Tag: bricks

Is He Live Or Dead, Looks Like A Skunk Died On His Head

Link To Today’s Thing

Look, in panels one and three it’s snowing heavily, yet in panel two it isn’t snowing at all! What, are we to believe it’s some sort of intermittent blizzard or something? I mean come on! And why is the lettering different on the two windows? What’s up with that? Was keeping it uniform just too much of a challenge for this Ayers guy? Jeez.

Fat jokes followed by comic books…it’s pretty safe to assume that a pizza and/or marching band arc is on the horizon. I assumed that “one/one” was referring to “Iron Man” #1, but I don’t know, maybe John’s Iron Man dolly is referred to as a “one/one” by comic book dorks or something. Honestly I don’t care enough to look it up. I just wish the f*cking guy would change his shirt already, at this point it’s really more of a costume.

My Dinkle-ing, My Dinkle-ing…

Twenty Twenty One may be just getting blessedly underway, but Our Winter Band Banquet is drawing to a close. I’m praying for Covid to finally reach Westview, Ohio soon, so that all those dopey, knowing smirks will be obscured by masks. Continue reading “My Dinkle-ing, My Dinkle-ing…”

Krabby Petey

Banana Jr. 6000
December 4, 2020 at 12:36 pm 
…The joke is so mild and so botched, and the reaction is so ridiculously oversold, that the strip should be funny for how misguided it is.

Does anyone else think that Darin in the last panel looks like he was drawn by MAD’s Maddest Artist, Don Martin?

Tom Batiuk has frequently expressed, in his work and in interviews, that even though we call them “comics,” they don’t necessarily have to be “funny.” “I don’t see why a comic strip can’t carry the weight of substantial ideas,” he once said. But even a storyteller like Batiuk must cleanse the palate with the occasional standalone gag, or even a week’s worth of them. Everything about Pete’s “holiday joke” is lame, and the smugness with which he delivers it is just off the charts. Of course, the response is a hearty HA! HA! HA! from all but one of the Atomik staff.  At first, it looked to me as if Chester was the one admonishing Pete to “stick to writing drama,” which would make sense as he’s Pete’s boss. Naturally, as his fiancé, Mindy must come to Pete’s defense. But nobody knows better that his real soulmate, Darin, that flighty, distractible Pete needs help with focus. And anyway, his jokes suck.

Something that does not suck is the way Beckoning Chasm goes to work on Funky Winkerbean with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch, and his authoring stint begins with Monday’s comic. Stay safe and well and happy, people. –TFH

Bird Up!

Contrary to popular legend, there is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever publicly supported the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), rather than the bald eagle, as a symbol of the United States.

You know who else suggested that the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, should be the national bird of the United States? Not Ben Franklin, according to Auntie Wikipedia. Perhaps Dinkle knows this, and he’s delivering the “national bird” remark satirically. This is supported by the fact that he’s smirking so hard when he says it that his mouth threatens to escape his face. But wait, here comes the punchline and…it’s…Butterbald? Hell no, I’ve never heard of a Butterbald Eagle. Or a “Butterbald” anything! Did Batty feel that the good people at Butterball® LLC wouldn’t be OK with a free mention in 400 newspapers right before Thanksgiving? Batiuk’s propensity for coming up with jokey, soundalike “brand names” once again tramples what would have been a borderline decent gag.

Ramping Up

In today’s strip, Wally finally gets around to memorializing his daughter Rana’s (R for Rana) gravesite, her having been buried underneath the Montoni’s sidewalk after she died of Ultra Breast Cancer she caught as a child from a landmine in Afghanistan. This all happened off-panel a few years back when Funky was shown working out in the gym. You can tell how moved Wally is by the thought of his late daughter since his face is literally melting off from sadness.

That is probably not what’s happening here, but gosh, what if Batiuk had used the time he wasted this week on exploring Wally’s relationship with his daughter, rather than his relationship with the sidewalk?