yeah, because the one thing Comic Book Store Guy has never done in the history of the Funkyverse is drop a lameassed unfunny one-liner…
This may be the first time I’ve ever needed the opening joke *AND* the snappy retort explained to me… Batiuk’s humor is becoming opaque.
The dumb gun control week? You mean “The Students Walkout of School on the Anniversary of Last Year’s National Walkout Urging Action to Stop Gun Violence”? Batiuk used that mouthful at least twice that week.
Batdick, you lost me with the Orville Redenbacher reference. And then I just got further lost from there on. I’m clearly not your target audience. I guess I take pride it that.
About an hour ago I typed “Rollo Tomasi” into Youtube because I love the movie LA Confidential and I wanted to watch some scenes. I got directed to a fuckton of Red Pill/ MGTOW videos that had nothing to do wuth the movie.
This strip gives me the exact same sense of disorientation and wrongness. Seriously what even IS this.
What an abrupt shift, in the blink of an eye we’ve gone from Les winning an Oscar to Batton Thomas boring a comic book shop full of underage weirdos. This one reads like one of his “reject pile” Sunday strips, those oddball, one-off ones that pop up out of nowhere sometimes. I wonder if there’s any actual rhyme or reason behind the way he schedules these stand-alone Sunday strips, or is it just random.
Why would Bernie know that Batton Thomas can’t sort Magic: The Gathering cards? And why would Batton insist that he can? Baffling.
And how is that a make or break skill for filling in at the comic book store? Not that I would understand it-heck, I missed the Orville/corny joke! Ha!
And shouldn’t Bernie be in Hebrew School?
That’s what my mother would have told me! She liked her newspaper comics, but would be mad if I wasted time at a comics store.
Corny. Of course. Thanks Y, I feel I should have gotten that but at least I wasn’t the only one. And boy, Mr. Magic player is being a little obnoxious for no good reason, it seems.
Thanks, Mela. I’m amazed — and a little worried — that *I* got it. It was a badly structured ‘joke’, and was referring to a piece of niche-slang wordplay that wasn’t so much corny as it was tortured.
I’m really hoping this is a fluke, and not an indication that I think like Tom Batiuk.
Doesn’t Batton Thomas have a regular daily job? And since when did he become such a regular that he not only knows first names, he even volunteers to work a shift?
It’s actually very sad because this is what men of a certain age do when they get real lonely and have no family or social circle… Komixxx Korner is probably the only face to face human interaction Batton gets these days
So, in all the previous strips featuring B. Thomas sauntering his way up the stairs and into Komiks Korners General Store, Skunky has made it a point to shout out his name and what he’s “famous” for…when no one was around to hear him. And now that there are finally other people in the shop (non-paying customers who just want a place to hang out and play nerd games, naturally), there’s no introduction or mention that this is a nationally-syndicated comic strip artist? Makes perfect sense.
Also…”Want me to fill in”? Why in the name of Irving Forbush would anyone think extra help at the KK was required? All those thirtysomethings…er, teens are going to do is play Magic, eat candy and drink Mountain Dew, and make snide comments. The cheese shop in that Monty Python sketch had a more robust clientele.
I … I had assumed corny masked guy was Funky Winkerbean and thought shouldn’t he be busy running a pizza place all week instead of doing comic book stuff?
I thought it was the nameless guy who sold his complete run of something-or-other and then bought a life-size Iron Man(?) figure. Who may have been Jeff.
A startlingly good rendition of Kindslaver (https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/large/front/9/b/9bf4f4ac-f793-4996-8f29-252398c26eef.jpg), though it’s unclear why he’d choose a card from Unstable, a not-legal-in-any-format comedy set released five years ago, to represent Magic cards as a whole. I’m also surprised that they’ve depicted something that is not explicitly comic-related but is a genuinely common activity in modern comic book shops!
The less said about everything else going on, the better.
Oooh! Good find!
I was going to compliment him on the very normal and innocent inclusion of “Kidslover” MTG card, certainly the sort of thing you might be able to skate by with in today’s judgement- and editor-free environment at CK. I mean, if Comix Cornier wasn’t Westview’s answer to Comet Ping Pong pizza, what is
By the way Tom is really reaching into Grant Morrison metafictional hyperreality territory here giving himself a ‘fiction suit’ and inserting himself into the narrative.
