Discr-hymn-ination

Mild-mannered principal Nate springs out of character in today’s strip and demands that Lefty remove “Faith Of Our Fathers” from the Holiday Concert program.

Yeah, yeah, seen it before. Public school has to alter Christmas performance, removing an explicitly Christian song or statement in order to maintain an apparent separation of church and sta- WHOA! Nate has an entirely different reason for wanting “Faith Of Our Fathers” removed from the program? Oh ho ho, Tom, you got me. You got me good. I was totally thinking the one thing and then, BAM! Never saw this “mothers” thing coming.

It’s a classic bait-and-switch, like when the table of contents of my newspaper says the comics are on page E6, and I turn to E6 and find Funky Winkerbean.

“Faith Of Our Fathers”, by the way, is a hymn written about/in memory of English Catholic martyrs of the Reformation period. When TB picks a theme, by gum, he sticks with it.

Natepicking

We’re exactly two weeks away from the “Holiday Concert” teased in Today’s strip. Wait, it’s not just teased, like February’s “Winter Concert” was, it’s actually relevant to the strip that it is in! Crazy!  This is, perhaps, the Westview High School Scapegoat Sign’s first relevant appearance since Act II.

Typically level-headed (for the Batiukverse anyways) and hands-off principal Nate Green decides his first principal-y action since reading the student handbook before the 2012 prom will be to meddle in the concert Lefty’s band has surely been rehearsing for at least a month.

Hmmm… A holiday performance? A public school official? Changes demanded? I wonder what topic TB could have possibly chosen to cram into his gag cannon this week? I wonder… but I cannot blame you if you don’t.

Bland Control To Major Dull

Link To Today’s Action

And today it’s a very special cameo from no one’s favorite FW character, Jim Klabichnik, Science Guy. Hey, at least it isn’t Les. It’s a long, long way to go for a gag maybe a dozen people will see and maybe half of them will get, but then again I usually tend to vastly overstate these numbers. We also see that Westview is ALREADY in the grip of near-whiteout blizzard conditions, as there aren’t any sunny winter days in Olde Westview Towne. It’s gonna be a long winter, folks.

And this marks the end of my latest hosting stint, thanks to all for the superlative snark! Stay tuned for our resident Funk-storian, billytheskink as he guides us through whatever the hell Nate’s up to this week….enjoy!

And With That Last Panel, The Arc Ended

Link To Today’s Strip

Yikes, talk about lackadaisical. Maybe he could end every arc this way…”and that was how Lisa died”…”and that was how Funky traveled back in time”…”that’s why Les is such a smug dick all the time”…”and that’s why Owen always wears that hat now”…you get the idea. If Funky had just said, “oh, we won a holiday bowling tournament that year” on Monday, all of whatever this was supposed to be could have been neatly avoided and replaced with, oh I don’t know, something about pizza or comic books or an immense sense of personal loss or something fun like that. You know, the typical meaty FW fare.

It’s funny to me how he’ll use FW to promote CS but the CS strips merely used FW characters as backdrops. If you don’t read CS regularly you have no idea who that lady is or why her bad bowling is supposed to be funny. None of the FW characters seemed to recognize their psychotic old school bus driver either, which is pretty weird, as he was supposedly so “iconic” he got his own spin-off strip. The main thing I got out of it was realizing how old Rachel actually is, how old and fat Funky got and how Bull looks pretty much the same as he did back then which is a huge accomplishment in the Funkyverse. So kudos to him.

It’s A “Cross-over”!!!

Link To Today’s Schlock

Get it? The bowling ball “crossed-over” into Rachel’s lane! “Cross-over”! Har-dee-har-har! Oh man, BanTom was on a real “roll” here, “bowling” us over with one of his patented side-“split”-ters. He’s the comic strip author you just can’t “pin” down! I may have to order a copy of this one so I can “frame” it as soon as I have some cash to “spare”. This kind of humor is right up my “alley”.

Anyhow, Ed’s band of boring morons have apparently just handed Funky’s band of boring idiots the coveted Holiday Tournament trophy via their sheer ineptitude. Quite a story and well worth the five days he spent telling it. Hopefully Jessica learned her lesson here and never inquires about those greasy old Montoni’s photos again. That girl is in dire need of a hobby. Might I suggest documentary film-making….oh, yeah, that’s right. Never mind.

Notice how CS characters are front and center in FW but not the other way around. Also notice what a piece of crap “Crankshaft” is, although you already knew that. I wonder which one draws more readers? I mean sure, we’re talking about maybe forty people here, give or take, but still. Everyone who filled me in regarding CS was right on the money, what a nasty piece of business that whole mess is.

But isn’t it pretty funny how badly he botched his comic strip titles? “Funky Winkerbean” and “Crankshaft”…oh man, when you think about it those are two really bad unmarketable titles right there. One is just stupid and the other couldn’t possibly be more innuendo-laden. I personally can’t wait to stop having to type the word “crankshaft”, even initializing it is annoying at this point.