Meeting at Montoni's

So having spent the week hectoring her husband to meet with his absent “bio-dad”, Jessica suddenly seems filled with dread at having to come along with him. Perhaps she knows Frankie’s history after all? Or maybe she’s terrified at the prospect of meeting someone who’s escaped from a fictional prison dimension!

TheDiva
May 16, 2013 at 11:23 pm
PROTIP TO TOM BATIUK: The phrase “talking out of the side of one’s mouth” is not meant to be a physical description.

Yeah, Darin’s smirking so hard in panel 3 that his mouth appears to be trying to escape to the back of his head.

It's Durwood

Charles
May 16, 2013 at 6:32 pm

All this has taken place this week, and yet, what’s the result?

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: No.

(After this week of treading water and worthless strips, reinforcing negative impressions of both Darin and Jessica):

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: Yes.

Gyre
May 16, 2013 at 4:06 pm
“Give bio-dad a call”? “bio-dad”?

I get that they were trying to save space, but if that’s all then why not just have Darin refer to him by his actual name. That would be a great way to show the distance between the two of them.

Or how about this: have “Bio-Dad” refer to Darin by the wrong name, thus tipping off the reader (if any still need to be tipped off) that Frankie’s motives are less than altruistic? Such a slip-up might be plausible if Frankie called him “Derwin” or “Aaron” or something that has more in common with his real name than just the first initial. Not to mention that Frankie seems to have gone to the trouble of learning everything about everybody in town: it’s unlikely that he’d carelessly misremember the name of his mark.

Looking on, of course, is Lenny, Frank Pierce’s partner in whatever scam they’re trying to run here.

Love and "Marraige"

April 2008

Again today we have Blonde and Blonder acting like a couple of newlyweds when we’ve got proof, proof, people, that these high-school sweethearts tied the knot eleven years ago. It feels not so much like a willful retcon as it does that Batiuk settles for just making his puppets dance and say cute things and calling it “storytelling”.

I’ve “remixed” panel 2 to suggest a more natural dialogue between two people who’ve had 11 years to get used to the realities of “marraige” [sic]:

Dear Beady-Eyed Nitpickers:

Ladies and gentlemen,

To make a long story short: I’ve made the difficult decision to step aside after three years as your genial host. Snarking on Funky Winkerbean has been lots of fun, but it does consume quite a bit of time that I really need to be devoting to my family and my career.

The SoSF community is the wittiest and friendliest online community I’ve ever had the pleasure to be involved with, and I would hate to turn you all loose with no place to snark. To that end, I am looking for a successor. I feel that there are more than a few of you reading this whose ability to rip Tom Batiuk a new one on a daily basis far surpasses my own.

I’m hoping that I can turn over the proceedings here to a new master (or mistress) of ceremonies. In addition to a knowledge of Funky Winkerbean canon, the ideal candidate should have experience with WordPress and access to a web hosting service (preferably not GoDaddy, but that’s up to you). I would be handing over all assets: the sonofstuckfunky.com domain, the @sonofstuckfunky Twitter account, the last three years’ worth of posts, and help with the transition.

So give it some thought; do be advised that maintaining a blog like this can turn into a time suck (hell, just reading Funky Winkerbean can be a waste of time, let alone analyzing it). I will entertain any questions in the comments below, or you can contact me directly using the “Contact SoSF” form in the right sidebar of this page.

Thanks for reading and, for the love of God, stay Funky!

Your pal,

TFHackett
Son of Stuck Funky