Every Kick Begins with Cayla

O.B. Dan
December 28, 2012 at 12:56 am
Is it just me, or does anybody else see that Cayla has put a little edge on since she married The Grounded One?

Since her “best thing that ever happened to me moment” last fall, Cayla has seemed kinda cranky, as the enormity of the mistake she made in marrying Les has begun to set in. Today she lets slip that Les is not her first choice to spend New Year’s Eve with, before regaining her composure in panel 3 and offering a weak apology. Is Les offended? Not at all: he’s already got a date for when the clock strikes twelve…

Neither Ballin' Nor Callin'

Beanie Wanker
December 26, 2012 at 9:47 am
Speaking of [Kent State], do you think BatDreck remembers sending Slumber and Kareesha there? Or did he quietly shitcan that idea after we pointed out that team is something like 2-34?


Our first glimpse of Summer and Keisha as college ‘ballers is a bit of a letdown. We’ve become so accustomed to our girls leading the team, not riding the pine. It’s rather surprising, too, that Kent State’s “Golden Flashes” wear such drab white/black unis. Les tries to relieve the boredom of having to watch other people’s daughters on the court by recalling how he and Cayla met. Cayla, however, is still unable to get beyond Keisha’s perceived slight, and for the second day in a row she earns the stink-eye from Les.

Epicus Doomus
December 27, 2012 at 12:30 am
Les, though, is as intriguingly expressive as ever. What’s he thinking there in panel three? It looks almost as if he’s amused in some sort of smug, all-knowing way. He’s the king of the difficult-to-interpret half-smirk/half-sneer, or “snirk”, if you will. Such a dick.

Yes, always.

Just found out that The Complete Funky Winkerbean: Volume 2, 1975-1977 drops on February 8th and is available for pre-order on Amazon! Something to live for, huh friends?

 

Hangin' on the Telephone

As the baby-blue Batiukmobile® rolls into, or out of, Kent, Ohio, Cayla stares intently at her phone, as if willing it to ring. Seems the daughter she raised single-handedly and sent to college now can’t be bothered to answer her mother’s phone calls. Rather than explore her relationship with Keisha to understand why this might be, Cayla instead disparages Theodore “Ted” Paraskevakos and blames his invention.

The Child Is Father to the Man

Well, we let him get away with it yesterday, but Batiuk goes back to the well again today to try and wring a little more pathos outta Pop. Today’s comic is perhaps notable because it’s the only time that I know of where we’ve seen Funky’s mother, a rather nondescript needlenosed and chinless Batiuk female.

O Come Let Us Adore Cory

Sigh. Gonna tread lightly today. After all, it’s Christmas. I sense that many if not most of you reading this are boomers like myself, which makes us close in age to Funky and the gang. Hence, we’ve watched Mom and Dad grow old, and maybe one or both have passed away. And many of our first and fondest memories, especially today, are of our parents. So while I have a beef with how Batiuk uses Pa Winkerbean as a prop rather than a person (another character whose name we’re never told), this one does tug a bit.

While it’s impossible to read Pa’s expression here, one thing’s for sure: Army life seems to agree with Cory. He appears relaxed and smiling, his unruly hair now shorn “high and tight” and his Wilma Flintstone necklace presumably replaced by dogtags. I’m wondering if in the coming year he’ll have an arc devoted to his life as a soldier, or if he’ll simply live on as a face on Skype.

Wishing you the happiest of holidays

and the brightest of new years! Stay Funky!

—TFHackett