Tag: Cayla

Every Kick Begins with Cayla

O.B. Dan
December 28, 2012 at 12:56 am
Is it just me, or does anybody else see that Cayla has put a little edge on since she married The Grounded One?

Since her “best thing that ever happened to me moment” last fall, Cayla has seemed kinda cranky, as the enormity of the mistake she made in marrying Les has begun to set in. Today she lets slip that Les is not her first choice to spend New Year’s Eve with, before regaining her composure in panel 3 and offering a weak apology. Is Les offended? Not at all: he’s already got a date for when the clock strikes twelve…

Neither Ballin' Nor Callin'

Beanie Wanker
December 26, 2012 at 9:47 am
Speaking of [Kent State], do you think BatDreck remembers sending Slumber and Kareesha there? Or did he quietly shitcan that idea after we pointed out that team is something like 2-34?


Our first glimpse of Summer and Keisha as college ‘ballers is a bit of a letdown. We’ve become so accustomed to our girls leading the team, not riding the pine. It’s rather surprising, too, that Kent State’s “Golden Flashes” wear such drab white/black unis. Les tries to relieve the boredom of having to watch other people’s daughters on the court by recalling how he and Cayla met. Cayla, however, is still unable to get beyond Keisha’s perceived slight, and for the second day in a row she earns the stink-eye from Les.

Epicus Doomus
December 27, 2012 at 12:30 am
Les, though, is as intriguingly expressive as ever. What’s he thinking there in panel three? It looks almost as if he’s amused in some sort of smug, all-knowing way. He’s the king of the difficult-to-interpret half-smirk/half-sneer, or “snirk”, if you will. Such a dick.

Yes, always.

Just found out that The Complete Funky Winkerbean: Volume 2, 1975-1977 drops on February 8th and is available for pre-order on Amazon! Something to live for, huh friends?

 

Hangin' on the Telephone

As the baby-blue Batiukmobile® rolls into, or out of, Kent, Ohio, Cayla stares intently at her phone, as if willing it to ring. Seems the daughter she raised single-handedly and sent to college now can’t be bothered to answer her mother’s phone calls. Rather than explore her relationship with Keisha to understand why this might be, Cayla instead disparages Theodore “Ted” Paraskevakos and blames his invention.

Christmas Past

TheDiva
December 22, 2012 at 12:06 am
Because we all know how much interest Funky and Les showed in music and singing back in the Act I days…well, I can’t think of any right now, but I’m sure they exist, because otherwise Batiuk would just be pulling random bits of backstory out of his ass for the sake of a cheap gag, and we all know he has too much artistic integrity for that.

I’m not using the above quote here to show up TheDiva, because I’d never have recalled this either (the most musical one of the gang was Crazy Harry with his air guitar). But today Batiuk gifts us with an Act I strip to prove that, yes, Virginia, they really did go Christmas caroling.

I’m convinced that TB’s reproducing a vintage strip here, rather than trying to recreate his old style, as he’s done in the past with mixed results. The logo in panel 1 is the old style. Even the lettering in the dialog balloons is somehow more cheerful. Compare it to the lettering in the weird snow globe that shows our current-day cast: the “L’s” had yet to acquire their painful hump.

Les and Funky, see how young and how likeable! The redhead, of course, is poor, doomed Livinia. I have no idea who the blond girl is, or why she’d have anything to do with Les, even back then. Dig those bell-bottoms in the penultimate panel silhouette! Lastly, it’s interesting to note that before he started taking himself so seriously, Batiuk could use excessive drinking to get laughs.