Cayla – Page 50 – Son of Stuck Funky

Don’t Ask…Don’t Tell

Thanks to DavidO and the rest of the outstanding SoSF staff for all they do!!!

Not too long ago I was going back and forth with the SoSF staff and I mentioned how I don’t always mind getting a Les arc, as at least there’s something to really hate there as opposed to the typical “Funky is fat” idiocy. Well, the gods of the Funkyverse must have been listening, because this week something I’ve long-dreaded has come to pass…Summer (shudder) is back. Never tempt the gods of the Funkyverse, friends. The consequences are simply not worth it.

I’ve always despised Summer almost as much as Les (and Lisa for that matter). She’s always too twee, too gritty or, as you can see today, too snotty. The hair, the neck, the hoodie…it’s all so grating. Summer is truly her father’s daughter. So today she’s back in her (surprise!) robin’s egg blue car to remind us about an arc we’d all prefer to forget. If that wedding was any crappier you’d have to scrape it off the bottom of your shoes with a stick. Meanwhile Dickface is (surprise!) furiously raking leaves, as Leafpocalypse ’14 has begun. The Funkyverse’s stars are all aligning in some sort of grand confluence of boredom and misery, it’s gonna be a long, long week, snarkers.

What’s a Hemingway?

Major props as always to Beckoning Chasm, and to David O, Epicus Doomus, and Oddnoc, for helping me keep the snark fires burning every day!

As the first autumn leaf drops, Les and Cayla pack up the old porch swing. What is surely intended to be romantic small talk could be read as icy, dismissive sarcasm with the addition of some quotation marks:

I’m glad you’re home, “Hemingway”…I missed you while you were “doing your Hollywood thing.”

After all, Les’ ultimately doomed movie project once promised big bucks and dreams of stardom. Instead, he’s back in Ohio with nothing to show for his time in LaLa Land.

On a side note: every Sunday strip since August 3 has had these black borders around the panels…is Batiuk finally copping to how morbid and depressing his strip is?

Golden Years

Link to today’s strip.

Sunday’s strip is generally not available for preview, so here are a couple of thoughts until it goes live. (I’m thinking it has been a while since we had a comic book “tribute,” myself. I’m told, though, that we’ve got more Les on the way.)

For those of you who see the title and think David Bowie, well, here you go.

There’s been a lot of speculation here, especially during the last week, as to exactly what Tom Batiuk is up to. We had six solid days of a “joke” that could have told itself in two, tops. Why?

Well, I have a possible theory. I think he wants that golden year. I think he wants Funky Winkerbean to last for fifty years, so he can say he had a strip that reached that landmark. Peanuts lasted for fifty years, Dick Tracy lasted for fifty years, The Far Side lasted for fifty years…that’s the only reason anyone talks about those strips, which are way inferior to mine. So if get to fifty, I will enter the pantheon of the greats.

So, how does he reach that magic date? By s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g these pitifully weak story arcs way past the breaking point, and having them haul more panels than their recommended load capacity. You could hear them straining and buckling all last week, and I’m sure they’ve still got a week’s work to go starting tomorrow. If you can stretch two days of “story” into two weeks, that Golden Anniversary is yours, baby!

This is not the first time this strip has had a space oddity or two–there’s plenty of sound and vision evidence. From Funky always crashing in the same car, ending up in a Moonage daydream, to Wally living life on Mars while suffering panic in Detroit. Just recently, Les had the chance to start a new career in a new town with all the young dudes, leading to fame, fashion and maybe even modern love (though not in a creepy way). However, thanks to the harassment of Le Chat Bleu (his laughing gnome), he rejected the changes and became one of the heroes. He learned the heart’s filthy lesson, rejected those scary monsters, and chose not to become the man who sold the world.

All of this should have taken about the same time it takes to listen to a “Greatest Hits” album. Instead, it deadheaded on for months and months. That ought to be enough evidence that Tom Batiuk’s not doing it for the “art” anymore, he’s doing it for the “history.” The last story I remember here that was even half-assed was when Pete met Flash Gordon; there seemed to be a little bit of engagement on the part of the author. Everything I can recall since has been assless; I’m not even aware if there are any fully-assed stories. One suspects not.

All I can say is, there’s a song that fits this perfectly. I forget who made the song, but the chorus goes like this:

“Ashes to ashes, funk to Funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low…”

D.U.H.H.

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, folks, BChasm back in the slammer. You might notice there’s actually a teeny, tiny bit of humor in today’s episode. (Oh, our visiting character isn’t named in the strip, so I’m going to call him Dolt McMoron just for reference.)

Well, Dolt’s school is called “Diversity University Ironton,” which has got to be a hard way to introduce yourself. But notice on his shirt! Here’s the teeny, tiny humor! Get ready…see, the initials of his awkward institution spell out “D.U.I.”! As in “Driving under the influence.” Which is, as well all know, Bull’s shtick–he’s always drinking, carousing, partying without bounds, even during school hours–all while driving. His antics disrupt Les’ class (remember those 85 pizzas? Ha!), and his flatulence has been known to clear out the faculty lounge for a day-and-a-half! Ha ha ha.

Wait a minute. Actually, come to think of it, that isn’t Bull’s shtick. Bull’s shtick is to yell at his players from the sidelines in a futile attempt to make them win a game. (Heck, even with that magic-arm guy from last year–Jakov or whatever his name was–the team only managed to lose slightly better.)

But apparently, Ironton wants people like Bull. The whole idea that Bull has no responsibility for his team’s losses is par for the course in the Funkyverse. It’s those damned kids. It’s always those damned kids.

(By the way, how hard could it be to come up with a better name if you want to use the DUI acronym? Dacron University of Indiana. That took three seconds.)

Nothing Works Out If You Don’t Let It

Link To Today’s Strip

Good ol’ Cayla, always the affable doormat. “Oh, you’re spending the entire summer living large in an all-expenses paid five star Hollywood hotel suite and dining with movie stars? And I’m not invited? OK, whatevs, I’ll keep some lemonade on ice for you honey!”. Married folks everywhere are reading this and thinking, “uh yeah right, Tom, seems plausible”.

And then he returns home to inform her that the whole thing was for nothing. No big TV bucks, no fame, no future in the business, not so much as an autographed Mason Jarr 8×10 glossy. Nothing. But that’s our Cayla, always content with whatever scraps Les deigns to toss her way. She is, after all, a mere substitute who knows her place, which is directly behind the Lisa shrine with feather-duster in hand.

Look at Dickface in that last panel…(urge to kill rising rapidly). Har-dee-har har. Only Tombat could tell a story that takes years to unfold, have absolutely nothing happen then pretend it’s a delightful happy ending. Look at that moronic grin on his stupid face. Look at Cayla purring away in bliss…blech, just nauseating. And does anyone remember the part of the story where Les heroically fought for “credit”? I sure don’t. TB could have skipped this entire arc and just had Les reject the offer and it would have ended exactly the same way. What a sorry display. Thank God it appears to finally be over, hopefully he’s reached his Les quota for 2014.