Tag: AA

And You Can’t Fax Pepperoni Either

Link To The Strip

“While our takeouts from Montoni’s had been good”…nice sentence there, Pulitzer (nominee) Boy. That sentence is the literary equivalent of stubbing your pinkie toe on the bed frame on a 4AM bathroom trip. BatWrite’s insanely fractured syntax is definitely impossible to “replicate”, as it’s just impossible to force yourself to think that way, unless you’ve suffered a lot of head injuries or use a lot of LSD or something.

Of course the possibility exists that the “ambience” Funky is speaking of only exists in HIS head, given his deep lifelong ties to Montoni’s and all. I mean aside from the staff and Crazy Harry you almost NEVER see any other FW regulars hanging around in the background. It was never Westview’s answer to “Cheers”, where characters stream in and out all the time, exchanging wry smirks and wordplay-based banter as Funky and Company crank out the pies. Thus one could conclude that Westviewians don’t really give a shit about being inside Montoni’s, as so few of them are. They just want the pizza. Your coke dealer might have you drop by his stylish condo or he might meet you in the parking lot at the Sizzler but either way you’re just interested in getting the blow.

This arc could have been about how Funky missed his customers-slash-pals during the pandemic, which might have made sense. Or it could have been about how he found himself with all kinds of unwanted free time all of a sudden, which would have sort of tied in a little with the last one. But instead it’s about how the pandemic affected the actual building itself, which is certainly a “different” sort of take. And he’s the only one with nostalgic feelings for the place (even Tony is never there), so essentially this is just more childhood fetishization, a common FW theme (see: comic books).

But mostly it’s just stupid. Funky is usually one of the more sympathetic FW characters (by FW standards) but the urge to hit him with a cinder block is just overwhelming right now. Why is everyone just sitting there letting this idiot babble?

Mon-o-tonies

Link To The Thing

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So, (see what I did there?) is this the same AA monologue from before or is this a whole new one? Because Funky is really monopolizing these meetings. Running Montoni’s was hard, closing Montoni’s was hard, re-opening Montoni’s was hard…yeah, Funky really appeared to be struggling to make ends meet while he was reno-ing his luxury McMansion on the hill a few weeks back. I mean, it’s a pizzeria. You make pizzas, you sell pizzas and that’s pretty much it. It’s not like Westviewians have a lot of alternatives.

People got sick, people died, people lost their jobs, businesses cratered, yet there’s the Funkman, bitching because his stupid pizzeria isn’t exactly the same as before the pandemic came along. Cue the world’s smallest violin. Typical BatYam, he decides to “address” a “real-life issue”, then centers the whole thing around pizza. You’d think that given everything Funky has endured that maybe he’d have a bit of perspective, but nope. There he is, sitting in a room full of recovering alcoholics and making it all about himself. What a pitiful display.

Nobody is Fine in Westview

Haha, wives sure are heartless, am I right? I really, really, do not understand what the point of this story was. People in the real world don’t usually tell stories that highlight what clumsy buffoons they are. Or that their wives don’t care if they’re injured (and are incapable of telling if the wall in a room they’re in is damaged and have to ask someone else). The only way this would make anything close to sense is if Funky really was dying for a beer when he was on the treadmill, and this whole story is actually about him relapsing.

R.I.P., Funkman’s Discman

I love that third panel. Funky used to be one of the few characters in this strip I could tolerate. Lately I’ve just gotten sick of how Batiuk constantly has to dump on him and portray him as just a pathetic fat loser every time he appeared. But now he’s just rambling on about yet another nostalgic obsession like everyone else in this strip. I doubt he reacted as much to Wally getting kidnapped or Cindy leaving him as he does to that Discman “floating” to the ground.
Oh, I don’t think an AA meeting is really the best place to talk about how you stepped off a moving treadmill and did something clumsy because you needed a “drink” so bad. Has Batiuk forgotten where Funky is? It would’ve been so much better just to say “water” instead of “a drink”.

I Wish Funky Was Stashed Away

Oh, yay, Backwards Cap Young Alcoholic gets another line today. Today’s strip is really funny, because apparently Holly had no idea that Funky still had a Discman, despite the fact that they’re husband and wife. Had he never used it before, despite the fact that he somehow still has two? Or did she just not pay any attention to him, ever. Which is understandable.
The worst thing about these strips, to me, at least, is the smugness. In the third panel, Funky is acting like having a Discman still in the package is the greatest accomplishment of his life. Which, it might be.