The indignities just keep piling up for the late Mary Sue, all because she didn’t deign to satisfy Les Moore’s disgusting adolescent urges back in high school. Too bad for her, as if she’d have put out for Les she’d probably still be dead, but at least she’d be a venerated martyr and not the subject of this droll wry funeral banter courtesy of Dick Facey and his fat elderly pal. But that was her choice, and now she has to live with it. Well, not “live”, exactly, but you know what I mean.
It was mentioned in yesterday’s comments a few times so it’s not an original thought, but who happens across the obituary of an old high school classmate, then decides to be-bop and freestyle all over their funeral? A self-absorbed, depraved, bearded dick with ears, that’s who. This guy carries around his old high school grudges like they’re herpes.
“Hey, old pal from high school! Know who just died? Joe Blow, our old high school classmate we didn’t know very well.”
“That f*cking guy cut in front of me in the cafeteria line once. Let’s go to his funeral and mock him.”
Seems pretty harsh to me. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed about those old Act I “Mary Sue Sweetwater’s perfect bod” strips and wants to atone for them by utterly destroying Mary Sue to the point of actually killing her off, which again, seems pretty harsh to me.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Scuzzbeard: “I ask you, what kind of pathetic name is ‘Sweatwater’?”
Flunky: “I heard it means she came from a family that worked so hard, they left big pools of sweat. So, uh, what is it about that you hated?”
Now this might even be funny if they were at the funeral of a woman actually named Mary Sue Sweatwater, oblivious to the fact that their high school classmate Mary Sue Sweetwater is still alive and well.
It could have been worse…(2:43 NSFW)
Now that’s how you do a typo joke!
Couple of things: 1. Is Becky the same actor who plays Sweet Dee on “It’s Always Sunny”? 2. I love the “I Think You Should Leave” reference, even though it was clearly unintentional.
I suspect Les’ last name will be misspelled in his obituary in the newspaper too… though you’ll have to wonder if it wasn’t intentionally spelled “Horse’s Ass” instead of “Moore”.
In Lester’s case the newspaper would officially call it an “oBITCHuary”
Les won’t have an obituary. When dies it will be listed in the local newspaper under “civic improvements.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joe Strummer. Is this whole week seriously going to be The Author shitting on a fifth-tier character for no reason other than she didn’t fuck the strip’s true “Mary Sue” back in Act 1?
Sorry for the swears, I didn’t really mean to be crass but this site is so verbally free compared to the mods on Comics Kingdom and joshreads sometimes I get a little too unfiltered 🤭
We’ll allow it. We only draw the line at slash fiction involving Batiuk and Ayers’ creative partnership.
And therein lies the problem… Forget about Mary Sue Bilgewater; Lester O. Moore wasn’t pulling ANY girls back in high school… So exactly what the fucking hell is he so bitter about??
You know, there comes a time in a man’s life (and it’s LONG before he’s in his mid-50s) when he can take an unbiased look back at his youth and honestly say to himself “Holy hell I was a really immature whiny dweeb spaz loser back in 1981… No wonder the girls back then would sooner guzzle antifreeze instead of touch my peener!!”
But not Les of course… Just like Cindy, he’s still “keeping score” all these decades later. (NOTE: This is why I always wondered if this strip wouldn’t be in a better place if Les+Cindy got married post-Lisa — Especially since Cindy a couple years back confessed out of nowhere that she TOTALLY would have fucked Lester’s brains out back in high school if he showed the slightest bit of initiative)….
Les didn’t have any lack of initiative in high school; he creeped girls out with his constant asking. That crap about Cindy secretly liking him was a load of bullshit, even by Tom Batiuk’s standards. If she wanted him, she could have picked him out any time she wanted. My guess is that Batiuk wants to view her as “the one that got away” in his endless high school fantasy. Which is an equally large load of bullshit.
This is another one of those “it’s appalling and yet I shouldn’t be appalled because it’s so typical” sequences.
Day two of Mary Sue’s funeral and these two assholes haven’t said one thing about her. No nostalgia or remembrances. No questions about how she died. No admiration or reflection for the things she accomplished in her life. No words to her grieving family. Her death was just a convenient excuse for these guys to bitch about their fatalism.
Batiuk doesn’t realize just how appalling this is, because, once again, Mary Sue isn’t real like the characters he cares about. Her existence begins and ends with her interactions with Funky and Les, and he can’t even bother to imagine anything more for her. Killing her off is absolutely the most obvious way of exhibiting Batiuk’s shortcomings as a writer, and probably as a person as well.
Hey! They shared a lifeboat!
“Batiuk doesn’t realize just how appalling this is, because, once again, Mary Sue isn’t real like the characters he cares about.”
This is true, but it has to be said that even the characters he cares about only function as mouthpieces for whatever agenda he’s decided to highlight.
Les, Lisa, and Dinkle are the only characters he cares about.
Is there really no way Batty can be fired?
I would add John Howard, Pete, Darren, Flash, Phil Holt, and Batton Thomas to that list. You know, all the comic book people. And himself.
Would adjust to “all the comic book boys. Ruby and Mindy have gone to visit a farm upstate unless one of them needs to be dug up to feed the menfolk’s witticisms.
Well, on the bright side her death could have been even more undignified… She could have dropped dead while playing the church organ in the middle of Sunday service, or she could have been shot out of jealousy by some hyper intelligent alcoholic English-speaking monkey??
That cuts two ways though. When Batiuk conceives of an undignified death for her, at least he’s thinking about her and her role in the comic. He made that effort. Here she’s just a name.
