Call Me the Sleeve

Jeffcoat Wayne
February 16, 2013 at 11:07 am
One week of this mundane arc down, three more to go. YIPPEE!!!!!!!

I really did not expect the Music Education Convention to run into a second week, but here we are. Batiuk has managed to find a topic of even less interest to the average reader than comic books, and I say this as a former high school band member and a band parent (and with all due love and respect to comics fans). Having swung and missed every day last week at humor, today Batiuk “assumes” a serious tone with a tip o’ the Scapegoat shako to the struggles of women band directors.

Hard Candy

Duane
February 16, 2013 at 3:30 pm

This whole week’s story should have just been done in ONE Sunday comic, not wasting a whole week.

Indubitably! In fact, today’s strip packs about as much entertainment as did the six strips that preceded it, which is to say, none.

You would suppose that the two people who accompanied Harry to this convention might already be seated in the front row. Instead, Harriet and Becky arrive “just in time” for Harry’s session.

Diva-lution

On Thursday TB made a joke at the expense of trombonists; today it’s the flautists’ turn. I suppose that only those who play flute, and not brass or percussion players or the rest of the woodwinds, are prone to “diva” -like behavior, and to such an extent that an entire session is devoted to their special “care and handling”? For the second day in a row I must Google for context, and, unlike “liquid sound”, the term “flute diva” does yield some results that might relate to school bands, and even some merch.

Water Music

For better or for worse, reading and commenting on Funky Winkerbean every day for nearly three years has enabled me to pick up on Batiuk’s jokes, however weak, and his references, however obscure. It’s kind of a challenge to search the web for background on what goes on in this strip. Having said that, today’s strip has me at a complete and utter loss.

Googling “liquid sound” turned up a bunch of results, but nothing really relating to school bands or music education. Wikipedia talks about “a method of attaining underwater sound reproduction of music or meditative sonorities in swimming pools, combined with lighting effects.” There’s a liquidsound.com website. I found lots of images of fountains made of musical instruments, but not any that were on display at a music education convention.

I finally decided that it’s just TB once again indulging his fetish for musical instruments being doused in water.