Mope Springs Eternal

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Springtime…a time of rebirth, flowers blooming, leaves sprouting (as opposed to falling), sunshine, mailboxes full of junk mail…yep, a time when a psychotic old bus driver’s fancy turned to the ol’ mail order catalog. No wonder everyone hates him and/or can’t ever remember his name.

Then there’s Pete, who understands ol’ Crankshaft all too well (and has to make the conversation all about himself and comic books, of course). Apparently HE sat on pins and needles waiting for the new “Starbuck Jones” to drop even though it may or may not have already run its course ten or thirty years before he was even conceived. WHY are these two talking about old mail order catalogs at a nursing home? What prompted this completely random old memory? Why is Morton lurking suspiciously in the background? Is he going to buy Chester’s old catalogs for his ol’ pal Crankshaft?

Of course he is. Crankshaft sold his catalog collection to Chester who’s going to sell his catalog collection to Morton who’s going to give them to Crankshaft, because that’s how things always work in the Funkyverse. Then Crankshaft will die and some cold unfeeling health aide will unceremoniously toss his life’s work into the dumpster and the circle of junk will be complete. I mean just look at ol’ Cranky…what the hell is he going to do with two hundred pounds of old catalogs? No one sentimentalizes old garbage quite like BatNut does. Just look at how he keeps re-packaging that stupid old Lisa story…ZING!!!!

Sunday morning, praise the dawning

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As twas ever thus, Sunday’s strip was not available for preview.   I’m going to guess that we’ll get a reprise of the previous week, with Funky and Holly gasbagging about texts and/or Cory, but as a guess, it’s just that.  The actual strip could be anything.  Funky and Les jogging, comic book tribute, anything at all.  Anything except good, of course.

Normally, I’d stay up long enough to add to the day’s analysis, but unlike Tom Batiuk, I have a real job that requires that I fulfill certain goals.  Unlike Tom Batiuk, if I fail to fulfill these goals, I could get fired, which would not be beneficial to me, though I would assume it would cause Mr. Batiuk some amusement, and perhaps some satisfaction.

But until the time when he has control over my life, I will continue to deny that to him, and I’m off.  See you folks on the funway, which is already in progress!

Bore Ensemble

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Uh yes Funky, this was adequately covered in yesterday’s strip, but THANKS for re-establishing that for us. We wouldn’t want to forget a key plot point like that. So not only do they not know that Mort & company traveled to Memphis, they don’t even know that the despised Dinkle was the mastermind behind it all. I would imagine that Funky would be more amazed about his Alzheimer’s-afflicted dad’s incredible mastery of the trombone (and flawless mug-handling skills) than by hearing about that fool Dinkle, but who the hell knows. Funky does look a lot less fat today, I have to admit, which could be a very good or very, very, very bad thing in the Funkyverse. I’m just chalking it up to shitty artwork for now until the results of the biopsy come back.

O Little Town Of Memphis

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Merry Christmas to our SoSF guest hosts and commenters! Without YOU it’s all just masturbation! Have a great holiday!!

Man, Funky sure is aging (even more) poorly…the New Guy added a solid ten to fifteen years to his already-decrepit character. Soon he’ll just be a skeleton…a big fat skeleton. Obviously it’s seems HIGHLY unlikely that his father went all the way to Memphis to record a CD without him knowing about it but by the standards of the Funkyverse it’s sort of believable. I mean just last week some guy bought “Lisa’s Trilogy” as a Xmas gift for his dead wife, so this seems rather innocuous in comparison.

“Greetings From Memphis”…wow what a shitty title, they only recorded in Memphis, they don’t live there. “Hits From The Oxygen Bottle”…”Over The Hills And Warfarin Away”…”Nights in White Pravastatin”…”(Let’s Get) Physical (Therapy)…”Stairlift To Heaven”…”Code Blue Christmas”…”Fractured Hippy Shake”…”Like A Rolling Kidney Stone”… “Stray Cataract Blues”…”The Grandkids Are Alright”…”(Do You Remember) AM Talk Radio”…”Every Assisted Breath You Take”…”Walker This Way”…”We (Medi)Care A Lot”…now THOSE are titles befitting the Bedside Manorisms. “Greetings From Memphis” will just confuse people, or it would if anyone actually cared.

Totally Unaware One Moment, Rockin’ And Rollin’ The Next

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A not-altogether un-chuckle-worthy Sunday effort, although it’d be funnier if The Author hadn’t spent YEARS on depicting Mort as a total vegetable. What was the point of that long-forgotten, completely depressing and ultimately meaningless Alzheimer’s arc? Morty is one of the strip’s more likeable characters, he could have been indulging in this sort of wackiness all along but nope, he had to “address” yet another “serious issue” instead. Just like when Cory returned home as a totally upright paragon of virtue, these FW characters don’t even notice these incredible changes in their families and friends, preferring to wryly shrug and roll their eyes over these miraculous transformations.