Author: TFHackett

Back to School

Summertime means it’s time to see what’s new with Wally, whom (except for at Dinkle’s party) we’ve not seen since the carnival was in town last August. Though he still has that gaunt, hollow-cheeked look, Wally’s “doing pretty well” and is considering resuming his education (“community college”? Why not KSU?). A very admirable goal indeed: one would hope that Wally could avail himself of some tuition assistance under the G.I. Bill, get his sheepskin, escape his dishwasher job and hell, he and Rachel could get married. But a thoughtful response from Rachel doesn’t make for a good punchline, so Batiuk has her put on a Hanna-Barbera smirk and reveal her weird pedophilic “homework” fantasy.

Not the Retiring Type

I was thinking about doing that, Crazy, and still am…’til then, though, I’m grateful for the work of awesome guest authors like Beckoning Chasm. Thanks for filling in the last two weeks, BC!

– TFH

“So she makes me come here [to Montoni’s] every day.” We know the feeling, Funkman: over the last three months,  the majority of strips have been set in the pizzeria, a.k.a., the Chapel of Love, a.k.a. Center of the Funkiverse. Since today’s strip won’t be online until midnight, as a “treat” I’ve scanned the strip from my newspaper.

Click to enlarge
I looked through the rest of the funnies to see how other cartoonists use Photoshop for their Sunday strips. No doubt they all use it at least to color the panels, and a few more employ Photoshop to add small touches like background gradients. Doonesbury and Get Fuzzy are a little more judicious in their use of digital enhancement: used sparingly, it gives the panels a little extra depth. Tom Batiuk, or whoever colors his Sunday strips, pulls out all the stops, and the result is scenes that appear artificially (and dimly) stage-lit. Observe the two-tone highlighting on Funky’s big head. Where’s that blue light coming from? Have hours lapsed between the daytime first panel exterior shot and the interior shot in panel 2? Interestingly, over at Crankshaft, Chuck Ayers has a much lighter touch with the shading.

What the Heck Do We Care?

Now you know how many ‘holes it takes to fill Montoni’s Pizzeria.

TheDiva
July 10, 2013 at 11:50 pm
Okay, folks, place your bets:
Halle is drawn in the background of a Sunday spread in a listless nod to continuity: 6/1

Does Halle Dinkle’s presence here qualify as a “crossover” if nobody knows about her comic strip? She’s the one helpfully holding up a placard-sized “Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad” card. There’s another unfamiliar face in the crowd, above Dinkle’s head, whose identity will be revealed Friday (as an afterthought; TB’s just giving a shout-out to one of his music friends). Rachel’s been made to don the dreaded red apron but Wally (and his wonder dog Buddy) have been permitted to mingle with the invited guests. I would give Dead Skunk Head John a hard time for showing up in a t-shirt, but hey: we’re in a pizza parlor.

Get ready for another guest blogger: starting Monday, it’s the snark stylings of Beckoning Chasm!

Back-Cake

Again: was there not one person (besides Funky) whom Dinkle could’ve enlisted to help him organize this party? All the stress has this poor old man ready to plotz.  There’s “all the secret invitations” (how many? Forty? Fifty tops, give the size of Montoni’s)…Ordering a cake (and then having to ensure that Funky would be there Sunday morning to take receipt of same)…Burning a whole CD! As far as the decorations, granted, that little twat at Party City was pretty mean to you. Why not treat yourself to a nice, relaxing massage? You enjoyed the one you got in Vegas that time, right? No?