Tea Crazy

“Our friend Roland” refers to a character who appeared in the very first Funky Winkerbean strip in March of ’72:

I don’t when he disappeared from the strip (or what happened to Livinia). I suppose his function in the early days of FW was to provide a little Doonesbury-esque topical humor. His radical views, of course, did not extend to Playboy magazine (va-va-va-VOOM!), which is why he did not bequeath to Crazy Harry any Betty Friedan or Susan Sontag.

Remember all those strips where Crazy Harry held forth about his conservative beliefs? Me neither. In order to wring another weak punchline out of the Harry Sells His Library premise, Batiuk, out of the blue, assigns a right-wing political view to the presumed former stoner. I’m just thankful that Batiuk didn’t have Crazy identify himself as a “teabagger“.

You’re Fired, Kurt Vonnegut

“Increasingly painful” is a pretty apt description of this week’s arc. Crazy Harry doubles down on the imaginary CEO concept, and is compelled to give the old heave-ho to a raft of brilliant authors, any one of which, on his worst day, could write circles around Tom Batiuk.

It’s unseemly enough to have a suddenly unemployed adult decide to sell his books instead of searching for another job. But this whole transference thing, with the displaced worker assuming the role of CEO in his mind, and summarily issuing “walking papers” to his prized possessions, is just weird. Funky had best break down right now and offer him that Montoni’s gig, because this is getting to be re-God-damn-diculous.

AEIOU…and sometimes, "Why?"

Damn you, Tom Batiuk, you had it! You were thisclose to producing a funny comic today! An amusing, whimsical little gag that would have had us shaking our heads and appreciatively chuckling, “Oh, that Crazy Harry’s a character!” and making us readers remember why we started following this strip. A funny, two-panel comic. But you just had to try and be relevant. You just had to tack on that gratuitous panel  3. You just had to have Funky show his dimples and try to improve a gag that needed no improvement. Has he been taking douchebag lessons from Les? “I really don’t think that’s an acronym…” A “word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words”? Yes, it’s an acronym all right. “…although I’m sure there’s an app for it.” Oh, you’re sure? I’m not sure you know what an “app” is; neither do you know that Apple’s tagline for the iPhone (note capitalization and lack of hyphen) is “there’s an app for that” (unless TB’s trying not to infringe on Apple’s trademark). Even Crazy Harry can’t muster a smirk!

A Day in the LIFO

Westview, where anyone can be a “C.E.O.”

Funky goes along with Harry’s “CEO” premise: either out of camaraderie, or possibly because he senses that “Crazy” finally has at last become so, and is just humoring the mailman until he can slip out the door.

A (real world) CEO might apply “LIFO structures” when downsizing personnel. But if “CEO” Harry’s objective is to raise cash, he’ll get a lot more by parting with his “Silver Age Flash” comics (circa 1956) than he would for DC’s “New 52“, published last year. But hey, logic, am I right?

Harry Tinkle

For all his jerkish behavior upon learning of Crazy Harry’s unemployment, give Funky credit for at least checking in on his friend. Maybe Harry’s strategy of selling off his library (instead of, I dunno, looking for another job) is not as idiotic as we think. Keep in mind that in the Funkiverse, a single issue of an obscure comic, pulled from a safe, can generate enough revenue to rescue not one but two businesses.