Tag: comic books

There You Go Again

Leaving meaningless oil paintings behind in the dilapidated shacks that they deserve to be housed in, today’s strip brings us back to art’s purest and most meaningful form and in its most hallowed of temples…

Well no wonder DSH couldn’t cover his rent back in 2010, he hates the actual function of his business. That 2010 story seems especially relevant to this one, as Funky covered DSH’s rent (and some of his own expenses) by doing exactly what DSH had apparently been failing to do, sell comic books. Now we know that he can hardly bear to part with the things that his business is supposed to part with.

I do not recall this “McKenzie Collection” but I assume it has something to do with Crankshaft’s elderly neighbor. I’d try to track down more info but I’m researched out right now, sorry.

Thanks for sticking with us through the last month, which included a couple of the most asinine and one of the funkiest strangest weeks in recent Funky memory. Sosf David O will be your driver starting next week, and should do a better job steering around the potholes than I did… and there WILL be p(l)otholes.

Hardboiled Volk

Today’s strip tells us literally the same thing that Friday’s strip did. Marianne’s fate will remain a mystery for another day… that day quite possibly being Christmas Day. We are in color again, but I’m not quite getting that infomercial tonal shift feeling I described a few days back.

I feel it my duty to point out that a story about an actress who is driven to suicide (possibly) by cyberbullies is not “hardboiled” It’s pretty much the exact opposite of hardboiled, actually. It can be many other things: sad, appalling, educational (or in TB’s hands: implausible, maudlin, and preachy), but a word meaning “tough, cynical, unsentimental” as hardboiled does? No.

Us beady-eyed nitpickers may notice that Tom Lyle’s signature offers additional proof that TB works a year ahead, not that we really needed it.

lylesignature

You can see the conception of this comic book cover on the official Funky Winkerbean blog

We got The Bleat

Were you all worried we would go an entire week without a reference to comic books?
Well, fear not true believers! Today’s strip brings us back to that which makes the heart of Westview pump. “Comic books, comic books, comic books”… the beat hauntingly comes through the stethoscope.

The power of comic books is so great that Bernie doesn’t even need to go through the interview process that Maris and Logan did in order to join the staff of “the Bleat”. He’s in simply because he wants to review movies and comic books and believes he can score free comics from DC and Marvel by being a critic on a closed-circuit high school announcements broadcast (good luck with that, because it doesn’t happen… period).

I am curious about two things, though:
First, Marvel and DC but not Mega Comics? Bernie is, after all, a known fan of their signature property, The Amazing Mister Sponge.

Second, what is Les’ problem here? He left these two schmucks to do his job for him and now he wants to gripe about the results?  Gimme a break. “I left these teenagers without direction or supervision and now they are pursuing their interests, oh they are so terrible at all aspects of life. If only there was a place where they could learn things and people there who could teach them…”
Maybe he’s just mad that they have clearly learned more from Bull than they have from him. Specifically, they want to score free stuff, which is Bull’s primary motivation in life.

And finally, after all of this exposition, Bernie had darn well better review the Starbuck Jones movie when it comes out… provided he hasn’t graduated by then of course.

A Homage To That Which Never Was

Link To Today’s Strip

Anyone who didn’t see one of these comic books covers coming, please pay more attention going forward. I only know what this is because I (hangs head in shame) regularly check out the official Batom Comics…er, I mean FW blog. Without going into way too much detail, blah blah blah comic books comic books comic books. That’s really all you need to know to be “up to speed”, as it were.

Are we looking at modern-day Pete and Boy Lisa here or their retro counterparts again? I guess the bow ties indicate “retro” but who really knows? “Charlie and Chuck” is another one of his fanciful fictional funny books and yes, it has a whole convoluted back story behind it too. Apparently “theft” is the theme here, as retro Pete and Boy Lisa are still bemoaning how they lost the rights to Starbuck Jones right before the (sigh) point in its retconned history when it really took off. Even his fantasies are miserable.

A propeller beanie AND a slingshot in the back pocket…where’s his Lone Ranger mask and Dick Tracy wristwatch? Too bad this creativity never finds its way into his daily strips, one gets the impression that THOSE obligations are really cutting into his vivid world of make-believe. Nothing’s happened in FW in almost a decade, yet the world of Batom Comics is exploding with all sorts of history and new characters. Go figure.