Total Organ Failure

Link To Today’s On Time Strip

No, she passed away while playing racquetball, you clod. This one is rather grim and depressing, even by FW standards. They just refuse to let that poor old dead organist rest. Oh well, at least her death resulted in a humorous anecdote for everyone else, so her hundred and twenty years on this planet were well worth it. Maybe next week the pastor will die during a funeral service, with hilarious consequences of course.

I get this reference, because G and C are music notes, right? Sigh. It’s not Batiuk’s worst gag ever, but still, the old lady dying sort of takes the edge off, for lack of a better term. In a FW context it’s nothing but to an outsider I suppose it’d seem rather dark, which is probably one reason why hardly anyone reads it.

Infernal Organs

Link To The Thing

Organ, organ, organ…it’s like he’s making sausage here or something. “Our current organist wants to stop playing the organ and the previous organist died.”

“Shhh! You’ll scare off the organist and we’ll still need someone to play the organ as our new organist!”

“So, Mr. Dinkle, will you take over as our organist and play organ music on the organ?”

The way he just consistently beats selected words or phrases into the ground just drives me nuts. It’s really hacky too, it reads like dialog a child would write just to pad the word count on a homework assignment. I’m sure my fellow SoSF contributors would agree, there are times when you just can’t believe you’re typing “band mattress” or “Xaxian” or “Lisa’s Story” again. By the end of this week I’ll be able to type “organist” in a millisecond, which will never, ever come in handy again.

Harry Dinkle – Male Organ Player

Link To Today’s Thing

Get ready for a shitload of organ puns, folks. I’ve been trying to work “skin flute” into a Dinkle arc post title for years. Maybe this is the one. Fingers crossed.

Anyhow, why the f*ck was that flashback necessary? It’s not like he’s applying for a real job here. And man, that’s some really crappy flashback art in panels one and two, that doesn’t look like Old Dinkle at all. It looks more like Ed McMahon trying to channel Elvis.

It’s already Tuesday and he still hasn’t even finished climbing the stairs. When I think of “most hated” FW characters I always overlook Dinkle for some reason, then he re-appears and I remember all too well that he’s right there, heroically battling for the place and show spot behind Les-retariat, who’s already lapped the field twice. I never really minded Old Dinkle but New Old Dinkle is like fingernails on a chalkboard, with his wry cackle and endless reserve of crappy band gags. He was better when he was a weird marching band fascist, as Act III Dinkle has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Organ Grind

Link To Today’s Strip

Another week of Dinkle…how utterly demoralizing. It’s often difficult to tell if Dinkle is supposed to merely be all full of marching band swagger or if he’s just a huge insufferable dick. It didn’t annoy me as much back when he was a satirical one-note caricature, but it sure annoys the shit out of me now.

I saw the post on the official BatBlog explaining this arc and that Ayers guy definitely did a bang-up job drawing the church and those bricks, which are spectacular even by FW brick standards. But nonetheless, “Harry Dinkle becomes a church organist” is one of the strangest BatYam premises in a while. I can’t even begin to fathom who this premise would appeal to, other than the real-life guy he based it on, that is. Doing the strip for one person…that’s what it’s come to, folks.

This is the farmer sowing his corn

Link to today’s strip.

Good grief, look at that word zeppelin in panel one.

This the dolt who made the call
To schedule the audition
To fill the position
To be the organist
Down at the church that Tom built.

Presumably Harriet was right there the whole time and knows what was going on; of course, given the writing in this strip I’m surprised she didn’t repeat his words verbatim in her panel five frog-face. After all, she outlined all his other accomplishments and (of course) concluded that he was the best thing evar. In probably the fastest 180 I’ve ever seen.

The reason being, this entire episode is Tom Batiuk publicly patting himself on the back. “Look at this terrific character I created! Is this award-winning or what?”

As mentioned yesterday, unless this church has a single Sunday service, Dinkle will be spending a lot of time there. Most churches I’m familiar with have several Sunday services, a couple on Saturday and at least one every weekday. Let’s not even bring up holidays. That’s going to cut into a lot of Dinkle’s other activities. (Come to think, how does Lillian manage to run her bookstore? Answer: it’s magic. Dark magic.)

All of which promises what could be could be an interesting twist: what if Dinkle failed the audition? I think it would be the first time in the strip when he didn’t get everything he wanted. It might humble him and make for a rounder character.

And of course it will never happen. The strip is now total wish-fulfillment and trivial observations. Where every “hero” character is Superman.

And with that, I am out of here. Please welcome the always erudite and entertaining Epicus Doomus who will be your host for the next couple of weeks. Exit, stage left!