March 27th is upon us. And you all know what that means?
Happy Birthday, Funky Winkerbean!
Funky Winkerbean the comic strip would be 52 years young today, if it hadn’t tragically passed on in some kind of time bubble collapse at the age of 50 years and 10 months.
Funky Winkerbean the character also celebrates his birthday on March 27. He’s anywhere from 52 to 80, depending on what time of day you ask Tom and/or his editor. Continue reading “A Full Deck.”
Friday night. All my lovely nerdy normie lady friends were logging into our group chat, ready for funny, scary, co-op vidya game shenanigans.
“What are you doing, [ComicBookHarriet]?” they asked.
“I’m looking for CHONGS.”
Stunned confusion followed.
“It’s for a Funky Winkerbean thing.”
And then, well they still didn’t understand, but at least they understood the location of the field of nonsense that held the specific rabbit hole I was furiously scrambling down.
Crack commenter, Andrew, pointed out a couple days ago that Tom had a new blog post up. A blogpost specifically about the I Chong gimmick that ran through nearly all of Act I. The first one I found in my records goes all the way back in 1973.
Boy, the last couple Cranky strips have sure been botched. Like, there’s an anemic attempt at humor, but the punchline boils down to ‘Pop Culture Reference + Mundane School Bus x Unnecessary Cruelty = Humor’
As soon as I read Wednesday’s strip, I knew where the punchline should have been located. But it seems Batty and his editor misread the schematic. Like Lucy pulling the football away at the last moment, the line in the second panel sets up a joke that the third panel completely botches.
Here’s my attempt. Continue reading “I Understood That Reference!”
So Tom Batiuk’s recent email newsletter started off with this December 2008 strip:
Comic Book Harriet wondered why Batiuk chose to highlight this seemingly random strip in his email newsletter. I have a different questrion:
Why did Tom Batiuk choose to include this absolutely disgusting strip in his email newsletter? Continue reading “Bad Parenting From Beyond The Grave”
Happy Birthday Tom Batiuk!
I went back in my archives to see if ol Tom ever saddled one of his characters with his own birthday to celebrate. But I couldn’t find anyone with Pi Day, as their Cake Day. Really, I couldn’t find many places where he acknowledged the date even obliquely. Unless this Crankshaft strip from 2018 counts.
Son of Stuck Funky 