Becky – Page 31 – Son of Stuck Funky

I’m All Ears

So, here’s Tom Batiuk’s actual “Black Friday” joke…if “joke” is the right word. Selling books instead of turkeys is hilarious? In both cases, the terrible odor from the unsold items would be intolerable as they fester.

Note that with a little change of tense (“didn’t have” for “don’t have”) he could have run this on Saturday and had something a little more traditionally holidelic on Thanksgiving, but when you’re giving Harry Dinkle a soapbox, well…priorities, baby, priorities. Thanksgiving Day comes and Thanksgiving Day goes, but Harry Dinkle is interminable.

Whenever Harry Dinkle appears, you can be sure the boredom will come thick and fast. He basically short-circuits his own content by being so utterly obnoxious that he’s his own heckler. If you ask him what time it is he’ll give you some insufferable response that boils down to “find a clock somewhere after I finish regaling you with irrelevance.” Actually, the only question I can imagine asking Harry Dinkle is, “Do you want me to punch you again?”

What’s really striking in today’s episode is Becky’s left ear. Look at that thing–has her face been torn open at the back? (We can always hope so!) I cannot imagine how, with her face positioned the way it is, that her left ear should be visible at all. Once again, I am guessing that Tom Batiuk had a bit of gold ink on the brush and didn’t want to waste it, and that meant drawing an ear to hold that earring.

In a strip drawn as badly and as lazily as this one, Tom Batiuk at least manages to draw his avatars–Les Moore, John Howard and of course Harry Dinkle–with a loving consistency. The other characters not so much, but this…this is kind of a landmark.

Below C Level

Link to today’s strip.

Now, the proper response from Ms. Lavender would be, “Actually, I’m afraid I’m going to have to smash your f***ing face in, you self-inflated old sack of garbage!” Of course, she’s dim enough to want the book, and Harry’s dim enough to assume he knows how to spell her name, so this encounter is obviously meant to be. There really aren’t a lot of ways to spell “Jim,” or “Mary,” or “Dave” but when there are variants, it’s a good idea to, you know, ask “How do you spell that?”

It is possible, with a certain amount of charity that I’m not prepared to give, to assume that Harry is joking in panel three. His expression sure doesn’t offer any clues. His face looks like someone who is monumentally pissed off that his infallibility was questioned. Leading me to assume that his book is filled with nothing but events where Harry Dinkle was disappointed by those around him, and let them know in no uncertain terms that his fury over their incompetence is barely contained.

That is probably my main issue with Harry Dinkle–he lacks any sense of humor, especially about himself. Oh, sure, he makes stupid puns, but that’s like saying he wears pants: everyone in Westview makes puns. He just seems mean-spirited, grouchy, cheap, one-note, and easily offended and when he appears, he sucks any possible fun out of the strip. (Yeah, I know, I know…)

Just think how easy it would be for Harry to make a real joke about his mistake. “To Kathy, with a C! Stay C#, Cathy!” See, it’s even musical, something with which Dinkle is supposed to have some familiarity. It would actually make Dinkle come across as somewhat charming, instead of the “insufferable” Tom Batiuk decided was more his style. Just as his style also meant that Becky would have to loom somewhere in the background, contributing nothing. Seriously, why was she drawn in today’s episode? Did Tom Batiuk not want to waste the bit of ink still on his brush?

And people actually wonder why we make fun of this strip.

Where the Emphasis Goes

Link to today’s strip.

Bleah, more Harry Dinkle. Becky no longer mentions the “volume three” part, as it no doubt made (potential) customers say, “Three volumes from that old shriveled husk?! Why, he must be even more of a pompous windbag than he looks! He must talk non-stop, when he’s not clutching a book with his teeth!” Of course, even at one volume it’s still the story of a pompous windbag, so (like yesterday) I’m guessing from that stack that sales are not brisk.

