Becky – Page 18 – Son of Stuck Funky

He’s Smirking Because He’s Got Speakerphone On, And Likes Humiliating His Daughter

So apparently Rana can’t speak for herself, and Wally has to clear this with her mom, because she’s eight years old and not a grad student. Wait, that’s not right.

I mean, why would Becky object? It’s the first time in like ten years Wally’s even been aware he has a daughter. Becky’s got to seize that moment while she can. And this will allow her and John to have a romantic Thanksgiving alone. Who am I kidding, of course it would be the two of them and Crazy Harry.

And it’s one thing for an individual to say that they personally are putting on the “freshman fifteen” (grad school fifteen is just lame and continues the long Batiukian tradition of thinking just switching two words is enough to be hilarious). It’s another thing for Becky to “joke” about this totally behind Rana’s back to her dad. It just comes off like complaining about her getting fat, which is laughable, but totally in line with the general mean-spirited nature of Batiuk’s strips.

I Predict Band Turkeys

Link to Today’s Strip

So, of course Adeela and Rana are friends. All Muslims know each other, after all. Since Rana is apparently getting her Master’s in Education, what is Adeela studying, that they’d have the same classes, and that she’d also share a class with Wally? Unless they just met in a Muslim student group. Which, if this school has one, you’d think Wally wouldn’t have gone six years or more without being near a Muslim.

And what is it with people in this strip never referring to anyone by name? Crankshaft is always “that cranky bus driver”, and Adeela only refers to Wally as “a goofy guy”, and not “Wally”, “the vet”, or anything else that would make sense. I mean, you know a guy named “Wally Winkerbean”, and can’t ever remember or mention a name as silly as that?

Pinned Up Sleeves-Banned in Afghanistan

Link to Today’s Strip

“Yeah, believe it or not, things used to happen in my life, back in the day! Now what passes for excitement in my life is the exciting tale of ‘Sitting a Table Away From A Muslim Woman!’. Also, notice how I emphasized that she’s my adopted daughter, and not my real or ‘bio’ daughter. In case you were wondering how a normal average American like me could have such a foreign looking daughter. But yeah, we adopted her and that was pretty much the end of me taking an interest in her life, obviously.”

Wouldn’t you think this had already come up between Wally and Adeela? Like, at the very least that he’d worked for an NGO in Afghanistan, and not just been there as a soldier? I mean, I think she’d be interested to know that a member of Wally’s family was literally from her country.

You know Wally honestly used to be one of the characters in this strip I halfway liked, if only because he actually grew and developed through dealing with his PTSD and getting back into a normal life. And damn if Batiuk hasn’t made him super unlikeable in a really short time. At this rate I bet the next arc is going to reveal how Buddy (who looks like a totally different dog in this strip) is actually a raging anti-Semite.

Tortursday, August 30

Today’s strip was not available for preview. One can reasonably assume it will involve Lefty continuing to torture the poor folks who agreed to play in this alumni band.

Ellipsis

So, without the current strip, let’s take a quick look back at Lefty in late Act II, who had just been named Westview High’s band director. Dinkle tries to get her killed for the sake of a bad pun. He is a monster.

O2 be anywhere else…

Pavel Chekov Lefty yells as some unseen old people in today’s strip… and thus continues August, as FW’s semi-official ollllllllllllllllllllld folks month.

August was once a time when this strip would fix its gaze on the high school and its students and teachers preparing for the new school year. Well, its gaze remains fixed upon the high school this August, but TB has imported infirm, elderly seniors in lieu of high school seniors. It would be bizarre if it wasn’t so uninteresting.