Lots of people here have commented on how Les was perving on her when they were in high school, but notice how that has never been brought up once in the actual strip. She died simply so these assholes can feel sorry for themselves, without ever mentioning her in any meaningful way.
Funky Winkerbean is worse than Eat Pray Love when it comes to whiny privileged white people, viewing everyone else’s existence as mere objects lesson for them. “You know Funky, this person dying at our age makes me ponder my own mortality. Even though I’ve just made a Hollywood movie, gone to a wrap party, confronted someone following me in a car, survived a massive wildfire, rescued someone from a burning building, and were HANDED an Oscar.” Spare me how blase’ your life is, Les. It never ends with this guy.
Funky: “She deserves to have her memory desecrated, Less! Remember that time you fantasized about her, and she didn’t instantly drop to her knees and suck you off?”
Less: “Oh, I remember. I remember every imagined slight against me in High School, Funkface. Hey, Sweatwater! I wrote your obitchuary! Rest in Hell!”
You remind me of the scene in “Patton” where Old Blood and Guts calls Rommel a magnificent bastard and says he read his book.
Alas, Funky is not and never will be Omar Bradley. (Or even Karl Malden.)
Hard to believe that Mr. High School Follows You Everywhere agrees with Funky that “we barely knew her” and remembers nothing about trying to get a date with the “hottest bod in school.” Surely he would remember her setting up the memorial board at the reunion (but let’s hope he doesn’t mention that because then it’s about Lisa). Also apparently no one in Westview is on social media because Mary Sue’s passing most likely would have been mentioned by someone or posted to an alumni site.
Charles is spot on here-all they’ve done so far is show up to the funeral of someone they claim to not have known well just to say “every classmate that dies brings us closer to our own death” At least, that’s what I got from the lifeboat comment yesterday. Yes, it’s sad and heartbreaking to lose classmates, and yes, it will be our turn someday but for crying out loud, save it for after the service. Either go up and make an honest effort to say something comforting to those who DID know her well or go home.
Social media? Hell, these people don’t even have cellphones.
Except when they’re needed in the most ill-timed, obnoxious and douchebaggy way possible, like Les e-mailing his class an assignment right when he’s in the middle of a Hollywood power lunch with a producer and the biggest actor in town who are desperate to turn his bestselling book into a $100 million dollar movie…
Again, she didn’t just serve on the high school reunion board with Les. She co-opted the In Memoriam display into a book promo for Les, and prioritized Lisa over everyone else who died (because Les was just too fragile to do it himself). The pure arrogance of it aside, it’s the kind of gesture you really should remember someone doing for you.
One can only imagine which letter in the name “Funky Winkerbean” the obit writer will mess up, and I for one can’t wait for it to happen.
I hope there are two obituaries, because there are two obvious typos waiting for their day of gory.
Are they just making small talk in the middle of the ceremony? Sheesh!
1. It’s funny because if there’s a typo in the obit, it’s directly the fault of either Mrs. Sweetwater’s family or the funeral home since the obit could have only come from them…
2. As a personal pet peeve, dreary weather during a funeral is SO goddamn cliche…
3. Yeah, keep on pretending to care while cracking jokes during the interment you godless sacrilegious motherfuckers… When Lester finally dies they’re gonna have to fuckin’ crowdfund some cash just to hire his pallbearers…
3a. The only thing missing is Harold Leroy Dinkle and his Westview High Alumni Band marching in and playing something wholly inappropriate, like “Another One Bites the Dust”
4. Can I let y’all in on a secret? One of the reasons why I still read this strip is because I still hope beyond all hope that someday I’ll finally see Lester Fucking Moore get killed off… Does that make me a bad person?
5. It’s all fun and games until Mary Sue Bilgewater pulls a Phillips “66” Holt and makes a surprise appearance at next year’s class reunion….
4. If a new creator ever did take over the comic strip, getting rid of Les is almost the first thing they’d have to do. Unless that thing is closing the comic book store and the comic book publisher.
I’d still like to see Jules Rivera take a stab at Funky Winkerbean. I don’t think she works for Mark Trail, but this franchise desperately needs a facelift and an attitude adjustment. Even reaching Mary Worth levels of self-awareness would be a huge improvement. At least it *knows* Wilbur Weston is awful, even if it doesn’t do anything about it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe that we actually ever saw Mary Sue Sweetwater in Act I, we just saw Les drooling over her. The only time she made a visual appearance is years later when TB wanted to illustrate how she had “let herself go” after high school. Now her final act is to serve as a series of punchlines for Les and Funky at her funeral.
One thing that bothers me about Les & Funky’s presence. Generally graveside funeral services are meant for a core group of family and close friends. The wake at the funeral home is where you would expect to see the people who barely knew the deceased but wanted to pay their respects, sign the guest book, and pick up a mass card.
Generally graveside funeral services are meant for a core group of family and close friends.
Yeah, I noticed that too. But, of course, if Batiuk just showed Funky and Les going to the wake, he couldn’t show them standing out in the rain as a metaphor for life’s ultimate futility or something.
Odd how *that’s* the thing he makes sure to include. The only way to explain it is it must be a stimulus response for him at this point.
You got me, Doctor Doomus. I failed today’s ‘guess what song the title is based upon’ contest.
‘Come Sweet Death’ by J.S. Bach?
Actually, The Misfits “Last Caress” came to mine, but they probably stole that line from Bach, or some long-forgotten B movie or something.