I like thinking they’ve sold absolutely no books at all. “I’d rather the whole school close down forever than buy that book. That book is so awful that throwing it in the garbage is the highest critical praise it’ll get,” is probably the usual response. Other responses: “Sorry, I don’t have a table that has a short leg, and I don’t have a toddler who needs his booster chair augmented.” “My birdcage is lined with quality newspaper, thank you very much.” “How well does it work to get my fire started? I thought so.” Followed by SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! etc.

Hey, does this week’s story mean that Harry is now on a tour promoting his book? He gets more and more like Les all the time!

Another thing I like is how the falling leaves look like Harry is surrounded by flies seeking his rotting, purulent flesh.

The best part of this one is imagining how Brad DeGroot from Luann is pronouncing his sentence. “I thought you’d be selling a turkey,” with the words going down in pitch from “thought.” In other words, “this is a very bad thing you want me to buy, and it isn’t even edible. Its one use seems to be to neutralize the arms of that horrible old man you’re with, and I don’t have a horrible old man, so get lost before I shoot you with my 38 special and then burn your bodies in the yard and consider my Christmas wish has come true.”

Okay, maybe that last little bit wasn’t really implied in Brad’s sentence. Much. As the British say, “No ‘arm in tryin’.”

What the L

Link to today’s strip.

Yesterday I mentioned that there’s one Funky Winkerbean character that I loathe almost as much as Les. Well, speak of the Devil, and his horns appear.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Harry L. Dinkle. I have no idea what the “L” stands for, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it stood for “Les.” Two more horrible characters cannot be imagined. Oh, you can talk about your John Howards and your Darrin Fairgoods, but for my money nothing is worse than these two. Thank whatever God you hold that they have, so far as I am aware, never worked together.

Like Les, Dinkle is filled to the brim with his own self-importance, and is convinced of his own brilliance. Unlike Les–and I can’t believe I’m saying something favorable about Mr. Moore–he makes no attempt to hide his sense of superiority behind a mask of false humility. No, the act of sad-sack martyr is not one that Dinkle assays with any regularity–not when he can play the smug, pompous blowhard with such aplomb.

Look at this creep, who has managed to write a third volume in his autobiography, smirking about “culture.” If he was speaking of “culture” in the sense of a mass of deadly, flesh-eating bacteria, he is very close indeed. The one bright spot is, weighed down as he is with books, it demonstrates that he has sold none of them, meaning that the citizens of Westview are at long last awakening from their long slumber and are no longer going to put up with such fools.

Just kidding. They’ll all die alone and afraid. And as the oncoming darkness surrounds them and enshrouds them, and the lights go out all over the world, they can smile to themselves, and think, Ha ha ha, I only bought the first two volumes of that bastard’s life story.

I win!

And the final curtain goes down.

Do They? Do They Really?

Today’s strip portrays the exchange of “I dos” at Montoni’s, because of course they ended up at Montoni’s, the only reliable social venue in the wretched town of Westview.

I promised you a non-sequitur, and Funky delivers it. His bad Winkerbean vibes having dissipated, and with a smirk that shifts his mouth half way to his left temple, Funky opines: “They don’t call Montoni’s ‘the wedding chapel of love’ for nothing!”

Never mind that he just subverted Wally’s wedding to do a promo for his business. They don’t call Montoni’s “the wedding chapel of love” at all. Also, how does that not dislocate his jaw?

Meanwhile, the weeping chef in the background is playing the old “I’m crushing your head” game.

Meanwhile, some random boy has been hanging around with Funky during the entire sequence.

Who is this kid? It hardly matters, as I expect Batominc will send him to the Corn Field of Discarded Characters, just like all these others that Epicus Doomus so kindly enumerated for us recently:

Frankie, Lennie, the gay prom dudes, Art Teacher, Jarod Posey, Dr. Patella, Radio Ron, Closeted Gay Prom Rock, Mallory the Perfect Human Genome, Rachel’s kid, Kili the cat and that annoying Dan guy, Cell Phone Girl, that tall blonde girl that was always on whatever team Summer was playing against, Travel Agency Woman, Plantman…