“Hello? Who’s this? Darin Fairgood? What? You say you want your “frank” pierced? What are you, some kind of pervert?” *Click*!
29 thoughts on “May I Be Frank?”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
If Frankie was a true bad-ass he could break the news in person.
Well THIS is a stunning turn of events. No, not the phone call or the “big revelation”, I mean how a FW story arc is ACTUALLY MOVING FORWARD! That’s rare, to say the least. It’s WAY faster than when he found how who his biological mother was, that’s for sure. I’m kind of surprised that we didn’t get a week and a half of watching Boy Lisa dial the phone. Nice reaction shot in panel three: very Act II-ish. Can’t wait to see the look on his face when FTR reveals how and where he was conceived.
One can’t help but wonder why Frankie didn’t simply wait at Montoni’s for a few more minutes, but hey, you can’t expect a FW arc to go anywhere AND make sense all at once, you know? It’s been quite a while since FW featured a real plot development so you really can’t fault BatFace for being a little rusty with things like details and artwork and what not.
Soooo, Frankie isn’t a sneering, sinister master of disaster? He’s just a well-meaning guy with Bell’s palsy? I-I’m so confused…
See, Frankie’s evil because he’s possessing a small rectangular box and speaking to Durrin through it. Technology is witchcraft.
ya that’s it..I’ll tell him over the telephone..that’ll be a way bigger shocker then waiting another 10 minutes and telling him in person.
Boy I’m playing this A-hole image right up the yazoo.
….. just re-read the strip: “just call me DAD”?
If Durwood had any gonads (we know he doesn’t).. he’d smack FTR down by saying that Fred ..who loved and raised him and paid for his MBA is HIS DAD.
Wimp’s a coming
This reveal would have been more effective if, you know, the readers hand’t been spoiled on it a week ago.
Frankie: “Just call me Dad.”
Darin: “Um, sir, while I’m pleased at the greater openness in society towards non-traditional relationships and same gender romances, I must sadly inform you that I personally do not swing that way, not that there is anything wrong with that.”
Frankie: “I…I…what?!?”
Darin: “Now, now. I know I’m hot. In fact, you’re actually the seventh gay man this year to try to tempt me into an affair. Perhaps I’m flattered. Maybe even a bit curious! But I’m a happily married man with a budding Pizza App Empire and a Stromboli in the oven, if ya know what I mean?”
Frankie: “Listen, you’re not understanding me here, Darin, I’m-”
Darin: “Hopelessly in love. I know! These looks are a curse. But, sadly, it can never be. Fare well, brave soul. May you find happiness with a man as good as me.”
*CLICK*
Frankie: “…if I didn’t know better, I’d begin to think that blond mess was sired by Les instead of me.”
Darrin: “Oh wow, great. I’ve been waiting for this moment: Ok, let me run down my list:
1. First I’m gonna need you to help me pay off my $100,000 in credit card debts. I mean seriously, I could wall paper my room with collection notices.
2. I’m gonna need you to confirm what I’ve always thought about my stupid mom and finally give me a reason to burn all those goddamn tapes she made. Yeah, there are tons of them, pops! What kind of weird ass chick did you bang?
3. I guess since your informant Lenny has already clued you in that I knocked up the John Darling’s kid. So, I’m gonna need you to fill in as an ad-hoc babysitter during my binge drinking nights. I’ll show you how to use the male breastfeading thingee I got.
4. Which also reminds me that we’re gonna need a place to live. It’s not because of the baby. It’s because the goddamn roaches are starting to take over the bathroom and there are only so many times I can kill them and slip them in as eggplant parmesan.
5. Also given the high cancer risk and medical problems of living in this cesspool of a town. At some point I’m gonna a some blood, a kidney , hell maybe a heart to give me even a punchers chance of surviving past 40. I know, I know…you’ve probably drunks so much that your organs are 90 swimming in alcohol, bt beggars can’t be choosers.
Yup that’s about…hello?….Dad?… you there?? Hmm, I guess his cell phone battery ran out..” Oh well I got his card!!!….Can’t wait to tell…what’s her name.”
“This is Darrin Fairgood calling for a Frank Pierce. You forgot to pay for your cup a coffee.”
Batiuk keeps shooting himself in the foot. Look at how the last panel is phrased: “Just call me dad.”
Think of how much more sinister (or indeed, intriguing in any way) it would sound with an ellipsis: “Just call me…dad.”
Maybe he’s holding himself to a two-per-strip limit?
“Call me Fish Meal.”
“CORY, IS THAT YOU???”
So how is it he’s looking at that card and knows what number to call? We saw the card. There’s no number on it. Oh right. That’s called “writing.”
Maybe the whole idea of tracking Duron down but only leaving a card was because he WANTED him to call and ask for a joke name, like Hugh Jainus or Hadda Mae Kapupe. Probably Frankie and Lenny are back at the No-Tell Motel, drinking generic beer and laughing their asses off because in Ahia, a “Frank Pierce” is some kind of perverted sex act, and they tricked Darvon into calling up and ASKING for one. Look for this on the next Crank Yankers CD.
Wow, the plot is really moving along. Normally it takes weeks for the stupidity factor to increase, but it’s getting exponentially dumber by the day!
Did anyone else think…NO!! Don’t use that phone – it’s going to give you cancer!
Anyway – Hey Dad, do you want to purchase one of these Band Turkeys! Funny, Funny, Funny!!!
