What a Long Estranged Trip It's Been

Rusty
February 5, 2013 at 6:30 am
Fred must have been a pretty great father to be awarded no custody or even visitation rights for the daughter. So let’s not talk about it, shall we?

And either Fred didn’t care enough to go to court to fight for the right to see his own daughter, or…or what? What reason could Kerry’s mother have to keep her away from her father? While it’s impossible even to guess how old Kerry must be, clearly she reached adulthood some time ago, and would have been free to pay Fred a visit anytime before his stroke. Whatever the reason for their estrangement, it’s simply forgotten as quickly as it is brought up, in classic TB narrative mode.

So We Never Talked About It

The Dreamer
February 2, 2013 at 3:30 pm
Back in Act I, Fred was a divorcee. He had a previous marriage. Batiuk apparently forgot that and did a series of strips where Fred and Ann take Darin around to show where they lived as a young struggling couple. Now, Batiuk remembered and last week we had Ann remembering that they met as teachers during the strike at Westview, and had no ‘young’ past…This is obviously the daughter from Fred’s first marriage, which Fred never told Ann about…

Fred’s stroke sure has opened a closet full of skeletons! Turns out Annie was not the only gal to have her dreams crushed by the seemingly mild-mannered former principal. But hey, water under the bridge, right? If it’s not “pleasant”, then why even talk about it? What’s even more unpleasant is Darin’s elongated, potatolike head in panel 3.

Kerry On, My Wayward Daughter

Minutes pass as Darin stands in the doorway, all agog. The stranger clears her throat and repeats her introduction. “I’m Kerry. I’m Fred Fairgood’s daughter.”

While we wait for the ground to stabilize ‘neath Darin’s feet, we are treated to a confusing and unnecessary flashback. Bull, who would go on to become a teacher and then a school administrator, is sitting in Principal Fairgood’s office because his poor grades threaten to prevent him from playing football. Coach Stropp has made it clear to Fred that his perennially losing squad can not afford to lose Bull (I guess we’re to take Fred at his word that he’s “just kidding” about his daughter being kidnapped).

Having recently acquired and read a couple paperback Funky Winkerbean collections, I get the feeling that Batiuk has redrawn an actual Act I strip, and in the context of Act I it was probably mildly amusing. Shoehorned into today’s comic, it’s disconcerting, and not just because Batiuk’s sepia-toned the panels, instead of deploying the “photo album corners” he typically uses to denote flashbacks. Bull’s got nothing to do with the current storyline. It’s more like Batiuk’s playing this card to defend against accusations of retconning: “See? September ’79! Fred clearly states that he has a daughter!”