Welcome to the Baldo crossover you never asked for. Behold the Fairgoods’ thought-provoking and sensitive solution to the contemporary issue of being separated by work: why should Jessica work remotely on Cindy’s documentary, living with her husband and her preschooler, when she can parent remotely, thanks to a telepresence robot? Oh, those wacky fortysomething millennials!
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
So we began and ended the week with a fat joke. Yep, this is how Emmy winning content gets made, folks….
Along with the flagrant retconning, jaw-dropping anachronisms, and slapdash draughtsmanship, the very sequencing of this week’s strips annoyed me so effin’ much that I’ve gone and rearranged them in logical order on their own page: sonofstuckfunky.com/the-butter-brinkel-story-corrected-for-continuity.
As Monday is the first of a new month (jeeze, it’s already July?) , your genial hosts here at SoSF don’t have the so-called luxury of being able to peep next week’s strips in advance. And Sunday’s strips are never available ahead of time, so don’t bother checking in around here until midnight Eastern (hopefully you’ve got better things to do on a Saturday night…I haven’t…) And heads up: stepping to the plate on Monday is none other than billytheskink! Billy has perhaps the broadest knowledge of Act I and Act II, and the ability to resurrect vintage strips, and shows a better grasp of continuity in the Funkivers than Thomas Martin Batiuk himself, and is handy with haiku. I salute him, along with @epicusdoomus, who manages the bullpen, and every guest author, past and present, over nine years of this blog, and most of all, you, the reader.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Other than the fact I was able to enjoy a small side-line cottage industry in collecting option checks, Funky and my other work have always managed to avoid being exploited or stained by Hollywood as if the strips had been Scotchgarded against the very possibility.
Tom Batiuk, from The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume Six
“Butter” Brinkel had his own carousel and a pet chimpanzee? He’s coming off less like Fatty Arbuckle and more like Michael Jackson. Brinkel’s also got the world’s largest gun collection. Could this be foreshadowing? Does that collection include Chekhov’s gun? Does “the starlet Valerie Pond” meet her demise by gunfire?
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timbuys
June 25, 2019 at 1:03 pm
Are we watching them make the documentary now? That is, is he depicting Cindy doing the voiceovers narration of the scenes from What’s-his-nuts career?
Well, that might explain why today’s strip seems like it should have appeared on Monday. Maybe instead of Cindy blathering away as she and Jessica sit in front of their editing station, we’re actually “seeing” some of Cindy’s documentary. Which would make this the first time we’ve been allowed to see actual footage from any of the Funkiverse’s myriad movie projects. However, nothing can explain how a silent film star “rose to stardom in the early 40’s“.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
We all recall that “brighter the picture the darker the negative thingy,” don’t we? It’s what Cindy absently muttered into her drink after Cliff confirmed that he’d once worked with “‘Butter’ Brickle” (and yes, I will continue to use quotation marks around that name for as long as I feel like it). Mason immediately predicted another Emmy for his wife, the documentarienne. Maybe he thinks it’d look great alongside his Oscar for Starbuck Jones.
So we learn a little more about Brinkel’s backstory, namely, his beginnings as part of a vaudeville “troup” [sic]. It’s a real testament to Cindy’s ability to acquire rare footage, as it’s not clear how many “troups” back in those days were capturing their stage performances on film.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Don
June 23, 2019 at 12:36 pm
I didn’t know the special effects were that impressive back in those days; it’s amazing how that window shifted about four feet to the left just before the building landed on him.
Professor Fate
June 23, 2019 at 12:36 pm
Well for one thing the way the joke is shown in the comic strip the stunt would have at the least badly injured if not killed Butter…Lord is this arc going to be painful.
As we saw last Sunday, “silent film actor” “Butter” Brickle tried, and as confirmed in today’s comic, failed, to replicate Buster Keaton’s most famous film stunt. Forget about a falling papier-mache wall landing on you and hurting your neck: Blonde and Blonder here are in imminent peril of being crushed to death under all that panel 2 exposition!
If you think a sore neck is bad, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, on whom Brickel is probably based, suffered second degree burns to both buttocks after sitting on acid-soaked rags at the garage where he was having his Pierce Arrow serviced.
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“How dare you?” is usually asked rhetorically, but in Battywood, it gets answered with a pie in the face. Comedy gold.
The draughtsmanship in today’s strip is nothing special. “Butter” Brinkel looks like a pre-dementia Bull Bushka, while his leading lady has a very contemporary look for an “old movie serial” actress. The film reel sprocket hole borders are a nice change from the usual photo album corners.
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Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
