One for the Books

Lots to be said about today’s strip, gang!

  • The red title text in panel one really stands out against the muddy, muted greens and pinkish browns of today’s panels.
  • TB casually drops into this otherwise run-of-the-mill, throwaway Sunday setpiece the fact that Pete  is moving back to the big city, nearly four years after he inexplicably moved back to Westview.
  • The name of this secondhand bookstore is sorta clever (certainly more clever than The Village Booksmith). Reminds me of a bar in Bayonne where I used to live that was called He’s Not Here.
  • TB sure has a thing for bookstores and their uncertain fate. In addition to the now-shuttered Booksmith, earlier this year Les recalled a now-demolished bookstore in Kent, Ohio (Les also shares Pete’s proclivity for “haunting” secondhand bookstores).
  • With his balloon head and scrawny neck, Bookstore Guy in the last panel really resembles South Park‘s Mr. Mackey, mmkay?

Titletown

TB is not content to trash the character of Bull by making him seem stupid and ineffectual. Today he has Bull actually sashaying down the corridor to verify Summer’s claim that Ann Fairgood’s Nannys did indeed bring home the District Title trophy to old Westview. I don’t see Ann’s name on that hardware, and the golden figure on top appears to be ice skating rather than shooting baskets, but the sight of it is enough to elicit slackjawed awe from the coach.

Half Step

Why must Summer refer to Darin as “my half-brother” to her soon-to-be stepsister? Wouldn’t Keisha know who Summer was talking about? I was sure TB was engaging in more retconning regarding Darin’s “adoptive mom”, but according to the Unofficial Funky Winkerbean Fan Page, in addition to being one of Les’s teachers, Ann Fairgood in fact also coached the girls’ basketball team.

Longtime snarker and Ohio resident Redbird was kind enough to scan and send the Tom Batiuk article from this month’s Ohio Magazine. If you’ve read any of the TB interviews I’ve referenced before, well, it’s pretty standard stuff, but it also contains a Tom Batiuk self-portrait, and, from March of 1972, the very first Funky Winkerbean strip (pardon the quality; I lifted it from a PDF):

Wonder whatever happened to “Roland” and “Livinia”…You can download the complete article here:
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3406272/ohiomag-batiuk-interview-pdf-january-3-2012-8-53-pm-1-2-meg