Author Archives: TFHackett

This Week in Westview

Hey gang, TFH here! The title character in a Tom Batiuk comic strip can expect to meet one of only two possible fates. We saw John Darling famously meet his at the wrong end of a gun. Such will not be Ed Crankshaft’s fate. He’ll join Funky Winkerbean as a title character who’s rarely seen in his own strip. Continue reading

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(Winker)Bean’s End

RudimentaryLathe?
December 27, 2022 at 10:48 pm
Of course, he has to end this with one last shill for “Lisa’s Story.” That is 100% on brand.

The last Funky Winkerbean comic.

Back at their futuristic pad, Summer’s daughter (whose name we are destined never to know) admonishes her “sweetie” that it’s bedtime. Again, how old is this kid, that she needs to be told it’s time for bed? I’m thinking about ComicBookHarriet’s comment the other day about how “John Byrne, famously, struggled with drawing children.” Something else Byrne struggles with today is making Summer’s daughter appear feminine. Look at that man-face in panel 2. Jhayzus. Has Byrne inscribed some secret, hidden text in those weird, script-y eyebrows? Continue reading

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Lisa’s “Lisa’s Story” Story

Who the hell names their kid “Story”? Oh…Lisa’s granddaughter is named “Lisa.” How many birthdays is this for her, anyway? Her height, relative to her mother’s, and her Judy Jetson attire suggest she’s a teen, but her reaction to seeing “her” name of the spine of the book is so childlike. Continue reading

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Two for the Books

Harley the Custodian to Summer: “What you write about sparks others to build on it to create a science of behavioral-patterned algorithms that will one day allow us to recognize humanity as our nation!”

…and to burn down all the bookstores, apparently. Except for the Village Booksmith, which likely was spared because Lillian operated it as a bootleg enterprise located above a garage, where it escaped the bookstore burners’ notice. And as many of you have noticed, the “Skylar Aero” solar scooter that has transported these two to “the Outskirts” is the weird looking, bulbous spaceship that Phil Holt sketched for Skyler, and that Skyler’s dad had fabricated from a murder weapon into a toy for his son:

 

 

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But You Don’t Really Care for Music, Do Ya?

The Duck of Death
December 19, 2022 at 8:22 am
Guys. Guys, is he gonna have the whole freakin’ cast from both comics in this church and pan over the crowd while the ensemble sings the Hallelujah Chorus?

Is this how it’s all gonna end?

baeraad
December 22, 2022 at 1:52 am
I… think Batiuk thinks he’s going for a heartwarming all-the-lovable-goofballs-come-together-in-a-church-on-a-snowy-Christmas-night sort of thing for his ending…

Sourbelly
December 22, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Batdick has spent days establishing the fact that every Westview citizen who matters is driving to the Jazz Messiah Nonsense in dangerous weather. He has spent zero seconds explaining why.

As confounding and confusing as this strip has been over these final months…you can’t say that a lot of effort wasn’t put into today’s strip, the last-ever Sunday panel of Funky Winkerbean. Nearly seventy people (and one cat) are packed into St. Spires. I was even able to recognize most of them…but there are a couple head-scratchers. Continue reading

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