Tag: Becky

Thursday, December 10

Today’s strip was not available for preview. This is kinda like getting a Christmas present from that relative who always gets you socks… if those socks were also made of broken glass.

Speaking of that relative, you still have time to get them a truly meaningful gift. For the third consecutive year, this TB-signed letter from the future world of 2990 is for sale on eBay. A great collectors item for the true Funkyfan in your family, especially if their name is Andrew and you hate them. Act now to get that 10% discount, it’s a real bargain at under $540!

Blackburn Ordinances

Today’s strip is a serious reach. I mean, given that this is a band Holiday Concert I assume this is all instrumental, can’t Lefty just alter the program to say “The Christmas Song”, as us beady-eyed nitpickers (and everyone who bought a Christmas record ever) know to be the true title of “Chestnuts Roasting”?

Not that I expected this gag to match some absurd reality in Ohio, but for what it is worth, the Ohio EPA’s open burning regulations allow for “barbeques, campfires, and cookouts” provided these conditions are met:
– Wood stack no larger than 2 ft. high x 3 ft. wide.
– Use clean, seasoned firewood or equivalent.

Nothing that would prevent roasting chestnuts, of course. Also, big kudos to the Ohio EPA for titling their pamphlet on how your local fire department needs to be involved should you decide to raze a structure you own using fire “Burning Down the House: How Your Fire Department Can Do it Properly”.

Discr-hymn-ination

Mild-mannered principal Nate springs out of character in today’s strip and demands that Lefty remove “Faith Of Our Fathers” from the Holiday Concert program.

Yeah, yeah, seen it before. Public school has to alter Christmas performance, removing an explicitly Christian song or statement in order to maintain an apparent separation of church and sta- WHOA! Nate has an entirely different reason for wanting “Faith Of Our Fathers” removed from the program? Oh ho ho, Tom, you got me. You got me good. I was totally thinking the one thing and then, BAM! Never saw this “mothers” thing coming.

It’s a classic bait-and-switch, like when the table of contents of my newspaper says the comics are on page E6, and I turn to E6 and find Funky Winkerbean.

“Faith Of Our Fathers”, by the way, is a hymn written about/in memory of English Catholic martyrs of the Reformation period. When TB picks a theme, by gum, he sticks with it.

Natepicking

We’re exactly two weeks away from the “Holiday Concert” teased in Today’s strip. Wait, it’s not just teased, like February’s “Winter Concert” was, it’s actually relevant to the strip that it is in! Crazy!  This is, perhaps, the Westview High School Scapegoat Sign’s first relevant appearance since Act II.

Typically level-headed (for the Batiukverse anyways) and hands-off principal Nate Green decides his first principal-y action since reading the student handbook before the 2012 prom will be to meddle in the concert Lefty’s band has surely been rehearsing for at least a month.

Hmmm… A holiday performance? A public school official? Changes demanded? I wonder what topic TB could have possibly chosen to cram into his gag cannon this week? I wonder… but I cannot blame you if you don’t.

Pitching A Snit

Hey, have you ever wondered what goes on with band kids in the summers, before Lefty gets ahold of the big-and-brassy, loud-and-flashy, Westview High School Scapegoat marching band? Well then, today’s strip is for you! Turns out there is no “before”, as Lefty asserts year-round control of the extracurricular lives of several dozen high school students.

Looks like Owen is still a member of the band, entering what I think is his fourth senior year at WHS. To the surprise of no one, he still has not gotten any better at playing or maintaining his trumpet.

But, unfortunately, it is Dinkle who is the focus of this strip. I do not like these characters in the least, but I do think the punchline is a step above terrible. What is not, however, is the entire set up, which is utterly destroyed by a small piece of artwork.

It makes next to no sense for Dinkle to be so upset that Lefty’s multifunction battery-operated device (smartphone) can perform the function of his single-function battery-operated device (pitch tuner). That small box he is holding, with its clearly discernible button and speaker grate, is a fairly accurate depiction of an electronic pitch tuner. This is “old-fashioned”? No. No it is not. NOT. AT. ALL.

What would be “old-fashioned” would be a tuning fork, or one of those little round harmonica things that telegram messengers in movies from the 1940s blow into before they sing. Had TB drawn either one of those, this strip would have been a far less infuriating read.

Anyways, thanks for putting up with me for a fortnight. BC, I believe, takes over tomorrow. No, not that one, the funny one.