“Welcome to Funky Winkerbean’s Untold Tales. Back when Funky ended, I had mentioned that my intent was to create some new Funky stories now and then and post them on my blog. It took a little while for reality to catch up to intent, but it has as evidenced here by a small little story that I just didn’t have a chance to stage before the curtain came down on Funky...”
Thanks to Billy the Skink for pointing out yesterday that Chez Francois is an actual fancy restaurant in Ohio. I had just assumed it was made up, because the name sounded so Batiukian. And our Ohio correspondent Rusty Shackleford even provided a review.
I don’t know what Rusty ordered when he was there, but whatever it was it cost him a pretty penny. Frankie’s House is no ten-dollar steak joint. This is the kind of place that serves Waygu and quail eggs and escargot. Where a ham on arugula salad, dressed with olive oil, will put you back 25 bucks.
Maybe Donna and Crazy will partake of the special this month. A seven course meal, paired with a wine for every course, called, “Truffles Truffles Truffles.” After eating this tour of mushrooms, you’d be full of more fungus than a musty bin of unwashed gym socks. I’m sure that Montoni’s finest
condimento per l’insalata would pair well atop any of these dishes.
Duo of Eggs & Truffles, Truffle Cappuccino
Ohio Proud Scrambled eggs cooked with truffle butter, garnished with black truffles and truffle oil, and a Cappuccino of purée of fall wild mushrooms and black “Burgundy” truffles, truffle foam.
Maine Diver Sea Scallop En Croûte, Black Truffle Butter
A Maine diver sea scallop served in its natural shell, filled with sliced truffles and truffle butter, wrapped in puff pastry.
Soufflé au Fromage, Black Truffle and Quail Egg
A blend of Ubriaco and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, oven baked in a ramekin and topped with a poached quail egg and freshly shaved black truffles.
Puglia Tagliatelle, “Alba” White Truffles
Freshly shaved White Truffles served over Puglia tagliatelle with truffle butter and fine herbs.
Char-Grilled Farmed Raised Coturnix Quail, Black “Burgundy” Truffle Butter Sauce
Char-grilled quail filled with a quail and truffle forcemeat, serve with a chestnut mousseline, finished with Black “Burgundy” truffle butter sauce.
Or
Seasonal Wild Mushroom, Truffles & Foie Gras, en Croûte
Wild mushroom and truffle consommé, with Foie Gras, duck confit and Black “Burgundy” Truffles topped with puff pastry.
Roast Tenderloin of Veal, Sauce Périgueux
Tenderloin of Wisconsin Veal, served over a delicata squash filled with white and black truffle risotto finished with wild mushrooms and a truffle reduction sauce.
Or
Grilled Ora King Salmon Filet, Wild Mushroom, Truffle Butter Sauce
Char-grilled New Zealand King Salmon served over baby bok choy, seasonal wild mushrooms, finished with truffle butter sauce.
White Truffle Ice Cream, Truffle Honey & Seasonal Berries
French vanilla bean ice cream with Alba White Truffles, Truffle honey, almond tuile and seasonal berries.
$200 per guest
Tax & Gratuity not included
*$75.00 per person supplemental charge for a 2.5oz. pour of the above dinner wines and 2oz. pour of the dessert wine.
Nice to know that the Sunday teal and salmon colors have been washed off the walls, and we’re back to horrific fleshcave known as weekday Montoni’s. I don’t know where you would buy a skin colored coffee maker, and I don’t want to know.
Did you find Sunday’s joke amusing? I sure hope so! Because today we get the same joke again, told to a different person. I can’t wait for tomorrow where Wally will enter and they can tell HIM all about Crazy Harry’s crazy salad dressing idea.
We don’t even know if the salad dressing is a bad gift, because we know almost nothing about Donna. For all we know she loves salad dressing, and will be thrilled by this present. She’s as much of a faceless cypher as any Funky Winkerbean background character at this point. The last time she was given any significant speaking role was a single week back in 2014, where she talked to Holly about how comic books ‘aren’t just for boys.’
