Obligatory Haiku post for today's strip Where nothing happens "Who spent most of his Time at war with the world and Ev'rything in it"? We talking about Phil Holt or that Ed Crankshaft? Both? Makes me shudder C'mon now, Durwood Phil did not know a dang thing About your mother C'mon too, Mindy Who here cares one iota About your granddad? Pete here wins the strip Only offense is a smirk Default win's a win
Tag: Crankshaft
Choir Loft Capers
Is it possible to sue a comic strip for pain and suffering? Because today is unbearable. An agonizing compound fracture of compounding classic Batuikitis: the swollen grouping of tropes that chokes out all humor.
We have a restatement of yesterday’s problem.
We have a restatement of yesterday’s ‘joke’. (thinking outside something.)
We have references to Crankshaft.
We have Batiuk’s weird habit of refusing to reference Crankshaft by name.
Dinkle is present.
Dinkle speaks.
Taken as a whole, today’s strip is insufferable for people following Funky Winkerbean closely and incomprehensible for people reading one-off random strips casually.
I guess if I want quality dramatic storytelling about a wacky church choir and their pet cat sidekick, I’ll have to look to Guideposts to provide.
This is the farmer sowing his corn
Good grief, look at that word zeppelin in panel one.
This the dolt who made the call
To schedule the audition
To fill the position
To be the organist
Down at the church that Tom built.
Presumably Harriet was right there the whole time and knows what was going on; of course, given the writing in this strip I’m surprised she didn’t repeat his words verbatim in her panel five frog-face. After all, she outlined all his other accomplishments and (of course) concluded that he was the best thing evar. In probably the fastest 180 I’ve ever seen.
The reason being, this entire episode is Tom Batiuk publicly patting himself on the back. “Look at this terrific character I created! Is this award-winning or what?”
As mentioned yesterday, unless this church has a single Sunday service, Dinkle will be spending a lot of time there. Most churches I’m familiar with have several Sunday services, a couple on Saturday and at least one every weekday. Let’s not even bring up holidays. That’s going to cut into a lot of Dinkle’s other activities. (Come to think, how does Lillian manage to run her bookstore? Answer: it’s magic. Dark magic.)
All of which promises what could be could be an interesting twist: what if Dinkle failed the audition? I think it would be the first time in the strip when he didn’t get everything he wanted. It might humble him and make for a rounder character.
And of course it will never happen. The strip is now total wish-fulfillment and trivial observations. Where every “hero” character is Superman.
And with that, I am out of here. Please welcome the always erudite and entertaining Epicus Doomus who will be your host for the next couple of weeks. Exit, stage left!
The Old Die Rich
I’m not sure God appreciates being mentioned in Funky Winkerbean, especially in connection with Harry Dinkle, but his “at our age” remark raises a question.
When the organist died in Crankshaft, the immediate substitute was ancient crone Lillian. Here, Batiuk is going to reward the equally ancient (and equally loathsome) Dinkle with the position. Why wouldn’t the church try to find a younger person, one who could be expected to helm the organ for many years to come (before dropping dead)? I don’t think it’s especially rigorous physical work (I’m not an organist), but unless the church only has a single Sunday service, the organist is going to be spending a lot of time there.
Perhaps the job is a voluntary one, and there’s little (or no) pay, and a younger person would need a salary. A retired person wouldn’t have this worry.
But…I’m starting to think Tom Batiuk just hates young people. Whenever they appear, they are invariably shown as worthless idiots completely out of clues. Think of the youngest characters he’s shown us (Skyler, Bernie, the other high schoolers) and tell me I’m wrong.
Inkle Dinkle Do
And as many predicted, here comes Dinkle to be rewarded. To be honest, my impression of the character is that he’s something of a tyrant, so I don’t know how suited he would be to work in a church. But Batiuk’s gonna Batiuk, and it’s time to praise Dinkle to the skies.
I forgot to mention the joke yesterday, but that’s okay as it reappears here as…I think…”Newspapers, am I right?”
I don’t know if Batiuk is making fun of newspapers or making fun of people who’ve abandoned them. It might be that even he doesn’t know. He seems to be wary of online things and prefers the old fashioned stuff. But who really knows?
All I can tell you is that this week has been a slog. Uninteresting characters discussing dull trivia. Admittedly, that’s every week, but this one seems especially devoid of even the tiniest bit of substance to grab on to.
Son of Stuck Funky 