Tag: Complete Worthless Ass

Putting the “die” in dilate

Let us all sincerely hope that today’s strip is the end of “Funky terrorizes the optometrist’s office with his shmuckery.” Oh please please please! I ran out of things to say about it on Tuesday and since then I’ve been filling space with a Droopy photoshop done in Microsoft Paint, obscure 90s punk rock references, and my own experiences at the ophthalmologist. Today, I very nearly wrote 3-4 sentences in this post about what my cat was doing right now, but I’ve taken up too much of you all’s valuable time already. Well, at least I finally thought of something to say about this strip…

Speaking of drops, I’m thinking this country’s newspapers should do just that to a couple of comic strips.

No Contest

No, there is no respite from this week’s misery in today’s strip. Yep, Funky continues to make life miserable for the very medical professionals whose job it is to make his life suck a little less… medical professionals who are properly doing their job, I might add. This is the kind of shtick Les pulled back in Act I when we weren’t supposed to like him, thus further cementing Funky’s status in TB’s mind as Act III’s version of Act I Les, the dim and unlikable sap who all but deserves the awful life he leads. Of course, this is also the kind of shtick Les continues to pull, to be honest, but now he’s written as if we’re supposed to like him.

This line question is weird, though. I’ve been going to the ophthalmologist since I was a 10 year old who refused, to my mother’s certain exasperation, to wear any glasses that weren’t neon lime green and I’ve never once been asked which line is clearer. My ophthalmologist will regularly switch between lenses of different (high, in my case) powers and ask me which lens offered me a clearer view of the lines on a backlit chart, but I’ve never had to choose between lines. I’m not even sure how lines could be different clarities. Nevertheless, if my eye doctor did ask me to pick which line of two was clearer, I would answer “one” or “two”… y’know, like a human being who isn’t a miserable putz.

Back Page News

Are you wondering how Bull’s wife and children are mourning his death? Maybe how his former players and fellow coaches, whose lives he surely had a large impact on, have reacted? Well, too bad for you, for the art of storytelling, and for general decency… because today’s strip is focused on four schmucks, only one of whom even knows Bull moderately well (and one who has NEVER once met the guy) and none of whom have talked to Bull in at least 3 full years. Heck, they aren’t even talking about Bull, they are awkwardly reminding us that Cindy was popular in high school.

Bull’s death only made page 2 of the Westview Gazette? This is a town with only five employers and Bull was the most decorated employee in the history of the largest of those. What could possibly have made the front page?

And continues…

Today’s strip continues Nate and Linda’s inane conversation about Tank Wedgeman. It’s illuminating that these two administrators (one of Linda’s myriad responsibilities makes her an administrator, right? She’s got a hand in literally everything in this school) can’t imagine stopping the bullying, instead simply waiting it out until the kid graduates. Who cares about all the kids he victimizes in the meantime.

These strips remind me of something I mentioned way back in the Gay Prom storyline. (can we believe it’s been nearly six years?) In that strip  Nate spoke of “the intolerant” rather than “intolerance”. The issue I had was that Batiuk seemed to be framing homophobia in the context of people rather than ideas. Good people would think the way Batiuk did, and bad people would think differently. It wasn’t a matter of examining different perspectives and/or how a person might end up with problematic attitudes or behaviors. It was just an issue of The Bad People, or “the intolerant” in that strip. There isn’t any point in trying to deal with Tank’s bullying. It’s just who he is, and it won’t stop until he’s gone. They don’t engage bullying any more than Nate engaged Roberta’s issue (that we can only suppose is homophobia because Batiuk never allowed her to voice her specific objections).

It’s pretty disgusting ordinarily, but it’s especially so coming from two characters who are supposed to be educators. Hell, I think of all of Batiuk’s characters, he thinks Linda and Nate are the two most admirable teachers at the school. Unlike Les, they seem to approach their jobs in education with some form of enthusiasm, so it’s remarkable that they don’t seem to recognize teachable moments. If I’m reading Batiuk’s timeline correctly, these two have at least thirty years’ experience each, and yet bullying appears to be something they have no response to, nor think they need to deal with.

January 25th, 2018

So Nate today continues talking about the school’s latest bully and it’s a doozy. Since Batiuk has no idea what bullying on social media entails and has no desire to learn, he instead has Tank Wedgeman kick it old school with physical bullying more in line with what he was used to decades ago. Of course. He also doesn’t show bullying itself or show Nate doing anything about it, instead just showing Nate talking about it.

And Nate gets worse when he describes the types of abuse Wedgeman visits on his victims and, from all appearances, seems to be not the least bit troubled. Jesus man, a swirly involves Wedgeman jamming a kid’s head in a fucking toilet, and yet Nate’s acting as if this is no big deal. It just comes with the territory. What a guy.

Meanwhile, Linda acts as nothing more than a filibuster-enabler by prompting Nate’s jabbering whenever he needs it. By the way, notice how she hugs that lone blue book to her chest in every panel this entire week. What could that book possibly be?