Epicus Doomus

Prove It All Night

Well, at least that highly disturbing Morty and Holly’s mom arc appears to be over, thank God. This week we’re switching gears and visiting good old Westview High to see what the good old Scapegoats band is up to during this, the most holiest of all seasons. And, to no one’s surprise at all, everything is still exactly the same. Beleaguered and perpetually harried band director Becky still has one arm and still relies heavily on her predecessor, who “retired” eleven or fifteen or seventeen or twenty years ago (no one is really sure) for basic teaching advice.

At this point I am contractually obligated to point out yet again that if BatDolt hadn’t ruined the Dinkle character by using him to generate totally unnecessary Dinkle pathos where none was needed or wanted, he’d still be able to do Dinkle-style band gags without finding a way to work that miserable one-armed woman into the strip. It’s kind of weird how he kept her around to have a disabled person presence in the strip yet she’s by far one of the most hapless and helpless characters in it, which IMO kind of belies the whole point. But hey, it’s only Monday, maybe (sigh) this time will be different.

Good Ol’ Saint Dick

Link To Today’s Strip

It’s only December 2nd but already we see that Olde Westview Towne is nearly completely buried under yet another crippling blizzard. No sooner do they clear the leaves and boom, nine feet of snow. But, unfortunately, it’s not nearly enough snow to keep Les buried indefinitely, as in today’s sad installment he’s geeking out mightily over Xmas wrapping paper, which he doesn’t even need as his “friends” already know they’re getting another copy of the Trilogy…unsigned, naturally. Turns out they’re worth more that way, interestingly enough.

Les’ attic…(shudder). Stacks and stacks of old comic books (which he’ll no doubt sell to Chester to help cover Summer’s eighth and ninth years of tuition) and lots of musty old cardboard boxes labeled “Lisa Tapes 1990-1992” and “Lisa’s Hair- DO NOT OPEN!!”. I assume the unsold copies of his book are in the garage, as they’re probably too heavy to hoist up into the attic and all. Perhaps someday he can hold the world’s most morose yard sale and make a few bucks from those “Lisa’s Legacy 2013” shirts and old bedpans he held onto for sentimental reasons.

Woe!

Link To Today’s Strip

Something I’ve been pondering: if you took a big pile of “in context” strips like this one (ones that only make sense within the context of that week’s arc) and you just randomly shuffled them up and just ran them in no particular order, how long would it take before someone noticed? I bet he’d get away with it for years before anyone aside from us caught on.

Anyhow, the fat rude jerk gets his comeuppance today, which is always sort of nice, I guess. In fact IMO every FW arc could hypothetically be improved by having the lead character suffer an injury in Saturday’s strip. Like, for example, if the big Wally/Adeela arc ended with them falling down some stairs or the last Atomik Komix arc ended with Boy Lisa being disemboweled with an antique Rip Tide-Scuba Cop letter opener or something. See what I mean? You’re smiling already.

Draught Bore

Link To Today’s Strip

“You know how in auto racing the cars draft behind the car in front of them to lower the wind resistance? Well, I thought it’d be quite funny if I applied that principle to a treadmill in a gym!”. And on that fateful day a gag was filed away and, many months, years or decades later, that gag was finally hatched in the form of today’s strip. Obviously we all know what he was going for here but taken in the context of Funky’s refusal to take his exercise routine seriously it comes across as sort of crass and somewhat alarming, as Funky doesn’t appear to have any concern at all for anon-o-exerciser’s safety or well-being as he idiotically lumbers behind her on a running treadmill machine, all for the sake of being a wisecracking jackass at FG’s expense. Look at her in panel three, he’s aged her twenty years overnight with his antics.

Mildfire

Link To Today’s Strip

Muscles firing? That’s barely a one alarm blaze right there. More of the same today…Fitness Girl gamely attempts to motivate a fat miserable sweaty Funky as he incessantly complains. It sort of (ahem) wears thin after a while.

Speaking of which, here’s another idea I’m throwing out there gratis…”Lifting Plates Is How I Ended Up Like THIS!!!!”, a paperback collection of every single “Funky exercises” strip ever. Just imagine visiting your favorite bookstore and seeing Funky’s sweaty alarmed mug staring back at you from between the “Family Circus” collections and the random Archie’s Comic Digests. The perfect gift for the reader with forty-five seconds to kill. I know it’s perverse and all but still, I wish some sort of “complete” FW existed somewhere, if for no other reason that for reference purposes. I’d really love to set aside an hour and just plow through the entire run in one sitting, just to see how coherent (lol) and/or entertaining it actually is as a whole.