Today’s strip wasn’t available for preview. I asked my Zoltar machine about it, and he quoted Macbeth, “It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
Then he turned me into Tom Hanks.
As boring as the perfunctory band strips are, at least they’re only depressing in an abstract way.
Becky is preening with pride today. So smug at having found a great, time and hassle saving, idea that Dinkle never considered. I wonder how much this Bandigogo service takes away from their fundraising bottom line? The employees at the frozen turkey warehouse distribution center need their pay, as do the desk drones processing these orders, and the numerous fast talking sale pitch charlatans who undoubtedly prowl the band conferences looking for harried Band Directors juggling too much one-handed who can be persuaded to outsource.
But on the other hand, they’re probably saving a bundle in people suing the school for attempted negligent manslaughter due to virulent food poisoning.
Look at Dinkle in panel three though. He’s saying amazing, but something about his facial expression tells me that he’s secrectly repulsed by the idea of never touching a frozen turkey again.
Never feeling that rock hard, frostbittten flesh slowly defrost beneath his plying fingers as the glistening breastmeat becomes pliable and eventually supple with the warmth of his wrinkled hand. Freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing, over and over again.
He can’t imagine life without a freezer full of round blobs of pink dead flesh in his basement, a box of death resisting decay, ready to melt in his grasp.
Oh goodie! Dinkle has snuck back into the high school band room to make sure his replacement is doing her job correctly. Didn’t want another repeat of the Band Mattresses door to door fiasco. Nosiree! It’s a frozen avian holocaust year after year from now on, just as our founding fathers intended.
You think Batiuk remembers that he taught Dinkle all about the joys of Indigogo back when he was taking the Bedside Manorisms to Memphis? Of course this is BANDiegogo, some kind of MLM nonsense which probably takes a nice slice out of the gross income from the fundraiser.
Also, has the band room always been teal? Such a weird color for the walls of a school. Blues and greens are typically calming colors, low energy, and the last thing Becky needs from her slack-jawed horn jockeys is less energy.
What is written on the dry erase board in the background? Some kind of manifesto? Probably it was supposed to be the lines from music staff, less the clefs and braces. But the way it’s drawn makes it look like someone’s been transcribing the Declaration of Independence long-hand.
A weird mix of detail and sloppiness in the art today, all over. We have Becky’s omnipresent folded and pinned sleeve, and the tiny music note on the coffee cup of the piano. Then we have a computer’s keyboard in panel three just drenched in teal, and the terrifying scribble of Becky in panel one looking like a meerkat in a wig.
Who is down for a week of Dinkle on autopilot?
As usual Sunday wasn’t available for preview. And I’m too worn out to wait for it to drop.
Ironically, I spent the afternoon and evening at my very first college football game. Iowa vs. Minnesota. It was an absolutely awesome time. Iowa fans were so excited when they won they rushed the field, as the ecstatic team held aloft Floyd of Rosedale, still safe in Iowa’s care.
Floyd of Rosedale is an 80 year old bronze pig the winning team gets to keep for the year. It references the time when the governors of Iowa and Minnesota bet an actual live hog on the outcome of the 1935 game.
What I’m saying is football is a, weird, exciting sport, with rich history and traditions. If enjoying the game today was also spiting Tom Batiuk’s horrible CTE arc, then I enjoyed it twice as much.
Linda, the cause of your husband’s death was still blunt force trauma in a car wreck. And implying that the hits he took in football were the inevitable cause of Bull’s death takes away the agency of the decision he made to end his life.
In my belief, one of the most dangerous post-suicide rationalizations friends and family make is trying to convince themselves that the suicide was inevitable or unavoidable. I have compassion for people who try to cope this way, but depression or despair should never be approached as terminal conditions.
The silver lining of this entire nightmare of an arc was people here getting a chance to share stories of their own struggles with despair. This tiny community of snarkers hate-reading Funky Winkerbean may have been the only people on the entire earth to actually engage with this horrible story on a deeper level and come away with any positive results.
So don’t despair my fellow Funkysnarkers! Next week Tom promises to serve us a week of Harry Dinkle, scraped together from his bag of recycled gags. I look forward to finding something both funny and insulting to say about Batiuk beating a dead band turkey.
Son of Stuck Funky 