Tag: chullo

Surprise Surprise

Greetings, folks, BChasm back for another tour in the trenches.   And what is on the menu for today (see what I did there)?

Someone less kind than myself might note that the dialogue in panel 3 perfectly fits Tom Batiuk’s method of constructing a comic strip.  After all, while the particular events in Funky Winkerbean can’t always be foreseen, certainly none of outcomes for any of the stories is ever in doubt–it’ll end in tears, or, more likely, a weary shrug, a tired scowl and a terrible pun.   You can say that about every story presented in the last few years; notice that I’ve written two paragraphs already without a single mention of the characters involved in today’s comic.   This paragraph could serve as a perfectly generic yet perfectly accurate summation of every strip, every day.

Having said all that, I’d like to say that Funky Winkerbean is actually quite full of surprises.   There have been many events over the last couple of years that were completely and totally out of the  blue–Crazy Harry losing his job, Kevin having moved on, Kerry Fairgood, the reappearance of Alex, Frankie’s return, Khahn’s store closing, and so on.

The problem, as you’ve already guessed, is that none of these surprises are handled in an interesting manner.  At all.  Kerry Fairgood appeared and disappeared over the course of a week.  Impact on the strip: zero point zero.  Frankie’s weeks-long arc was one long stretch of nothing happening.  Franklyn Simpson Pierce…has no strip impact.

I guess what I’m ultimately saying is, go ahead and eat your glop, Owen and Cody.  Nothing will happen to you as a result.

Funny how the whole rationale behind getting rid of the vendos was so that the students would eat better, healthier food, and look at the unappealing bilge piled on that plate!  Ha ha, it’s funny because school lunches.

Lack of surprising things happening isn’t Funky Winkerbean‘s problem.  Having a surprise that has an impact on the strip…now, that would be a surprise.

Zombie Prom

Slager
October 1, 2013 at 1:16 am
Huh, I worked on an amateur short film called “Zombie Homecoming”. It wasn’t very good.

Yes, in case you missed yesterday’s strip, they’re doing a zombie homecoming, and Owen finds the eerie theme so enticing that he’s tempted to attend his first homecoming of his five-year high school career. No prizes for guessing who Owen will wind up asking do be his date, but if TB really wanted to explore a same-sex storyline…nah.

“BC”=”Before Cthulhu”

Today’s strip

NB:  BC does not stand for BeckoningChasm!  Let’s just swat those rumors down right now!

Now, as for today’s thing…whoa, Les is straying from the Moby Dick/“Snows of Kilimanjaro” syllabus!  Let’s be generous and say he’s only brought this particular work into his class in order to point out its shortcomings compared to those two works…”bullying it,” in a sense.    Now, I confess my knowledge of ancient texts is pretty weak, so can anyone tell me what this work might be?  The Satyricon, maybe?

Given the sorry state of the Westview educational system, Owen’s answer seems to be a genuine one, not borne of his own personal ignorance.  There’s no evidence of a typical religious presence in Westview, although I seem to recall a priest performing Les and Cayla’s wedding.  So Jesus Christ (no matter your personal view of him) would not be an item that anyone in this benighted town would discuss openly, and hence the meaning of “BC” wouldn’t be common knowledge among the community’s teens.  (It’s not BeckoningChasm so stop asking!)

In fact, seeing the evidence of how the characters in this comic regard the endless and instant hostility of the cosmic fate that continuously observes and judges them, I suspect that the only gods known in Westview are those theorized by H.P. Lovecraft…

–okay, that was a jokey aside, but in all seriousness, it suddenly makes the undercurrents behind this strip much more interesting.   Did Lisa really die of cancer?  Did Susan Smith really leave town?  Last year’s high school class…have they really gone on to college somewhere?  Where are Jinx, Chien, Crazy Harry’s kids, Rachel’s son, Wally’s son?   Why aren’t they mentioned at all?  Did you notice we didn’t have a “senior prom/graduation day” arc this year–what happened to last year’s entire junior class?  And maybe Khan isn’t “Khan,” but the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred?  Maybe “Citizen Khan’s” isn’t a deli at all!

Now I really want to see a Sunday strip showing the Westview folks attending mass.  I want to see a priest facing the crowd and saying, “Okay folks, repeat after me–Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

*cough*  Well, rather than end on that dark thought, let’s take a closer look at panel two, where Les is at his most punchable.

If he swallows him, he'll make a BLEAH face and spit him out.

There you go.  As our friends at Mad magazine once said, “Suitable for framing or wrapping fish!”

(Credit Where It’s Due Department: image of Cthulhu created by someone who calls himself Somniturne1)

I thank you for your indulgence, fellow snarkers!  As Fearless Leader says, stay Funky!

Revenge of the Rats

Today’s strip

Above the post update:

Well, I’ve been wrong before.  And I’ll be wrong again.   Farewell, Jim, and godspeed.

Original post:

Friday’s strip was not available for preview, so while we wait I’m going to point out a couple of things.

1-unless something happens today, this week featured a pretty unique storyline:  no one smirked.  Let me repeat that: not one single character, in four days of a storyline wherein the cruelty of fate, taxpayers and school boards was loudly and repeated lamented, smirked.  That has to be some kind of record.  Of course, as noted, no one has seen today’s strip, it could be a regular smirkageddon.

2-this strip continues the trend that’s been going on for months now in which nothing ever gets resolved, except through exhausted defeat.  I’m trying to think of the last time any of these characters took positive action in attempt to combat the entropy that closes around them like a strangling cloak.  All I can remember is Owen and Cody building a robot…which was almost immediately destroyed.  Most of the rest of these arcs have people determinedly doing nothing in order to stymie their opponents (the Frankie story).  The last time I wrote in these pages, Les, Cayla and Funky sat down to have lunch.  They never even got to eat.  (Someone might mention the Dinkle Anniversary party as a counter-example.  I’d point out that we never saw Harry do any of the things he was supposedly doing to prepare, other than talk to Funky.  Instead, it was talk, talk, pun, talk, complain, talk, pun, talk, done.)

It’s one thing to have bad jokes, or bad insights.  At least those are attempts.  Having nothing, just having characters state their troubles, then give up and wander away…even badness is more “something” than that.  The lack of anything in this strip is what makes it so hard to read, and so exhausting to try and come up with anything to say about it.

Maybe that’s Tom Batiuk’s plan all along; he hopes to starve criticism not by feeding it poison, or by not feeding it at all, but by feeding it those chemicals that bond to the digestive system and make it impossible for nourishment to be absorbed.  Like…like that’s how they killed the Tribbles in that Star Trek show!  If that’s his grand plan, I’d love to see the end result he hopes for:  a comic strip free of critics so he can do…what, exactly?

Let’s hope today’s entry proves me wrong and is the first shot across the bow of a renewed Funky Winkerbean.  I am not, of course, holding my breath. If you are, please let me know your record.