Hello again dear readers, I hope everyone’s having a wonderful summer so far.
Having to snark on fresh Funky for the first time since December of ’22 is already getting to me. And it’s only Wednesday. But it gives me a chance to reconnect with you all, the long-suffering readers and unsalaried but dedicated team members. I mainly lurk on SoSF lately, but it does me good to see comments from old regulars and more recent commenters. Deepest thanks to comicbookharriet and Banana Jr. 6000 for crafting stellar content, allowing Epicus and me to rest on our meager laurels. And an extra tip of the SoSF straw boater to the aforementioned bj6K for tipping us off (“You guys aren’t going to believe this shit”) to this first installment of Funky Winkerbean’s Untold Tales.
I understand that, post FW, a certain percentage of you haven’t been reading Crankshaft <looks sternly at Epicus>. I’ve been reading it, daily, but when FW was running, I’d go weeks without checking in on Ed. When Batty folded Funky, and Crankshaft moved from Comics Kingdom to McMeel, we at Team SoSF lost the ability to view daily strips ahead of time. Were it not for that, I for one would have been game to continue daily strip critiques. I even briefly considered retiring the SoSF name in favor of “This Week in Westview” (I have a banner around here somewhere).
But behold! Tom Batiuk has bestowed upon us nearly a week’s worth of “new” Funky Winkerbean strips, and I feel compelled to present each day’s offering for your snarking pleasure. Like old times!
I take back what I said yesterday about Burchette’s ability to draw cars: viewed from the side, the Klinghorn’s compact SUV looks like a toy. The pimp tint on the windows is a nice touch though. Judging from Crazy Harry’s eyes in panel 3, the anniversary couple started the celebration early by smoking a joint on the ride. That’s one way to work up an appetite for some coffee and pizza!
And lo and behold, there’s the stupid Eliminator helmet, which vanished after Donna herself put it in the trash, where it was activated by Le Chat Noir. Somebody needs to run text door to the Komix Korner and see if Timemop is still hanging out to and let him know that time-traveling helmet of his has turned up.
Son of Stuck Funky 
But what are Crazy and Donna doing? Are they commemorating something? Batiuk really should make it clear what they’re supposed to be doing, it’s very unclear.
If only there was a place on the Internet where Tom Batiuk could write in more detail about this story. A “web log” of sorts.
Apparently, “premise, rehash, rehash, rehash, rehash, weak resolution” is the only format BatBrain knows, and it’s just too ingrained to deviate from now.
Wait … you’ve regained the ability to view FW strips in advance? This doesn’t seem to be on Batiuk’s blog yet.
It’s kind of a Monkey’s Paw superpower, though, isn’t it?
“I wish to be able to see into the future!”
“And so you shall! But there’s a catch — you will only be able to see future Funky Winkerbean strips! MWAHAHAHAAHAA!”
Hi, Y! Batty’s (or his web guy’s) image naming conventions make it pretty easy to figure out the links, and that’s all I gotta say about that. But don’t peek!
Wait…we can see strips in advance? Why, I was never aware of this! (Batiukian smirk, turns to face reader).
It’s at the point now where I’m not even sure if these new strips are supposed to take place before or after Summer’s conversation with Timemop. It’s truly baffling that he doesn’t seem to care that his embrace of literal time travel and time erasure undermines the entirety of his life’s work.
Well this is an amusing surprise. I guess after all the drama over the cat stealing the helmet, it wanted to go back to its home around wherever the Crazy house was so it just popped back around the place or something. My best guess for now anyways.
Over in Funkyshaft, Pete indeed let furniture be secondary to that wedding ring deal. Exactly how expensive is our writer assuming a “good” engagement piece is if a prolific comic/movie writer has to let his amenities slack heavily to be able to afford one? And Funky’s son deciding that a complete vintage comic collection was exactly what he needed to sell was his own, of course.
Also on an unrelated note, was able to track down the final week of May 4 strips that Tom’s blog forgot to post.
I liked it when it was “what dumb white dude thinks a girl might use to disguise herself .”
“You guys aren’t going to believe this shit”
It’s true. I did say that. And this strip is a perfect example of shit you can’t believe. Believe this, though: it gets better/worse.
“it gets better/worse.”
So…It gets the same?
Judging from Crazy Harry’s eyes in panel 3, the anniversary couple started the celebration early by smoking a joint on the ride.
I’ve wondered if the space helmet was supposed to be a metaphor for marijuana. It can’t be, though, because marijuana doesn’t make you better at video games. Especially not Defender, which required both strategy and reflexes to play.
Given what Donna had to say about the helmet in that April 2022 story arc where Crazy creeped out Act I Lisa… she pretty much considers it to be a hallucinogen. Or at least that’s her cover story.
His eyes and the way he’s holding it suggest to me that it’ll be involved in some freaky sex thing. Like, the least of it will be someone wearing naught but that helmet and dancing erotically or something.
