At the end of my two week turn at writing these posts, I feel as exhausted as Funky looks in today’s panel three. But before I make way for billytheskink, I get one more bite at the mottled, mealy apple that is FW. But what to make of this joke-free strip? Funky’s strategy to avoid negative attention is hollering loudly every time he makes a bad shot? Aside from the other four players on the tennis court, there appears to be nobody around to notice or care about his poor play. Do they know that the fat man’s name is not Dave, Hal, or Glenn?
- Home
- Batiuktionary
- Act III
- Other Crap
- 2017: The Bedside Manorisms in Memphis
- Batom Comics: The Untold History
- 2007 – Senior Class Trip to Washington D.C.
- 1996: Westview Post Office Bombing Arc
- 2001: Teen Pregnancy Arc
- 2003: John Byrne Steps In for Batiuk
- 2007: Darin Seeks His Birth Mother
- 2010: Funky’s Car Crash and Time Travel
- Act II “Flash” -back
- Kent State Mural by Batiuk and Ayers
- Meet Halle Dinkle
- Meet the (Act III) Cast
- Missing FW Cast Members
- The Starbuck Jones Covers
- Act IV
Funky Links
- The Official FW Blog
- funkywinkerbean.com
- Crankshaft at arcamax.com
- crankshaftcomic.com
- The Unofficial Funky Winkerbean Fan Page
- Stuck Funky
- Funky Winkerbean Cafe Press Store
Other Links
- The Comics Curmudgeon
- Mary Worth is Lit
- This Week in Milford
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 988lifeline.org or dial 988
Search SoSF
SoSF on Twitter
My TweetsArchives
-
Tags
Adeela Ann Fairgood Atomik Komix basketball Batiukmobile® Batom Comics Becky Boy Lisa bricks Buddy Bull Cayla cellphone Christmas chullo Cindy Cliff Anger Cody Cody and Owen coffee Comic-Con comic books comics Cory Crazy Harry Darin Dead Skunk Head Dinkle Falling leaves Flash Freeman football Funky Funky Winkerbean Harry Dinkle hatchet face holidays Holly Hollywood hoodie Jessica John Keisha Komix Korner Les Les' yellow shirt Linda Lisa Lisa's Story Marianne Marianne Winters Mason Mason Jarr Mason Jarre Mindy Montoni's Montoni's Mopey Pete Nate Old dying people Owen Pete Phil Holt photo album corners pizza Rachel random students Ruby Lith silhouette smirk snow sports squiggly lines Starbuck Jones Summer technology traveling green shirt unnatural hand gestures Wally Westview High School Westview HS Band
Son of Stuck Funky · The web's premiere source for Funky Winkerbean snark
Son of Stuck Funky 
Relax, Funky! Don’t get so worked up! You could have a fatal heart attack, and that means you’d be caught dead with Les Moore.
I still contend that Les gave Bull CTE at the tennis court. He showed no symptoms before this.
Another example of Les humiliating another old high school pal, this time the school’s best athlete. Too bad ol’ Bull peaked back in high school. Time truly does wound old heels. Shame about that brain thing he had. Oh well.
Funkface being bad at tennis? That tracks.
Less being good at tennis? Or any physical activity? Not buying it.
The attempted joke failing miserably? Oh, that tracks big time!
Yeah, amazing isn’t it. Les was a total dork in high school but now he plays a perfect game of tennis and is even able to beat life long athletes.
And completely effortlessly. It’s not like Les put in any work to improve himself in any way. Everything in life was just handed to him once he was removed from the oh-so-cruel environment of high school. As if Bull Bushka, not Les, was the loser the whole time. A guy who was good enough to play football in major college and briefly the NFL, was just some bumbling klutz who was held up by the social structure, and can’t even beat an infamous nerd in a sporting event.
And Les isn’t even the worst example of this. There’s no goddam way Lisa went to law school. Law school is not for slow-thinking, reticent little flowers like Lisa was. The Paper Chase is a pretty realistic depiction. To say nothing of how she got accepted in the first place, given her poor academic record. Or how she paid for it, when her parents couldn’t even be bothered with her pregnancy, and let Les deal with it.
Obviously, she sold Darrrrrin.
Darrin isn’t worth anything.
Some people say the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference. But from the looks of this strip, Funky’s not on the scoreboard… and I’m not indifferent to Les, I hate him.
And… no conclusion to a week of Funky acting like a complete jackass, embarrassing his wife and ruining a presentation for a dozen other people. No lecture, no anger, no sleeping on the couch, just straight on to Funky’s next activity. Like when your cat goes straight from pushing stuff off the shelf to meowing for treats.
I’d assume it was all meant to emphasize how inferior Funky is to Les, but Les would’ve behaved even worse at that seminar.
Les would have contemptuously sneered through the whole thing, punctuating his disdain with snide little remarks about how he already knows all about estate-related matters. And Cayla would have been right next to him, grinning moronically.
The difference being that the darn cat is actually capable of being sweet and lovable, so I forgive her, pat her head and give her the treats. Funky deserves no treats, but he does deserve a pat on the head… with a shovel.
Cats are great, aren’t they? But they do have their own reasons for doing things.
This strip made me slightly nostalgic. I don’t play tennis but in my middle school years I followed the pro tournaments pretty enthusiastically. (I had a crush on Andre Agassi that to this day I can’t really explain.) So 😊 to the tennis artwork; 👿 to the non-joke and the presence of Les.
Les doesn’t have to be good at tennis, he only needs to be better than whomever he’s playing. Les leisurely trots around the court while Funky staggers around in a lumbering heap, and Les is once again reminded that HE truly blossomed AFTER high school, unlike his friends, who used to think they were so cool. And look at them now, eh?
