Strips like today’s really just make Batiuk’s habit of writing his strips so far in advance extra hilarious. Not only is nobody wearing a mask and everyone is basically touching, you have a roughly hundred year old man on oxygen right in the middle of them. And it’s not like the global pandemic just sprung up in the last week when it was too late to tweak the strip. Batiuk’s had nine months where he could’ve had the artist at least draw masks on the characters to make it look like it reflected reality.
Les blatantly ogling Funky’s ass with both of his hands in his pockets while his Lesser Wife is standing right next to him is extra awkward.
When did Crazy Harry’s wife die from cancer/get murdered by him/starve because his part time job at a comic shop couldn’t feed them both? It’s especially sad when you’re a Funky Winkerbean character whose tragic untimely death doesn’t even merit an arc, or Les silently staring at your obituary in the paper.
You Forgot the Hot Chocolate And Cookies, Cayla
Oh, yay. Another sideways strip. If your comics are so awkwardly wordy that they have to be turned sideways to fit in all the dialogue, maybe you’re doing something wrong. Or maybe visual storytelling isn’t for you.
What Lisa-related writing do you think Les is working on while he sits there silently while Cayla literally praises his greatness and showers him with kisses? That is one awkwardly clunky line Cayla is reading. I wonder if this was one of those situations where Les won because nobody else bothered to enter.
I have a feeling that Batiuk tells himself “You deserved to win” every day, when he thinks about the Pulitzer. I can see how he could be that deluded, given that he can spew out garbage like last week’s arc and still get it published and somehow get interviewed in major newspapers like he’s an Artist.
Please Come, We Need Money So Bad
Today’s strip almost comes off like an apology for yesterday’s. I’m sure it’s not, since that would be a surprising amount of self-awareness for him, but following up “women can’t be geeks, and geeks can’t stand women” with “we welcome everyone” is an odd clash. Especially when today’s strip continues the long pattern of women in Batiuk’s strips doing nothing but walking up to their menfolk and asking what they’re doing. Even when the sign is clearly done and it should be obvious to Rachel.
It’s also kind of weird just on its own merit. Yay, Montoni’s doesn’t discriminate. We can all rest easy and be inspired now. I also don’t know why an entire Sunday strip had to be spent on this, when a single panel of the sign would’ve been enough.
I Wish Funky Winkerbean Folded
So, Funky was determined to know who the Pizza Monster was, so he got John to hire someone to hold the Pizza Monster at literal gunpoint? Is John somehow Westview’s version of the veterinarian on Better Call Saul? Did John just go with the first person he knew who owned guns and was willing to commit a felony for Komix Korner store credit?
Oh, and the “joke” of this strip is beyond nauseating. Apparently, there is no such thing as a geek woman. Given that Batiuk has posted super creepy pictures of female cosplayers bending over on his own blog, you’d think he’d know better. But I kind of have the feeling he’s the kind of man who doesn’t think women or girls can be “real geeks”. I would love to forward this strip to Noelle Stevenson, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Amanda Conner, Gail Simone, Fiona Staples, Louise Simonson, Ann Nocenti, Rachel Dodson, Jo Duffy, Babs Tarr, or any of the other women in comics who have had much more successful careers than Batiuk.
That Brown Mush on the Plate is Disturbing
Haha, can you imagine? An actual(?) superhero man is petrified just at the thought of being near a woman! Hilarious! Can you imagine if maybe an actual superhero was a woman, and not just this evil supervillain(?) Pizza Monster? The entire multiverse would collapse! They’d have to invent new words like “superheroine”, probably! Ha, total fear just from being near someone who merely suggests they might be a woman, truly this is the epitome of hilarity and quarter-inch from reality writing.
Son of Stuck Funky 
