Flash has reached end of life status

Today’s strip gives us our first glimpse at a young Batton Thomas… back when he had the hair of a newscaster, the jaw of Rob Riggle, and the neck of something that doesn’t have a neck. Quite a contrast to today’s sad-sack Batton, who looks like he could be Pete’s dad (he’s not, John Darling program director Reed Roberts is). Trading that plaid seersucker jacket for a blue Members Only was a good call, though.

So The Flash #123 inspired Batton Thomas (and, most definitely, one Thomas Batiuk as well) to become a cartoonist, eh? How, exactly did it do that? If we are lucky we’ll get that answer in 6-10 business days. Or just visit the official Funky Winkerbean blog, where TB writes more about The Flash than he does about his own creations… Haha, yeah, you all go do that. I’ll wait.

Nothin’ But Reruns

Many apologies for the late and short post. Unfortunately, I was in a situation that was unavoidable, much like a Funky Winkerbean strip about comic books…

Today’s strip dares to ask the musical question, what’s a comic book doing in a comic book store? The answer may not at all surprise you.

Many of you beady-eyed nitpickers eagle-eyed commenters noticed that this is not only The Flash #123, but one of a series of recent reprints of the issue. You think Batton Thomas is going to try to pay DSH a dime for it?

Batton Exchange

Welcome to Son Of Stuck Funky’s week-long 11th anniversary spectacular! Well, it will be tacular, at least, we shall see on the spec… Today’s strip kicks thing off with a bang flash! You can have that one for free, TB. Hey, maybe I’ll even pay YOU to take it.

So, I’m billytheskink, and I am (apparently) contractually obligated to take over the author’s seat here at SOSF whenever Batton Thomas makes his annual appearance. I really should have read the fine print. But really, I covered both of Batton’s previous appearances, April-May 2019 (he crashed DSH’s Free Comic Book Day) and April 2020 (Les invited him to mope in front of his class), naturally. One could argue that he also appeared back in January of this year, moping about Komix Korner mere days before my last stint here started, but one could also argue that old moper was Jff Murdock.

Apparently Batton “used to be famous”. I guess that is why he only started appearing in Funky Winkerbean in 2019.

Septic Schlock

Link To Sunday’s Strip

A large tank full of a winter’s worth of the Winkerbean’s slowly-thawing poo or another day of Dinkle…no contest there. I’m choosing the poo ten out of ten times. I’d suggest stuffing Dinkle into that septic tank but it’d be a shame to spoil perfectly good poo like that. If he comes back tomorrow I’ll be crushed.

But anyhow, yeah, BatHam isn’t getting out a whole lot these days, that much is clear. Church, the eye doctor, the yard…that’s about it, my friends. “Well, it finally stopped snowing so I went outside and walked around the yard for a while and I noticed how the ground above the septic tank always thaws first. So I thought it’d be very funny to do a strip about that phenomenon”. Yes Tom, there’s much humor to be mined from the simple things we observe from our studio window and so forth. Sigh.

And with that my two weeks are up and it’s time to turn things over to our resident licensed (and bonded) Official Funkstorian, billytheskink! It’s been fun (except for the Dinkle stuff) and memorable (except for the Dinkle stuff). And SoSF’s official anniversary date is rapidly approaching, so keep your eyes peeled in case we decide to observe it or acknowledge it in any way. No, it won’t be a parody post, I promise.

A Major Bummer

Link To This One

If “A” is for “asshole”, definitely. Are they aware that they’re not absolutely required to employ Dinkle and can fire him whenever they like? I believe Ohio is a “right to fire cackling assholes” state, too, unlike mine where you pretty much HAVE to be one to climb the ol’ coporate ladder. The church ladies are way too passive about it, they’re not a captive crowd like his old marching band students were, so why are they tolerating it? I think if they team up they could take him and quite frankly I’d be totally willing to help them if only I could.

But anyway yeah, Dinkle is an obnoxious taskmaster who loves to torture his charges and so forth. I have to assume this, as we never actually saw Dinkle doing much of anything, but church ladies never lie so therefore it must be true. If this is the end of the big St. Spires mini-mega arc it ended in classic FW style, with a “climax” that has all the impact of a damp tissue landing in a bathroom wastebasket. What a tedious ordeal, I mean Lord knows I’ve covered my fair share of really plodding, worthless FW arcs but man, this premise was feeble even by FW standards. Please let it be over.