Well, maybe in the future TB should consider signing his strips “Dave,” “Hal,” or “Glenn” Batiuk so no one will know who’s writing all of these bad strips.
In conversation with Comic Book Harriet, the idea of Funky Winkerbean Bingo came up….
If I’ve done this right, this should be the “How Will Funky WInkerbean Suck This Week?” Bingo Card for your amusement and/or gambling pleasure:
Enhancements, remixes, updates, etc. for future weeks welcome!
I read the square to the right of Insufferable Les (perfect choice for the free space) as “endless yankin’ at Montoni’s” which, yeah, that tracks.
I would sooner kick in a stained-glass window than suggest changes to such an immaculate work of art.
You have just qualified to become the legacy writer of Funky Winkerbean.
This is as beautiful as a Sunrise over the Atlantic.
I forgot that the center square on a Bingo card is treated as a “free space”. Guess I haven’t played in quite a while.
I interpreted the Les Moore square as “Les Moore. Enough said”. The best moment of the game must be placing a token over his face.
Since the center “FREE” space is already counted, there’s no need to cover it with a token… one must look at Les’ mug for the duration of the game. Terrifying!
I. AM. COVERING. THAT. SPACE!!!
I guess my thought process was that the spectre of Les hangs over the strip in such a way that Les — or the threat of Les — is always present.
Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. Let this week’s Bingo festivities commence!
I. AM. COVERING. THAT. FACE!!!
Nothing in the rules says you can’t!
Funky is modeling the Montoni’s active wear collection. Very popular in tennis clubs across the Buckeye State. It sure beats wearing dozens of pizza boxes as a costume while hanging from a rope from a helicopter which is my.friendly n reminder that the countdown is on for another pointless Pizza Box Monster story.
Right. And at the same time, how is it that Les is wearing a coordinated tennis outfit, which once again telegraphs that character’s superiority in TomBa’s eyes?
The irony is that if, instead of “Dave,” “Hal” or “Glenn,” Funky had simply invoked “Funky” as an invective, the two women at the court would have been like WTF?
Hey Tom Batiuk! You want to learn how to write a Sunday strip? Check out today’s Mary Worth. Nauseating setup, then absolutely perfect last panel. ComicBookHarriet is still laughing!
It is truly an amazing strip today. At least Mary Worth is aware that its most loathsome character is actually insufferable.
Then why didn’t he stay dead? (I assume we’re talking about Wilbur; I stopped reading when he didn’t drown.)
In retrospect, I think it was a good move to have Wilbur survive the ordeal and handle it in the most dickish way possible. If he had died, he would have been remembered differently.
And that opening quote “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” really set the tone. This one’s getting a Worthy award, for sure.
Magnificent Mary Worth strip today!
But I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow’s Crankshaft as I still don’t understand why the station is begging them to come back.
Because they’re just such special super-talented people that the media can’t function without them! Just like Les Moore, Pete, Mindy, Darrin, Jessica, Cindy Summers, Mason Jarre, Marianne Winters, Phil Holt, Flash Freeman, Ruby Lith, Harry Dinkle, Batton Thomas, Cliff Anger, and Lillian McKenzie!
One thing struck me about Crankshaft today. Wasn’t it at some point established that Crankshaft was illiterate? Today he’s playing Scrabble.
Yes, but he overcame it. The bigger problem is that he was obsessed with Bean’s End catalogs before he could read.
Today’s Mary Worth is relevant to Funky Winkerbean. Wilbur, the strip’s jackass, drones on to his daughter Dawn about his failed romances. He was called “inconsiderate”, “untruthful”, and other things which are 100% true. Dawn, with a look of horror, realizes “I’ve been called those things too! I’m turning into my dad!”
Funky Winkerbean will never, ever, let its characters acknowledge that their own behavior is the problem. Not only that, it won’t even acknowledge the problems in the behavior of others! Holly should have filed for separation after Funky’s behavior last week, not silently scowled at him. Everyone in the strip is a complete boor – and a complete bore – to everyone else at all times.
But the strip takes so many pains to punish characters who commit the intolerable crime of Not Appeasing Les.
I’m imagining the person filling up at a gas station and when he pays inside he happens to spring the $5 for the local Sunday paper. The local stories on the front page are kind of bland and the Lowe’s circular is advertising things like roto-tillers and bags of rosebush fertilizer, which he doesn’t need. Seeing the funny pages section, he snaps it open for comic relief and then comes across today’s Funky Winkerbean. At that point there’s nothing to do but recycle the whole mess, pick up the phone, and do today’s Wordle.
Did Funky get to take the stale cookies home?
I should save this comic. A Funky Winkerbean featuring Les that doesn’t make me want to throw my desktop out on the front lawn. Les has lines, but he’s not insufferable. Extremely rare.
Funky didn’t get his just deserts from the wussy estate planning presenter, so I will enjoy his misery here. I hate to see Les as the cause of his embarrassment, but I’ll take what I can get.
A podunk town like Westview has an athletic center with at least three tennis courts? Where? The high school where they can’t pass a levy?
Funky is the big man about town who owns the go-to restaurant in Westview. Don’t most people already know who he is? He’s wearing a Montoni’s t-shirt, for crying out loud!
His yelling of random names makes no sense. It appears to me, he’s trying to solidify his reputation of Westview village idiot.
I wonder why Batty decided to transform Les from his hapless whipping boy into the funnel for all his wish-fulfillment?
Is anybody out there well versed in psychology?
To quote Sally Forth:
Funky is Bat Dung Bonkers (1/13/2021)