Stretching the Truth

After summertime stops in such locales as Hollywood, San Diego, and Centerville, the Funky Train has returned to familiar Westview. Today’s stop: the Fitness Center, where once again Funky endures the scorn of his still-nameless trainer, whom we call Fitness Girl.

These Fitness Girl arcs get me to wondering where Mr. “Write What You Know” works out. Maybe at the Medina Tone Fitness Center (motto: “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever”)? I mainly wonder because of the way he draws fitness equipment: Funky is ensconced in what looks like a giant infant swing.  His submissive attitude in panel 3, under Fitness Girl’s disdainful gaze, infantilizes him further still. Here is a guy who at least tries to get fit: we see him run–well, jog; play tennis, and put up with this sneering witch of a “personal trainer.” He should be looking and feeling a little better, but Batiuk persists in portraying him as an elderly, hapless schlub.

What’s a Hemingway?

Major props as always to Beckoning Chasm, and to David O, Epicus Doomus, and Oddnoc, for helping me keep the snark fires burning every day!

As the first autumn leaf drops, Les and Cayla pack up the old porch swing.  What is surely intended to be romantic small talk could be read as icy, dismissive sarcasm with the addition of some quotation marks:

I’m glad you’re home, “Hemingway”…I missed you while you were “doing your Hollywood thing.”

After all, Les’ ultimately doomed movie project once promised big bucks and dreams of stardom. Instead, he’s back in Ohio with nothing to show for his time in LaLa Land.

On a side note: every Sunday strip since August 3 has had these black borders around the panels…is Batiuk finally copping to how morbid and depressing his strip is?

Up in the Atiuk

Link to today’s strip.

Again, we are lacking any of our regular Funky Winkerbean cast…which is fine by me.  Young Blonde is watching what the youth of today are always watching–caterwauling blondes.  I mean, look at the mouth on that TV woman.  Did someone just hand her a comic book?

Meanwhile, Jff is up in the atiuk, transported by joy.  Much as I criticize, it is nice to see someone in any Batiuk work enjoying life.  And if “enjoying life” means reading comics, eating cookies and drinking milk, well, I’m not going to make trouble.  (By the way, if you’re wondering what’s going on anatomically, I think Jff is holding the cookie with his right hand, not holding both cookie and comic in some twisted left hand.) It’s also refreshing to see someone enjoy a comic book as a story being told, rather than just a handful of old pulp pages stapled together and intended to be stored for future worship.

Enjoy your comic, Jff!  Don’t let the fact that you’ll probably die tomorrow spoil the mood.   Whoops!  I didn’t mean that.  Whew!  Almost won a Pulitzer there!

Starting tomorrow, Fearless Leader returns.  Thanks for your indulgence!

Lock Up The Weapons

Link to today’s strip.

Wow, Jff continues to delve deeply into complete mania…over a comic book.  I’m sure glad Holly didn’t give him two comic books, or we’d be looking at exploded brains all over the walls.  And now we can see whose birthday, briefly glimpsed yesterday, is being celebrated (I had the idea that it was Jff’s birthday, and Holly had scribbled a message on the comic book in grease pencil).  It’s Daisy Air Rifle’s birthday!

Good thing there aren’t any air rifles around, or Jff’s uncontrollable madness might result in tragedy.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a tragedy we would care about, nor would it be a tragedy that could help Funky Winkerbean.  Because unless I miss my guess, this is the first Funky Winkerbean strip in which none of the actual Funky Winkerbean characters appear.  So if all these people died, we’d still have Les, Dinkle and the other denizens of the Winkerbean Mythos.  Damn it.

Jaws: The Remake

Link to today’s strip.
Good lord, I’ve never seen anyone so utterly transformed by a comic book.  The amount of joy Jff is experiencing is mutating him into an unearthly being!  In that last panel, Jff looks like he’s turning to bite Holly’s head, and he’s got a set of jaws that can do it in one gulp!

Isn’t it odd that people get excited over this stuff, but then refer to the issues in such a clinical way?  It’s not, “I can’t believe I’m actually holding the issue which first introduces gold kryptonite!” but this weirdly specific “Action Comics #243!”  I suppose people who are dedicated collectors would do this, but it seems odd for fans.  If you got A-Rod’s autograph, would you yell “Hey, I got NY Yankees’ Number 13’s autograph!”?  It just seems, again, like someone who enjoys collecting, but doesn’t actually enjoy the actual article itself.

Whichever it is, you know, Mr. Batiuk, we get it.  We really do.  You think collecting comic books is just the greatest pastime ever–even collecting remarkably stupid ones like Action Comics #243.   And that’s okay, I mean, I’m sure we all have our little “guilty pleasures.”

It’s just that none of the rest of us bring them up, in public, every damned time we meet someone.  I mean, come on.  Give it a rest.

If those damned things mean that much to you, there’s only one thing you must do.  You’ve already made a good start here, turning Jff into a shark, but you need to go all the way.

You need to turn Les into a lion.  And not just as a comic book tribute, but as an actual week-long storyline.  Anything less would reflect poorly on comic books–and I don’t think you want to do that.