Son of Stuck Funky – Page 245 – Son of Stuck Funky

Driving Me Backwards

Gad, the pacing in this damned strip…”glacial” isn’t the word for it, since glaciers manage to move a few inches per year. This is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, except you have to wake up a really old caretaker to hand you each piece, one at a time. And in the end, the resultant picture is not worth the effort.

Let’s recap: We have a date, Wally’s off with Adeela, I’m mad, Wally and Adeela are driving….

Tomorrow, I expect them to impart that Wally and Adeela are driving a car, and they’re not on the golf course starting wildfires.

Credit where it’s due: Rocky’s been drawn nicely, especially panel three.

Here’s what Brian Eno had to say, back in the day.

John Foxx had some thoughts as well.

Heads You Lose

Link to today’s strip.

Today’s content just repeats yesterday’s–imagine that–Rachel getting more and more miffed by unexplained behavior by Wally. As newagepalimpsest pointed out yesterday, this would be a typical scenario in an Archie comic.

But Archie’s creators never succumbed to the Pulitzer’s siren call. So, its stories could still be fun and somewhat relatable. Here? I’m surprised that Rachel’s expression isn’t one of sheer terror. Imagine, being abandoned by Wally.

She must have to hire a backhoe to find her self-esteem.

Me, on the other hand, what I’m struck by is Rachel’s head in panel three. What the heck? Is she auditioning to be part of the Peanuts gang? She wants to be the Little Red Haired Girl?

I’d be interested to know how this took place. Ayers drew her with her head sunk down, looking all irked, and Batiuk said “It looks like she doesn’t have a neck. Make her head bigger.”

“That’ll just make it worse.”

[A long pause] “…you like getting paid, don’t you?”

Where’s Wally?

Link to today’s strip.

Remember the “Where’s Waldo?” books? Those were fun, because in addition to searching for the titular striped-shirt guy, there were lots of amusing details scattered here and there in the crowds. Parallel series “Where’s Wally?” on the other hand, featured dull clods, blind alleys, unfunny non-sequiturs plus the added fear that if you touched the page, you just might have a finger wet with cat pee.

Today, I get that we’re supposed to find Wally’s behavior suspicious, but let’s be honest–Wally is a clod who can’t make a sandwich without getting his head caught in a jar. He’s never going to have to fight off the females. As I recall, Rachel basically threw herself at him, over and over, until she finally clung. As a manager, he can’t be bothered to tell his employees where he’s going for the afternoon. I get that this is the author manipulating things to create suspense, but…it ain’t working.

The most interesting aspect of this is the time of day. I gather it’s sometime in the afternoon, as Cory notes. What is Rachel doing there? I figured she had to rush out of class yesterday to go home, put on some makeup, get out the nice dress and so on for the “date night.” But I guess she just shows up and that’s when the “date” starts?

On the plus side, Rachel is drawn rather well in today’s episode. It makes a nice change from the weeks of deteriorating artwork we’ve witnessed lately.

Dull and Duller

Link to today’s strip.

So, after a few weeks of movie-making, doddering infernos, a visit to a sci-fi kingdom and a Lisa run, what does Tom Batiuk have in store for us now?

Rachel and Wally having a date night. Which of course will take place at Montoni’s…where they both work.

Good grief. I think I’d slit my wrists.

I guess married couples can still have “date nights” but I would think that would mean doing something different from what they always do. I mean, they not only work there, they also live above Montoni’s. They can probably eat all the pizza they want, until they stop wanting to eat pizza ever again. (With Montoni’s pizza? Couple of bites, tops.) It’s Montoni’s, Montoni’s, Montoni’s practically all the time for them.

And this is “special” to Rachel? Yikes. The relationship these two have reminds me of a scene from “Sleepless in Seattle,” when Meg Ryan’s fiance says “I don’t want to be someone that you’re settling for. I don’t want to be someone that anyone settles for. Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn’t it?”

It sure looks like they “settled for” each other.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Tom Batiuk has forgotten that Wally and Rachel are married, and this is just a regular date…since “continuity” for him is like garlic to a vampire.

Don’t Try Scuba-Side

Here’s that “Rip Tide, Scuba Cop” cover that nobody asked for. Back in June, Batiuk shared Craig Rousseau’s preliminary sketches for this cover on the FW blog back in June. The draftsmanship is fine (certainly better better than Batiuk and Ayers recent output), even if the composition’s a little…busy. In this way, it has more in common with the action-packed Silver Age covers of Batiuk’s beloved Flash than with the edgier, minimalist modern day covers that he likes to feature (without attribution) on the blog.

No doubt that this one had its genesis when comics fanboi Batiuk seized on the “Scuba-side” pun. After that, it was just a matter of squeezing out a few more jokey names based on bodies of water to round out the “squad.” Then it was just a matter of finding a comic book artist with some free time on his hands.

All that was left was to contribute the “humerous bon mot” (that’s how Batiuk spells it) featuring Mindy and Pete, to give this strip some tenuous tie to an FW plotline. Mindy’s not just some dumb gurl who lucked into a colorist job at Atomik Komix. She’s the brains behind Pete. Her insistence on going to the beach, instead of hiking to Bronson Canyon, inspired Pete to create a new Atomik title (and potentially saved them from dying in a fire).