Tag: Cody and Owen

Anus Major

“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.

Your genial host is “comedically extinguished” after serving as your host these last two festive weeks. Thank you, readers and contributors, for visiting and supporting the web’s premiere source for Funky Winkerbean snark, Son of Stuck Funky. I’m pleased and proud to preside over one of the smartest and funniest online communities I’ve even partaken in. The comedically sur le feu Beckoning Chasm takes over Monday. Happy 2016! —Votre ancien assiette en porcelaine, TFH

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).

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).

(S)enior (h)ighschool L(it)

Link to today’s strip.

Well, Chullo, let me remind you of something.  You may not remember this, because it all happened so long ago, but just a few minutes earlier you were eager and ready to sit in this very class.   You went out of your way to get those seats.  The principal himself stepped in to aid you in your quest.  Now class begins and suddenly, you’re full of regrets.   Apparently you forgot that the Les Moore who teaches this class is the Les Moore.

Well, you’ve made your bed.  Now you have to eat it.

Every time Tom Batiuk does an episode like this one, it just amazes me that he cannot see how utterly loathsome he makes Les Moore.  The worst character of all time, the fist-magnet of one hundred thousand punches, and Mr. Batiuk keeps making him more and more punchable.   The only possible reaction for the students to have to panel two is to close their books and all silently walk out, never to return.   The fact that they stay is sheer fantasy.  The fact that they struggle to get into the class is mind-boggling.

Yes.  The mind boggles.

I was looking over some of the older Act III strips, and there was an interesting dynamic when teen Summer was around.  Les was frequently over-protective and anxious about her to the point of being a pathetic, needy jerk (stalking her on her solo car date, for example).  But he also came across as human, as a parent genuinely concerned about her and obviously unwilling to lose her and mire in loneliness.  In a way, it humanized him, allowing to be an overt jerk, yet also acknowledging that his jerkdom came from his neediness.  In most cases, he was still nauseating, but he hadn’t quite become The Horse’s Ass.

Nowadays, well, I picked this up at the local Goodwill.