Sheesh CBH, you have more things to vote for than my general election ballot last November. Thanks for giving us the week to vote. I have my homework cut out for me.
be ware of eve hill, January 10, 2022
Last year, the Academy Awards ticked off a bunch of people by eliminating about half of the Oscar presentations so they could spend more time on washed up comedians being assaulted.
Well we’re not doing that. Each award is more precious than whatever dumb joke or story I can spit out…and I’m in no mood to get slapped.
So rather than cut back on the awards…I’ve EXPANDED THEM!!! I’ve expanded the number of awards! I’ve expanded the number of nominees! I’ve completely lost my gosh darn mind! It’s borderline experimental! It’s borderline incomprehensible!
So shake out your index fingers and get your scroll wheels ready for a serious workout today!
My team of beta testers are hard on work on the poll itself. Voting will go up tomorrow!
But in the meantime, I am pleased to announce your nominees for…
THE 2022 FUNKY WINKERBEAN AWARDS!
The Backpfeifengesicht Award for Most Punchable Les Moore.
1.) The Best Actress
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2.) Hopeless Bystander
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3.) The Wedding Basher
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4.) Pay to Play
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5.) 50 Years of Smirking
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6.) Nasty Neon Nostaliga
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7.) I Know You’ll Die First
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8.) Deep Resignation
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The Golden T-Square for Most Insufferable Batton Thomas.
1.) Work Ethic
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2.) The Man Who Would Be King’s
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3.) Muted Protest
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4.) NOW It’s Personal
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5.) Lampshades Made From Strawmen
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6.) Puffed Batty
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7.) Meta Mope
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8.) None Shall Come After
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The Chrome TimeMop for Most Baffling Continuity Issue
1.) Who’s Your Daddy?
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2.) Blame the Woman or the Workplace?
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3.) A Forgotten Getaway?
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4.) Eliminating a Couple Grade Levels?
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5.) Planning to Forget?
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6.) What’s in a Name?
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7.) Downgrading the Format?
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The Award for Cheapest Soapbox, Brought to You by White Rain
1.) Gun Violence
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2.) Tackling Racism
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3.) Serious Issues Issues
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4.) Gender Reveal Party
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5.) Environmental Recycling
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6.) A Reason to Hope
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7.) Injecting the Estrogen
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Lisa Lisa Lisa
1.) Lisa Birds
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2.) Lisa Book
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3.) Lisa Crawford
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4.) Lisa Tapes
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5.) Lisa Robin
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6.) Lisa Loves
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7.) Lisa Lies
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8.) Lisa’s Lisa’s Lisa
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Story Arc of the Year 2022
1.) A Valiant Attempt
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2.) Les Wins Again
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3.) Helmet and Crazy’s Crazy Adventure
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4.) Captain Plaintive and the Planeteers
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5.) Gun Play
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6.) Reunited and it Feels So Dumb
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7.) Welcome to the Family
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8. ) A Different Ending
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Panel of the Year 2022
1.) Break-in at Tiffany’s
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2.) Triggering Memories
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3.) Book to the Future
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4.) Bull’s Legacy
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5.) Friend Fluid
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6.) Best in Show
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7.) Time Cat
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8.) Meet the Parents
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The Most Pointless Funky Winkerbean Strip of 2022
1.) An Exciting Discovery
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2.) Meaningful Places
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3.) Productive Conversation
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4.) Important Character Building
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5.) Crucial Exposition
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6.) A Loving Homage
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7.) Universal Humor
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8.) Knee-Slapping Puns
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The Worst Funky Winkerbean Strip of 2022
1.) The Nightmare Continues
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2.) Test Anxiety
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3.) Pulling the Last Plug
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4.) Glory Days
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5.) Precious Memories
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6.) Bursting the Bubble
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7.) TMI
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8.) A Darling Gift
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The Best Funky Winkerbean Strip of 2022
1.) A Darling Gift
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2.) Goodbye Zoomers
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3.) Off the Chain
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4.) Downsizing
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5.) Last Chance for Romance
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6.) The Lost Finale
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7.) Les Finally Gets It
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Voting goes live tomorrow!