“You remembered the helmet, you naughty, naughty boy!”
Does the silhouette of Timemop’s profile in the strip above remind anyone else of Morn from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?
Separated from birth?
Well, Time Mop is potentially a multiverse traveler as well. Put a crew cut wig on ol’ Morn and I could see him sweeping the tiles at Westview.
Oh, classic Burchett. The Klinghorn’s mid-2000s RAV4 has morphed into something else, note the loss of the spare tire cover. It looks kinda like a squashed late 2000s Honda CR-V, though the tail lights are wrong.
Given that the helmet has shown back up and appears to be brought/used with purpose, definitively placing this in the FW timeline is going to be a fools errand. We’ll still try to do it, though, because TB keeps telling us his puzzle pieces fit together when they absolutely do not.
I realize that you don’t get to see advance strips anymore due to the switch to McMeel. However, GoComics.com (McMeel’s website) makes 20 years’ worth of Crankshaft archives — and many years of many other strips — available free, without even requiring registration. Comics Kingdom requires payment to view most of what they have. So it’s a good tradeoff for the rest of us.
RE: Wed. 6/26 Funkyshaft:
Even for residents of a small town in central Ohio, can spending your life with a thirtysomething (fortysomething? Only Timemop knows for sure), droopy-lidded, nerdy comic book writer-turned-pizzeria owner who lovingly hangs superhero posters on his apartment walls but can’t be bothered to buy furniture (except for his Flash Cosmic Treadmill) really be considered “taking the win”?
Technically, Mopey should be in his fifties (!!!). He’s more or less the same age as Boy Lisa, who was born when Dead Saint Lisa was in high school. And since the 50th anniversary of her graduating class was shown in 2022… both Boy Lisa and Mopey (and anyone else from their class, like Jessica Darling Whose Father John Darling Was Murdered) all have to be over 50 at this point.
Assuming, of course, that we actually can use things like “facts” to deduce things about the comic, but since that also leads us to deduce that Cindy is about 70 years old, it would seem that Batiuk doesn’t care about keeping his continuity consistent…
It’s like Cindy being pregnant. If he’s going to show Mopey and Mindy moving in together and getting married, Batiuk feels he has to show a “young couple just starting out” sequence because otherwise he won’t know what to do with them. He can’t show Mopey as a somewhat functional and prosperous adult with a furnished house that he’s purchased with the money he made with Starbuck Jones, Atomik Komix, and jobs prior, because he literally doesn’t know how to do that. He only knows “young people just starting out”. Never mind that he may show Darin and his idiot wife, if he shows them at all, as being far beyond these two dipshits in their financial stability despite the fact that Darin has clearly been less financially successful than Mopey.
He also could have told this story with any number of younger kids he’s introduced, but since they’re all ciphers and one-note characters, he wouldn’t have anything for them to do, either. Seriously, once he removed basketball from the “Summer equation”, he didn’t have anything for her to do that didn’t involve Lisa worship. Rana’s just her headscarf. Owen’s his chullo and slobbery. Keisha is just hanging around behind Summer. If he brought any of these characters back despite the fact that they would be better suited for this role, he wouldn’t know what to do with any of them.
So it’s Mopey, despite the fact that he’s 53 years old and was willing to walk away from writing for a blockbuster franchise that no doubt made him hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions. (Lord knows Batiuk seems to think everyone in Hollywood makes stupid money, so what’s more likely?)
He also could have told this story with any number of younger kids he’s introduced, but since they’re all ciphers and one-note characters, he wouldn’t have anything for them to do, either. Seriously, once he removed basketball from the “Summer equation”, he didn’t have anything for her to do that didn’t involve Lisa worship. Rana’s just her headscarf. Owen’s his chullo and slobbery. Keisha is just hanging around behind Summer. If he brought any of these characters back despite the fact that they would be better suited for this role, he wouldn’t know what to do with any of them.
I would try my best to make them more fleshed out if I were Batiuk
Almost EVERY FW couple were just “young kids just starting out”. Like when Boy Lisa and Jessica returned to Westview, and had been together for a minimum of fiteen years, and were already married. Or Rachel and Wally, who were perpetually “just starting out”. And now Pete, who’s one of the biggest comic book writers in the world, who’s written screenplays for massive Hollywood blockbusters, is just starting out, yet again.
i thought he was talking to Pete, as if to say “saving for the ring was good enough. You don’t need to make a longer list of things you intended to buy.”
because i’m not clear on what “take the win” even means. I’ve heard “take the loss”, which means “admit defeat and don’t push the fight any more.” Most people don’t need to be advised to take a win.
I’ve heard it used in a sports/gaming context. The opposing team/player does something stupid, and puts you in a position to get a cheap victory — not because YOU performed particularly well, but because they screwed up.