I jumped into the archives to revisit that particular arc. Maybe it would give some insight into Donna’s personality. And WOW, there is an entire Pandora’s box of unfortunate implications to unpack here. Whatever Donna may seem on the outside, inside she is one messed up chick.
1.) Donna sees the world as men against women, with men as destructive mutants, and women as humanity.
3.) So Donna, as a girl liking video games, saw herself as ‘half-boy’ because of her interests, and identified with Hunter. Hunter was a character who straddled both worlds, half-human, half-mutant. In her analogy, half-woman, half-man.
4.) She saw video games as, ‘the boy’s turf’ and thus felt she needed to hide the female side of herself in order to participate. And saw participating in disguise as a form of battle against the fully mutant male.
5.) Now that she is a wife and mother, she expresses no nerdy interests and has become identical to every doudy Westview hausfrau.
None of this furthers the assertion that comic books are for girls too. They are still ‘boy’s turf’ and a girl must be part male if she wants to enter.
This just feels like a sad little girl’s internalized misogyny manifesting itself in unwarranted gender dysphoria.
Oh good. I was getting worried. We hadn’t seen Montoni’s in what feels like FOREVER and I was starting to wonder if Batiuk had forgotten about it, just like he forgot about Wally Jr or Crazy Harry’s children.
I said once that I thought Lisa’s Legacy was the Axis Mundi around which this entire universe turned, and while Dead St Lisa is certainly the spiritual heart, the physical center of the Funkyverse is this stupid little pizza joint. Monk’s Cafe in Seinfeld, or the Central Perk in Friends pale in comparison to this monolith.
As many of you know, Montoni’s is based off of the real restaurant Luigi’s located in Akron, Ohio. So, today’s strip instantly raises the question, does Luigi’s sell salad dressing. After a little digging using that internet Dinkle loathes so much, I found out that yes Luigi’s does offer bottled Italian salad dressing for sale in store. Seven-fifty will buy you this little number.
Really, looking at Luigi’s, they should be insulted by the Montoni’s comparison. Sure, they share a band box, and a counter with stools, but Luigi’s looks like a decent place, with a much more inviting and charming interior. By all the accounts I read, this place is almost always packed, and with a line waiting outside.
They do have weird idiosyncrasies, like not accepting credit cards, instead having an ATM in the back that doesn’t print out cash, but prints out a receipt to use up front. And the monstrosity below is their interpretation of a salad.
Weirdest of all, while scrolling through pictures of Luigi’s looking for salad dressing, I found what must be the inspiration for another old Montoni’s friend. See if you can spot it.
We have Thatsnought Hewmore to thank/blame for today’s strip. Because HE demanded it! And true to his word, Pete didn’t write a crossover until Atomik Komix had more than four titles… they’ve had FIVE since the addition of Wayback Wendy.
The Comics Code Authority is not exactly the heaviest of punching bags in 2020… but it’s an especially odd one for Atomik Komix. This is a company founded on replicating Batom Comics and its Silver Age shlock in every possible detail… Chester hates that non-CCA guided new stuff. Batom Comics is said to have existed pretty much entirely in the CCA era and all of its titles would have adhered to the CCA’s guidelines. Go look at the Batom Comic covers that appeared every other Sunday before Atomik Komix happened, they’ve all got the CCA stamp.
That ends my latest stint writing this pap up. My honest apologies for not noting Son Of Stuck Funky’s 10th anniversary on April 9. I was and am quite honored to have been blogging when this site moved from its first decade into its second. Our esteemed founder, TFH, takes the helm for tomorrow’s certain tire fire and many thanks to him for launching this ship and picking up the survivors of the original Stuck Funky site. This site has picked up so many more folks over the years and has become one of the internet communities I value most. It has survived cease-and-desist letters, Comics Kingdom’s ever-changing strip link addresses, and TB’s best efforts to drive us to madness. I say “here’s to another decade”, because I cannot face whatever this strip has in store next without you all.
Son of Stuck Funky 