Son of Stuck Funky 
I told you all it was gonna be big. CBH never disappoints.
Dear sweet LORD in HEAVEN, what an EXTRAVAGANZA!
It’s bittersweet to read these, for obvious reasons. But it’s funny too. Because each strip I read, I think, “Oh, yeah. That was obviously the worst. That gets my vote.” Then I read the next nominee and think, “Oh, this one is even worse. I’ll vote for this one.” And so on.
We can truthfully say the winners (except in the best strip category) will be last among equals.
Burn it all, stir the ashes, and burn it all again.
Then bury the ashes at a crossroad.
“Break-in at Tiffany’s”
*chef’s kiss*
Man, some tough choices there. I think I already know what some of my picks are, but… how does one pick the Most Punchable Les Moore Face? They’re all just so punchable! (Actually, I think I’ve already chosen that one, but some of those others are really, really close. But I guess I have the day to think about it.)
There were at least 3 of them where midway through I said “That’s definitely the one”, and by the end I’d changed my vote because it somehow got worse.
Oh how I wanted “Les gets an Oscar because Tommy didn’t get a Pulitzer!” to become a meme.
HAPPY CAT: “I can haz OSKER?!”
Stick Figure Smoking Guy: “YA WINNIN OSCARS SON?”
Japanese guy, waving at a butterfly with “Is this a PULITZER?” badly shopped in.
SCREAMING BLONDE LADY POINTING: “HE DESERVES A PRIZE!!” CONFUSED CAT: “Are you nuts?!”
TOM, as a dog in a hat as his Comics Kingdom career burns down: “This Is Fine.”
When Marianne Winters was first introduced, she was a home-wrecking sex vixen who Cindy dreaded and feared. But then she morphed into a naive, homespun bumpkin who was just SO overwhelmed by the bright lights and the big city and etc. And it got even worse from there. It was one of Act III’s most bizarre character arcs, not to mention more than slightly unbelievable.
Mega!
It’s always amazing when I look back at a year of FW and completely forgot most of what happened. I just have the general impression “nothing happened”. Which is still true. I completely forgot the silly time helmet story, and I’m pretty sure I was the guest writer for most of that. 😛
On the subject of punchable Les faces, if someone could make a computer game with something like whack-a-mole but instead it’s dozens of different Les faces, or even a target shooting game, that would be amazing.
This happens to me all the time. Just the other day I was thinking “Boy Lisa was in the strip THAT many times in 2022? When was that?”. And it was, of course, that stupid gun arc from only a few months ago. Or like how Crazy Harry appeared a LOT in 2022, yet it seems like it’s been years since he had a story of his own. It’s all so incredibly, instantly forgettable.
CBH, this is outstanding work!
However, although I hate to be that guy — I’ve spotted a typo.
In the last category, you’ve used the headline “The Best Funky Winkerbean Strip of 2022″. Obviously, you meant to type “The Funky Winkerbean Strip of 2022 That Caused The Least Amount Of Bile To Rise In Your Throat”.
Sterling job otherwise!
I think it says a whole lot about Batiuk that he doesn’t realize or see what a punchable idiot Les is.
Ohhhh, I so want to cast a write-in vote in the best strip category for “Les Dies at the End,” the faux final strip that revealed Act III was all just his deathbed hallucination.
This one?
That’s the one! I’m such a sucker for happy endings.
It’s impossible to pick any of these. Every candidate is so richly deserving of what it’s nominated for. Any of them would win an annual “worst of” award in an average comic strip. It speaks to the lofty standards Funky Winkerbean set for being punchable, insufferable, baffling, pointless, preachy, and for shoving Dead Lisa down the world’s throat. The winner in every category is the fact that so many nominees exist.
2022 was full of so many crappy stories and strips, there was no way Batty could top that and so he had to retire!
So much crap, I’m not sure I could handle another year of this nonsense.
