Tag: Christmas

And Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except In Mort’s Pants

Link To Today’s Strip

Good old horndog Morton, fully recovered from his advanced Alzheimer’s disease and as randy as ever. Gross. I honestly forgot all about Melinda, who apparently still lives with Funky and Holly in Pizza Mahal. And Cory and Rocky…apparently they’re still characters in the strip. Who knew? Other than the fact that they’re engaged we really know very, very little about Cory and Rocky. Comic books, pizza, the army, engaged…and that’s about it. They’ve had one or two arcs at most over the last six or seven years and those were when he first came marching home.

Where do they live? Where do they work? What do they do? Why are they even in the strip in the first place? Continuity? That’s, uh, “inconsistent”, let’s say. As far as Morton is concerned I don’t want to belabor the point as I’ve ranted about it many times, but his transformation from “advanced dementia patient” to “sassy and adorable old coot” is one of the more offensive things BatYarn’s done over the course of Act III. He milked that Alzheimer’s arc for a shitload of pathos, it really takes a lot of balls to just suddenly drop it and have Mort jamming with jazz combos and hitting on elderly women.

I Think She Meant To Say “Binge Eat”

Link To Today’s Strip

Uh yeah, sure, Tom. The internet killed Christmas caroling, just like it killed comic book collecting and band directing and stinky old movie houses and band boxes and the virtual anonymity of comic strip authors. And “binge watching” is somehow involved too. It’s just so sad and so typical of these troubled times to see a woman in her late fifties remind her badly aging and increasingly decrepit husband to refrain from walking door to door in a raging blizzard and stay inside and be entertained instead. What IS this world coming to?

It’d have been funnier if he did a Xmas week arc where Funky calls his old pals, only to be greeted with different variations of “what are you, nuts?”. But it was “funnier” it just wouldn’t be FW, now would it?

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

Imaginationbland

Link To Today’s Strip

“You know how little kids sometimes have imaginary friends? Well, I thought it’d be very funny if a small child’s imaginary friend ditched him…ON CHRISTMAS! Imagine him there, sitting under the tree all upset…tee hee hee!”

“Tom, I told you you’ve gotta crack the window when you’re working with airplane glue!”

As much as I’ve grown to dislike little baby Skyler I can’t help but feel sorry for the little dolt after this one. His moronic parents played fast and loose with his early development as they ran around filming and drawing things and now the chickens have come home to roost, as they say. In his desperate attempt to shoehorn in a woefully awful wordplay-based gag, BatYuck has inadvertently painted a heartbreaking story about a sad, troubled little boy who’s obviously confused and baffled by this sudden burst of attention from his previously disinterested parents.

But man, what a shitty woefully awful wordplay-based gag it is, huh? “Ghosted” by his “imaginary friend”…duh. I wonder how long he’s had that one boinging around in that modestly sincere head of his. And what compelled him to use THIS as a Christmas strip? This little Skyler mini-arc is downright dismal and not in a hilarious “For Better Or For Worse” way but an Act III FW way, which is much worse.

Wordplay Begins In The Home

Link To Today’s Strip

Awww, little baby Skyler is engaging in stupid wordplay just like his dad! Before you know it he’ll be all wryed up and totally powerless against the inexorable miseries of the universe, just like his dad. Although to be fair, this is BARELY wordplay and more like a really bad gag BatYap used to kill day 359, but nevertheless.

That Godzilla doll is really freaking me out, as is Jessica’s malevolent smirk, which in my opinion seems like a very strange and ill-suited reaction. No wonder Skyler is so troubled. His mom abandoning him to film Cliff Anger talking must have really scarred the kid. Although in fairness that would probably scar anyone, even those of us who didn’t grow up over a pizzeria.