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).

Threescore and Five

Oh, now hold up. Men’s Over Sixty-Five Division? This is the last time I’m going to harp on timeline and continuity: Batiuk clearly gives no fucks so why should we? But if you go by what Wikipedia says:

In 1992, Batiuk changed the strip’s format. It was established that Funky, Les, Cindy and all the rest of the previous cast had graduated from Westview in 1988…

In which case, today Funky would be right around 50 years old.

In November 2008, the gang assembled for a thirty year reunion (“the coming reunion”). This would make them WHS Class of 1978. Funky would be about 60 (at the “time pool” reunion in June 2015, any dates on the banners were artfully obscured).  This number also would jibe with Funky being 46 at the beginning of Act III in 2007, as shown on the “Meet the Cast” page. So we have what amounts to a time jump within a time jump. The characters are catching up in age with their creator, and Funky (and his peers, including ageless Cindy) are at least 65 years of age. Older than me, even!

Heavy Medal

[I]n 2008 [Tom Batiuk] was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Only three other newspaper strip creators have achieved this distinction in the award’s 100-year history: Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County) and Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse). Pulitzer judges cited Batiuk’s controversial story line in which his Lisa character battles cancer – a subject not typically covered in the funny pages.

“That sort of validated my career for me because there are only four … Trudeau, Breathed, Johnston … and Funky,” Batiuk says with a smile. “I’ll take that company. That’s not bad.”

From the Interviews page at funkywinkerbean.com

Today’s strip…Who wouldn’t admire a guy who creates three hugely successful (in their day) daily comic strips? The main difference between Tom Batiuk and two of those other three famous cartoonists is that Trudeau and Breathed won their Prizes. Now, being a Pulitzer finalist is nothing to sneeze at, but this does put Batiuk in the lower percentile, alongside Johnston, creator of the only long-running, “serious” comic that engenders even stronger love/hate among its faithful readers.

Not having that Pulitzer on his shelf alongside his Flash maquette has to sting a little, for a storyteller who likens himself to Charles Schulz and Woody Allen. Despite the considerable success and fame that Batiuk’s earned over nearly a half century, he’s still “never won a medal.”

C’mon man. Even Skyler‘s won a medal.