Agreed-some of these are really tough choices! I’m probably going to have to reread these and see which one still gives me a “WTF” reaction and pick that one. And even that might be a challenge.
Excellent work as always, CBH!
Wow, you weren’t kidding about the scrolling. I wish this was split up to one category a day for several days…not complaining, I appreciate all the efforts by CBH.
I considered it. But when the voting drops, the strips are in squintovision and I have never been able to figure out how to fix that. So I wanted all the nominees in one thread in case the voters needed to reference it.
No worries. Thanks so much for all you do.
I like how “A Darling Gift” is up for both the best and worst strip of the year. And it’s a valid contender for both.
Jeez. When you break these strips down to bite size pieces, it really shines a Berlin Wall spotlight of attention on how crappy they were.
Crankshaft Update:
Today’s Crankshaft comic strip on GoComics appears to be stuck in the torso chute.
Was thinking it already got canceled over there.
The last thing I would ever do is glibly suggest even more work on top of the truly prodigious workload ably sustained by our beloved CBH (and all our hosts).
But someday, if our hosts are ever casting about for postmortem FW ideas, here’s a suggestion: Most tantalizing dropped thread.
It’d be hard to top Zanzibar, but there are so many. Case in point: “the autopsy photos” that Mitchell Knox has to remind himself not to mention.
I was disappointed when Frankie goes to Hollywood abruptly ended. What nefarious deed was was he cooking up in that food truck with his henchman? Was he going to give the cast of “Starbuck Jones” salmonella?
Expanded?! Woo-hoo! May as well go out big. This is an extensive, well-compiled list. Seems like you were identifying potential nominees as the year went along.
CBH, thank you for remembering my quote.
I do like to cram and do my homework before voting. Especially political elections. I tend to focus on debates between the candidates and interviews in the media. So much more useful than political TV ads and postcards. Those TV ads and postcards are usually filled with exaggerations and falsehoods anyway. Best to ignore that stuff. They can get nasty.
Candidate #1:My opponent sells diseased blankets to Native Americans and embezzles from charities for the poor.
Candidate #2: My opponent ogles school children and molests farm animals.
At least we know all the candidates listed here will run a clean campaign. 😉
The second entry in the first category… the Backpfeifengesicht Award… am I suffering from Intermittent Winkerbean Dementia, or did Les not already get asked to address his own graduating class, and make an angry, resentful speech?
I could swear I read that in one of the entries here. But I wasn’t following the strip (or even aware of it) in Act I, so I could be misremembering.
https://sonofstuckfunky.com/2022/05/25/fortune-dweller/
The valedictorian, Barry Balderman, suffered a nervous breakdown. Unbelievably, Les was the salutatorian. The job of delivering the speech fell to him.
Good to know my memory hasn’t totally failed me yet. Thanks for finding that, bwoeh.
Paging BJr6K re: the Autism Theory. If we take Les to be a sort of avatar for TB, this speech is interesting. One of the common characteristics of people with autism/Asperger’s Syndrome is literal-mindedness.
Speeches given at commencements, weddings, funerals, company meetings, etc, tend to focus on the good and the upbeat. We all know that the most beautiful girls were more popular than the smartest girls, the groom has a checkered past, the deceased was a terrible father, etc. It’s a social convention that we don’t speak of those things in these contexts.
Les didn’t get the memo, spewing out his grievances in his turn as valedictorian, and whining about Bull’s childhood behavior at the man’s funeral. At the very least we can say that Les was no good at reading social cues.
Literal-mindedness, no theory of mind, and no ability to read the room. Yes, this moment could fit into that theory. The funny thing is, Batiuk doesn’t seem to know it either. The crowd accused Les of “bumming us out” when his actual offense was making the speech entirely about himself.
Likewise, Batty thinks the entire world accuses him of “bumming us out” when his actual offense (well, one of them) is making the strip entirely about himself, even when it’s not supposed to be.
Dishonorable mention for best/worst panel of all time:
WordPress ate my link: https://imgur.com/a/ubzN9dE
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