“In a spirit of generosity”, Tom Batiuk really should put down his Funky felt tip, retire “Funky” and “Crankshaft”, and free up some real estate for some new talent in the fading genre of daily newspaper comics. TB waited almost a month to squander another Sunday’s worth of ink, newsprint, and Photoshop effects on a followup to Kablichnick’s Ursa Major “joke”. In today’s retelling, however, “Jim Twain” goes with our bobanero’s (funnier) punchline. Not so fast, teacher! Even dim Owen realizes we’ve heard this one. And it sucked. “But no, my friends,” teases Jim, in French to be extra condescending; he then recites the joke and delivers the punchline like a steaming turd before smirking blissfully and hitching his suspenders (the science teacher’s “mic drop”). Cody is appalled by this microaggression; deadpan Alex declares Jim to “comedically on fire” while visualizing him to be literally so.
Tag: chullo
Age of Dulltron

Above: my rendition of Owen’s rendition of the Captain America theme song from the 1960’s cartoon. Click here to see the “real” strip, it’s a hoot.
A bunch of kids sitting around talking about comic book movies.
And when I say kids…well, Owen remains a freckle faced, towheaded kid under that smelly chullo. Cody, meanwhile, appears to be about 37 here. Don’t get me started about Alex, who has the sketchiest timeline of all: she first turned up at Pete’s book signing eight years ago (nearly two years before we were introduced to C&O). Her model sheet on the official FW site’s “Meet the Cast” page (archived for ya here!) gives no clue to her age, but of course now she’s been established as a high school chum of the boys.
And what about that big Baby Huey lookin’ “boy” with the weird hair, whom they do not permit to sit and join them at the table for whatever weird game they’re playing? He was 38 however long ago Act III began, now closing in on 50 and still hovering around teenagers and chiming in on their conversations.
Anyway, the new year is upon us, Sunday is my birthday, life in the non-Funkiverse is pretty sweet. Enjoy the weekend before we commence whalin’ away at 2016 in earnest!
Ex-Sponged
Today’s “contemporary issue affecting young adults”? The high rate of turnover among comic book artists. I wonder if the artist is “leaving the book” because he’s sick of having to work with the deadline-averse Pete Robertini? In any event, it seems that Batiuk just realized that Crazy Harry, though he may look like it now, was not born in the 1940’s, and has updated young Harold’s appearance (compare with this strip from 2010).
The Big Dread Machine
Hey gang, Epicus is back to steer the SoSF ship through BanTom’s latest dumpster fire arc. Somewhere Sparky Anderson, Tony Perez, Don Gullet, Johnny Bench and Pete Rose are spinning in their graves and/or preparing nasty C&D letters right about now. Anyway, the normally sullen and scuzzy Owen (nice scarf) is beaming with Scapegoat Pride as he reports on the resurgent Goats astonishing 93-0 victory over Optimism High, located in Optimism, Ohio, two towns over and a world removed from Miseryville Westview. Look at him on that screen in panel three, he’s positively beaming with an almost Lisa-like radiance. The effect is quite jarring, actually.
So the Scapegoats are a powerhouse now, eh? Bull’s three decade-long rebuilding plan is at long last paying dividends, as those seventh and eighth year seniors are making all the difference. Now that the team is good (and knowing TomBat as I do) we can expect a lot of gags about how they used to suck, because moving on from something then continuously wallowing in it is how FW rolls, man.
Hallmark Monitor
Today we’re finally treated to the Sunday strip whose pencilled preview Batiuk teased us with a year in advance. Make that a 53 weeks in advance: this strip would have served as the coda to the “Owen Learns He’s Not Good at Bullying” arc from the week before last, but Batiuk decided we needed to have a week of Les moping about life. I hope that in addition to Senior Lit with Mr. Moore, Owen is taking remedial math: he’s waited three years, not four, to become a senior (he’s entering his fourth year).