Tag: Cleveland

Low ‘Rents

Like so much of Funky Winkerbean, today’s strip invites reasonable questions that have stupid and unsatisfying answers. Use the Q&A below to guide you as you take part in the frustrating experience that is reading today’s strip.

So when is Jessica moving back to Ohio?
I thought she had, but I was apparently wrong and she is still in California doing documentary work with Cindy. Durwood believes that she would not mind moving back to Ohio, so there’s that.

Wait… Jessica is doing documentary work for Cindy?
Well, she certainly was. If you didn’t have to blink back in November 2016 (the nerve of you!), you would have known this.

So Jessica is still working on Cindy’s Cliff Anger documentary 19 months after shooting the interview with Cliff and Vera?
Well… Cindy’s Cliff Anger documentary was nominated for an Emmy award in April 2017, so it is presumably complete. Either Jessica works so slowly that she has entered a time warp, an incomplete documentary was nominated for an Emmy award, or a certain writer forgot what he wrote 14 months back.

Why did Darin move back in with his parents in Westview instead of finding his own place in Cleveland, where he works?
Because he is a notorious freeloader who deserves to be nicknamed “Mooch” more than his old high school pal Eric Myers ever did. Recall his and Jessica’s previous residences in Act III, slumming with friends until getting kicked out (free), living with Les and Summer (free), and finally getting their first “real place” in the apartment above Montoni’s (technically not free, but Funky owned the unit and paid Durwood’s salary during this time).

Isn’t it hard on his senior-citizen mother to have him and Skyler living in the house on top of having to care for her stroke-crippled husband?
Of course it is, but Durwood is all about Durwood.

Does Darin not get along with his parents?
That seems to only be implied, but given that he has spent far more time beatifying his “bio mom” and “step dad” in Act III than spending any time at all (pleasant or otherwise) with the couple that loved and raised him from infancy, it is a very strong implication. Durwood is awful.

Why did Skyler move with Durwood, who is starting a time-intensive new job, into Ann and Fred’s cramped old house instead of staying with his mother, who is still living in a whole apartment that he was already comfortably living in?
Because Jessica is awful too.

Is Darin the worst?
No, Les is the worst… but Durwood is making a genuine effort at sinking to his depths.

If You Wannabe Be My Writer

Yesterday’s discussion of exactly just how Rip Tide: Scuba Cop goes about scuba cop-ing understandably exhausted our tedious twosome, and they take a well-earned coffee break in today’s strip.

I suppose that now that they are living the life of 1950s-ish Batom Comics writers, Pete and Durwood no longer need to daydream about being 1950s-ish Batom Comics writers. Naturally, they have channeled most of their energy into finding new ways to procrastinate… though shuffling down to the struggling coffeeshop on the corner earns them no points for creativity.

Nevertheless, today’s strip is not without educational value. I, for one, learned that the key difference between Los Angeles and Northern Ohio is that no one has dreams or ambition in Northern Ohio.

Today’s Log Post

Hello SoSFers, billytheskink back for another two weeks steering this runaway bus. Lucky me, today’s strip shifts back to Pete, Durwood, and their adventures at the City of Cleveland’s newest employer. Now that Chester has acquired the remnants of Mort Winkerbean’s life savings, I guess Atomik Komix’s bankruptcy has been postponed… and that, sadly, means we have to peek at the Batty Atom Bullpen’s “creative” process.

Durwood is the star of this one for sure, offering one of the few reasonable explanations for the existence of the last decade of Funky Winkerbean. On the other hand, Pete is being Pete… that is to say, useless.

Batty Batom Baloney

Welp, turns out the Batom Bullpen is actually BS, as Chester learns in today’s strip. Six panels of explanation about how working at Batom Comics in the 1950s was just like Pete and Durwood’s fever dreams and one panel of Chester getting the vapors after learning that Pete and Durwood’s fever dreams were true to life. It’s… it’s almost like we’ve seen all of this actually drawn and didn’t need any of this exposition.

Poor, poor Holtron has to witness this whole sad, sad scene.

And with that, the skink is out until next time. $10 sez this story arc is going to continue uninterrupted until my next turn at the wheel.

No takers?

None?

Yeah, I don’t blame ya.

Starstruck Jones

Well, at least today’s strip doesn’t contain any Wayne’s World shtick so fantastically lame and over exposed that it took me hours to recognize it, like yesterday’s did… The gag is still extremely rote, though. Could we at least get a “Mr. Freeman is my father” bit? I actually kind of like that old groaner.

According to the official “Untold History” of Batom Comics, Flash Freeman created Starbuck Jones as an adult in 1954. He looks pretty good for 136.