So this man couldn’t be bothered to tell his son in person? We have no idea where he is, but he clearly was far enough away that he had to stay at a hotel, he stalk- I mean followed them for who knows how long and then bothered to go to his son’s place of work and couldn’t just stay there an extra half hour or so to actually speak with his son?
Oh man, how much better would this strip be if this was a prank call from Mooch?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
I have a feeling the “shocking” development in this arc is that Frankie turns out to be a nice guy after all.
Anyone running a real comic strip, however, would reject that as removing any drama or interest from the arc. I have another feeling, though, that Tom Batiuk doesn’t really care about drama or interest, what he wants is an arc where he can say, “Ha, totally pulled the wool over those pedantic, bitter critics!”
One finds the damnedest things when Googling “Funky Winkerbean”:
…said Tom Batiuk. In 2001. Funky Winkerbean Revisits Teen Pregnancy
Maybe the ‘shocking development’ is that Frankie is actually seriously ill and needs a kidney transplant. Darrin is his only son. Will Darrin let his biological father *die*?
“…said Tom Batiuk. In 2001. Funky Winkerbean Revisits Teen Pregnancy”
Considering how slow Batiuk’s plots go, this is hardly suprising.
10 years equals 1 in Funkyverse years.
So we’re to conclude from this that Dying Lisa never told Darin anything about his biodad, so when Darin called “Frank Pierce”, he had no idea who that was or why he was trying to contact him. This also means that when Darin investigated who his bio-parents were way back when his nose looked completely different, he was not given his bio-dad’s information. (Not surprising, really) That also means that Frankie was not given any information on Darin from the state.
So instead, Frankie got all the information on Darin – his name, where he lived, what he looked like, enough to find him easily – from Les’s book. That’s an extraordinary breach of privacy on Les’s part. It’s so easy to believe but still so appalling that Les simply used everyone’s real names in “Lisa’s Story” and passed on a lot of personal information on them that probably wasn’t relevant to… Lisa’s story.
But I’ll be willing to bet that Les doesn’t take any heat for this whatsoever. “Hey Blabbermouth, the state keeps adoption records sealed for a REASON, you know. But who cares about that, you have a book about your dead wife that must be written!” And, you know, it’s absolutely essential for that book to recount every single detail exactly as it happened, because it happened, you know.
And I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I usually find it to be a facile argument, but Batiuk should just retire. He’s already retconned this story once, and now he’s coming back to retcon it again. The guy’s completely run out of material. He’s going to spend most of the year retconning this story: this story that has as its central character a woman who died years ago, with the discovery of her journal being an essential part of the retcon.
Seriously, I don’t think he has the necessary interest and creativity to continue this strip.
The Dreamer, what else would somebody return to Westview to do?
People return to Westview the same as old Elephants trek back to the ancient burial grounds… they die!
Charles: So far that’s the biggest plot hole with this arc…so far. Perhaps FTR will explain how he learned of Boy Lisa’s whereabouts, obviously there are ways he could have obtained that information. But until then I guess we’re to assume he did so via the cancer book, which seems both implausible and stupid, as there would really be no reason to include information like that in a book that has little-to-nothing to do with that long-ago occurrence. It was the story of her death, not her complete biography.
What I’m looking forward to the most is hearing Frankie’s spin on the whole thing. It’ll no doubt be the “highlight”, because as soon as we get Lisa’s drippy, sappy, melodramatic version it won’t be nearly as much fun anymore.
Perhaps FTR will explain how he learned of Boy Lisa’s whereabouts, obviously there are ways he could have obtained that information. But until then I guess we’re to assume he did so via the cancer book,
But we don’t have to assume that, as panel 4 of Sunday’s strip shows. Frankie says he tracked down Darin with the information Les supplied in the book.
And think about what Les would have to disclose in order for that to be that helpful for Frankie. The real biggie is that he gave Darin’s full name and presumably that he was raised in Westview. He didn’t have to state that Darin’s adoptive parents were Lisa’s principal and a teacher at her school, but I don’t see any reason why he’d leave that out after including the previous facts. And whether Les knew or not, or included it or not, that Darin was conceived via date rape, or simply that his biodad abandoned Lisa once the pregnancy became known, the simple fact that he included enough information that a parent who gave the child up for adoption could find said child and said child’s family, without their consent, is chilling. Didn’t any of them recognize the sorts of complications that could arise from this? Didn’t Fred or Annie, once they read “Lisa’s Story”, recognize the extent to which Les breached their privacy regarding the adoption?
Of course not, because Batiuk didn’t recognize it.
But then, Les apparently had no trouble extensively disclosing Lisa’s medical history, or the fact that she had a baby as a teenager, possibly the result of a rape, so keeping someone else’s intimate secrets really wasn’t of paramount importance to him.
Charles: Agree, if this was a “real life” situation it’d be a reprehensible violation of Derwood’s privacy, not to mention Ann & Mumbles. Of course, the actual “Lisa is Derwin’s birth mother” arc was completely absurd in every way, possibly the lowest point of Batty’s insane Lisa fixation.
Dayum. Skanky Becky is SO UGLY… It takes two men and a strong dog just to LOOK at her. She looks like someone woke her up in the middle of the night, THEN punched her repeatedly in the face.
It’s like Ayrhead constantly dares BatDraw to make his women uglier and uglier. “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!” lisps Swishy Tom.