Calling what Tom Batiuk does “metafiction” gives it way too much credit. Funky Winkerbean is basically a shitty webcomic at this point. Poorly written, poorly drawn, and loaded with Mary Sue characters. And the characters who aren’t Mary Sues are interchangeable clones. Plots are primarily focused on giving the author the accolades he thinks the world owes him, and getting revenge on the people who cruelly withheld them from him. FW is basically Sonichu at this point.
Okay I’d never heard of sonichu or it’s creator before (which is ironic since I live in the same state) so I did a little searching, then a little reading, then a lot of reading and right now I’m really wishing I could travel in time back to 90 minutes ago and prevent myself from ever learning about this Godlessness…
Oh Hitorque….I am so sorry. So, so, so sorry.
Yeah, me too. I’m really sorry if I introduced you to… that. That weird little corner of the internet had been mentioned here before so I thought everyone knew about it. I do not mean to compare Batiuk to the creator of Sonichu, just that the works have the similarities I mentioned.
Batton Thomas: You know why I’m wearing a mask?
So people won’t be able to recognize you and avoid you like the plague?
Because you sound better muffled?
So people don’t have to smell your bad breath?
Because you’re ugly?
If you don’t want to let people see your face I’d recommend a paper bag.
Have you thought about using a plastic bag tied at the neck?
Despite your repulsiveness, it’s nothing a good brick can’t cure.
——————
Damn, this lame-o
comicstrip brings out the worst in me. Bite me, Batty.I initially read Batton’s second word balloon as Because you have a lot of varmints in here!
Yee-haw! Let’s make a posse and round up them varmints!
Man the artwork is bad. What’s with the door attached to two frames in panels 1 and 2? Couldn’t they have just drawn the outside store window sign instead of the typical crappy sign taped to a door?
Shitty signs hastily taped to things is a Westview tradition!
I constantly am irked by the postage stamp size of the Komix Korner. While it’s not a chain like Newbury Comics, whose stores are massive, even local shops need more display space for their inventories. Fat Jack’s Comicrypt, a store I used to frequent here in Philly, is easily four times its size.
I guess TomBa needs to carry his “young things just starting out” theme to the Funkyverse’s local businesses as well.
Okay, I’ll ask…when did Magic: the Gathering become a four-player game? Or maybe they’re playing bridge with one of those “Magic-backed decks” of normal cards that anybody got when they joined that international MtG organization whose name escapes me at the moment.
The Magic the Gathering players in my house (none of whom are me) say that yes, you can play Magic with four players. You just pick the target/person you’re going after. And I seem to remember my college pals playing all the time as a foursome.
Why is Bernie acting so obnoxious towards Batton? He seems quite annoyed by Batton’s presence.
I believe the last time we saw Bernie Silver and Batton Thomas in the same story arc was the “Free Comic Book Day” at the Atomik Komix a few years ago. Batton was sitting at his table when Bernie and Thatsnaught Hewmore asked Crazy Harry, “Who’s that guy sitting over there all by himself?”.
Batton did inform Bernie and Thatsnaught that comic books were originally reprinted strips from newspapers. Was Bernie’s worldview devastated by that information?
Batty seems to have created conflict between the two out of thin air. Was there an incident between the two I missed? Was there an incident Batty forgot to put in the strip? Is the game for high schoolers only? Is Bernie a hippie who refuses to trust anyone over thirty? Does Bernie belong to a family of strict anti-maskers?
Inquiring readers want to know*, Batty. What gives?
* IMHO, delving into the Batton/Bernie conflict would be more interesting than what appears to be yet another Funky AA meeting story arc. What is Funky going to pontificate about this time? The high price of faux mozzarella cheese? The failure of his turnip-based pizza dough? (Lord, grant me strength)
Batyuk uses the name of a real life person/brand name, and the alleged joke still falls flat. We can only assume Batyuk went with the first idea that rattled around in his head. Corny from popcorn? That’s quite a reach. A cease and desist order from the Iowa Corn Growers Association would possibly make more sense.
I thought Skunkhead might have been referring to the many flavors and products Orville Redenbacher produces as “variants”, which doesn’t make much sense either. Perhaps it’s a marathon MTG game and Skunkhead has a hankering for gourmet popcorn.
This Sunday comic is droll. Hopefully sometime next week, Batyuk will receive a cease and desist order from the Orville Redenbacher estate and/or Conagra Brands, Inc. (it’s called research Batyuk) to never use the Orville Redenbacher name in his comic strips ever again.