“Take the win”. Don’t be proud, don’t try to make a fancy play to show you’re really amazing, and don’t disparage your efforts as hollow, cheap or unworthy. You performed well enough to get to a point were victory’s possible, and their bad play is giving you the opportunity to win. So take it. Run out the clock, do whatever thing that may be the ‘safe’ play, but take the win and enjoy it. Tomorrow you might not get that opportunity.
Say what you like about Tom Batiuk’s dredging up “(unt)old” Funky “stories,” (and I know I can count on you all) at least it got our Beware Of Eve Hill up on the board after leaving the GoComics world of Cranksnark. We are the better for this, and GC feels just a little barren and empty outwith.
Speaking of reader feedback and artists, I recently came across an interesting quote from Charles Schulz, cited by Chris Ware in the McSweeney’s Quarterly No. 13 as follows:
“Schulz repeatedly insisted on the inherent artlessness of comic strips while frequently expressing frustration that what he did wasn’t considered more serious.
‘You never know quite where you stand. One moment you are praised and the next moment you are pushed aside. You don’t whether to think you are good or not. You can’t take yourself too seriously, because if you do you’ll get shot down right away. You are not in a dignified profession.’“
A blind man can see where this going. They’re going to celebrate the anniversary of the day they met at the place where they met. Donna has the Eliminator helmet in hand. Without a doubt some poor soul at Monotoni’s is going to have to schlep the 40+ year old Defender(s) game cabinet out of the basement.
Just wondering. Does anybody here celebrate the anniversary of the day when they first met their spouse? Is that even a thing?
My husband I don’t celebrate the day we met because it was a solemn occasion. His sister’s funeral.
My sister’s husband proposed to her at the restaurant/bar they first met at. They were both there with different groups of friends and hit it off. It doesn’t seem like the weirdest thing to do if you have a concrete date or place.
But commemorating the first time you met your wife when for the first several years you knew her you thought she was a boy…is weird.
I’ve been looking at old Eliminator strips in my Funky books and The Eliminator and Crazy Harry actually did quite a bit together. She also seems to have been transferred to a high school student some time in Act I so that she could do a bunch of Holtron computer gags, don’t know what The Mop’s hand was in that.
Well, it is Pride Month. Perhaps Batty going to blow us all away by having Crazy Harry come out of the closet as bisexual. That certainly would qualify as a Funky Winkerbean ‘Untold Tale’.
Yeah, sure. /s🤣
By the way, I’ve forgotten more about Funky Winkerbean than I remember. Why do the snarkers allege John Howard is a pedophile?
Why do the snarkers allege John Howard is a pedophile?
John Howard is morbidly obese and he owns a comic book store
I don’t think anyone was really serious about that. It was more like mockery directed at a character who always wore the same clothes, who hung around a comic book store surrounded by young deliquents all day. John was always way, way too asexual to be any sort of legit pervert or anything like that. I mean, the guy married Becky, for crying out loud.
I’m probably the only one who was/is serious about the “John Howard being a pedophile” thing
@Epicus Doomus
If remember correctly DSH’s oddball hairstyle was seen by some as an attempt to appear young and cool to his youthful customers. I’m sure there’s some reason why DSH hasn’t fathered any children.
@csroberto2854
The Comics Kingdom snarkers on Funky Winkerbean referred to DSH as pedophile too. Were you a CK snarker too?
“The Comics Kingdom snarkers on Funky Winkerbean referred to DSH as pedophile too. Were you a CK snarker too?”
I am not and never will be a CK snarker because it costs money to even LOOK at the comics
My parents could tell you exactly where they met, and the details of that night. But they barely acknowledged their actual wedding anniversary, much less the date they met. Mind you, they were very loving people who stayed together for 37 years. On top of that, my mother never remarried (or even dated) in the 18 years after my father died. But calendar dates were trivia to them.
I know my parents met at their workplace, but I never bothered to ask for the details of how and when they started dating. Dad was a chemical engineer, and Mom was a secretary. Sadly, it’s too late to ask them now.
Our wedding anniversary is this month. Neither of us has ever forgotten it. We still exchange greeting cards and small gifts, but we don’t bother going out for dinner. It’s usually golf balls for him and a gift card for me. We joke, our wedding anniversary? My god! Again? Already?
Today’s FW Untold Story:
(a few minutes ago)
Donna: Thanks for getting my helmet back.
(Ninth Doctor throws TimeMop’s hat at Donna, and walks into the Tardis, which is sent to London on Christmas 2005)
So he couldn’t find a way to work this re-rehash into 2022 FW, but he DID do a lengthy arc where the helmet poisoned Harry, then was thrown away…the very same helmet Harry is holding today. And if they drove over to Montoni’s together, how did Donna not notice that Harry was holding the (presumably smelly) helmet the whole time? Come on, BatYam, by this point we’re all plenty wise to your never-ending stream of revisionist horseshit.