Paging Le Chat Bleu

Today’s strip poses the existential, time-travel-convoluted question “Am we happy?”—or is that “Are I happy?”

Clearly Cindy will never have read The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, which you’d think would be required reading at Westview High, were it not for the ban on happiness of any kind, and probably the school levy failing.

Although… Cindy ought to be happy, given that her female existence has been validated by Mason Jarr, a man, coming into her life.

“And Im Livinia, the only girl in this strip but what women’s lib doesn’t know won’t hurt ’em!”
Just ask Livinia what the worth of a woman is! (Detail from inaugural FW strip, 27 March 1972.)

Mason arrived in Cindy’s life inexplicably, I might add, but needn’t, because everything in Funky Winkerbean is inexplicable. You know what else is inexplicable?

  • It’s still the evening of July 5. Talk about time paradoxes!
  • The older versions of the characters don’t remember this event (except possible Crazy Harry).
  • The older versions of the characters offer no useful advice. Here’s a thought for title character Funky Winkerbean: “Hey, kid, you don’t know it yet, but you’re an alcoholic; please don’t ever touch the stuff!” (Alternatively: “Kid, my advice is to start drinking heavily!”)
  • Young Funky doesn’t recognize old Funky from the Starbuck Jones–cellphone girl incident.

So… Cindy is going to be the latest character to be revealed—mirabile dictu—to suffer from depression, or self-doubt, or impostor syndrome. Why isn’t Le Chat Bleu there to taunt her?

Beam me up, Crazy!

In today’s strip, the War on Limbs resumes. To wit:

The circled regions are supposed to be the same elbow joint of a teenage boy.
The circled regions are supposed to be the same elbow joint of a teenage boy.

Young Crazy is crazy indeed if he would voluntarily step onto a transporter platform. The car has something like a 0.02% chance of killing you each time it moves you around. The transporter kills the original 100% of the time.

By the way, comic books are “cool.” Working in a comic book store is high-fivin’ “cool”. And so it goes.

Also, those are feet. By Grabthars Hammer, those are human feet!
Also, those are feet. By Grabthar’s Hammer, those are human feet!

After that horror, stepping into the transporter doesn’t seem so bad.

A Brief History Of Banality

Link to today’s stupidity

“Hello, Mason? You’ll never believe this, but I was just talking to my younger self! No, I’m not drunk, they had a time pool in Crazy’s locker and…hello? Mason?”

The Browns gag isn’t that bad but otherwise yikes, this is some of the worst dialog I’ve ever seen in FW, which isn’t saying much as I make that statement at least twice a week. It’s almost as if Batom dreamed up the premise, then kicked back with a non-alcoholic craft brew, then suddenly realized that “hey, I still need a story here!”. Then he threw together whatever came to mind first. Cell phones, Facebook, massive weight gain…yup,that covers the last thirty seven years all right. Sigh. Too bad they don’t award Pultizers for premises that never go anywhere, otherwise TB would be at Home Depot every weekend buying new shelving.

I would figure that Mary Sue might be a little more surprised to be speaking to Lisa, especially given that she just put together the memorial board (featuring Lisa) a few weeks ago. But instead she’s chatting with her about cell phones as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be talking to a young version of a woman who died eighteen years ago. Fat, stupid AND boring…boy, Batiuk REALLY has it in for those “popular girls” from high school, eh?

And speaking of Lisa, it’s absolutely flabbergasting that no one seems shocked, amazed or horrified that the most noteworthy dead Westviewian is suddenly dorking up the gym with her banal utterances. Perhaps they’re just so familiar with Ghost Lisa that it doesn’t merit more than a “meh” anymore. I know how THAT is. And sorry there Retcon Boy, but Lisa was never an “original” part of the WHS “gang”, nice try though.

Anyway, stay tuned as the always snarktastic Oddnoc bravely throws himself on next’s week’s grenade! Band boxes? Bedside Manor? Dead characters suddenly springing back to life? Find out with the rest of us on Monday night! Until next time…stay Funky!

Regrets, Tom’s Had A Few

Link to today’s strip

“What the F*CK happened to our nose?????” Wow, at long last Batiuk finally admits (in a roundabout way) that Funky Winkerbean was a stupid title that’s done nothing but provoke confused reactions and cratered the strip’s (potential) popularity. Well, that, plus the intensely shitty content. I don’t know why the Funkys don’t remember their last meeting, although it was several years ago which might as well be centuries in the Batiukiverse. I guess he’s just going to ignore the Lisa paradox here, for which we all should be forever grateful. Still though, you’d think that SOMEONE would tell her, although maybe Cayla is shooting daggers at anyone who tries lest it ends up somehow altering the future and spoiling her (chortle) movie option gravy train. All I know is that my head hurts more than usual. Too bad they didn’t go back to 1972 and throw away TB’s felt tips, it could have saved us a lot of trouble. This arc pretty much confirms that regardless of what happens in the strip, literally everything will devolve into stupid wry banter and sub-moronic wordplay. “Hey! That asteroid is heading right for Westview and we’ll all be obliterated! I guess that’s what they mean by “getting stoned”, eh?”. And cue the smirking.