Tag: Donna

But You Don’t Really Care for Music, Do Ya?

The Duck of Death
December 19, 2022 at 8:22 am
Guys. Guys, is he gonna have the whole freakin’ cast from both comics in this church and pan over the crowd while the ensemble sings the Hallelujah Chorus?

Is this how it’s all gonna end?

baeraad
December 22, 2022 at 1:52 am
I… think Batiuk thinks he’s going for a heartwarming all-the-lovable-goofballs-come-together-in-a-church-on-a-snowy-Christmas-night sort of thing for his ending…

Sourbelly
December 22, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Batdick has spent days establishing the fact that every Westview citizen who matters is driving to the Jazz Messiah Nonsense in dangerous weather. He has spent zero seconds explaining why.

As confounding and confusing as this strip has been over these final months…you can’t say that a lot of effort wasn’t put into today’s strip, the last-ever Sunday panel of Funky Winkerbean. Nearly seventy people (and one cat) are packed into St. Spires. I was even able to recognize most of them…but there are a couple head-scratchers. Continue reading “But You Don’t Really Care for Music, Do Ya?”

Disrupting the Timeline

Green Luthor
November 24, 2022 at 10:44 pm
But…Donna said she made the helmet herself? Is she also a time traveler? (Is that how she played Defender in 1980?) Or did she just somehow accidentally create a “temporal phase shifter” without realizing it?

Hitorque
November 26, 2022 at 12:16 am
1. So Donna lied her ass off when she said she constructed the helmet herself?

1a. So Batiuk lied his ass off when he showed us Donna being “inspired” by that bullshit comic book cover and actually making the helmet herself?!?

So not only is Harley a time traveler; today we learn that he’s a toucher of minds. If he has that ability, couldn’t he just influence Donna’s mind to return the helmet? Why do that when he can just inspire a fantasy illustrator to put it on the cover of Eerie #57 for her to find? The end of Funky’s 50-year run would be the perfect opportunity for Tom Batiuk to tie up at least a few of his myriad loose plot ends, and even revisit a few of the people and places who have played a role in this strip’s history. Instead, we’re given a week (or, likely, more) of these two mopes sitting in the janitor’s closet, discussing this hokey time travel retcon.

The Duck of Death
November 23, 2022 at 10:35 pm Edit
Kudos to Tom Batiuk for ensuring that none of his readers will be sorry when his strip ends, or miss it when it’s gone.

I’m with ya, DoD.

Great Moments In SoSF Arc Recap History: March 12-19, 2017
Funky wanders around an abandoned house in the woods.

While jogging with Les, the Funkman notices a derelict house on a hill, and he returns later, by himself, to explore. This week long, standalone arc accomplished nothing in the way of plot or character development. But it exemplifies a couple hallmarks of post-Act I Funky Winkerbean: glacial pacing and the futility of human existence. The strips from Monday to Friday are almost completely void of verbiage: Funky pulls his car over, treks up the hill, and wanders through the abandoned house. Read the entire arc here.

 

 

 

That Was The Week That Wasn’t

Look at last Sunday’s strip, and then look at today’s strip.

It follows almost perfectly, doesn’t it? The story could have skipped this entire week. When it wasn’t redundant, it was confusing. Yesterday’s auction scenario now seems like a bizarre non-sequitir as we flip back to Summer’s insipid story. And next week apparently won’t be about either of these things.

I have to give today’s strip credit for moving the story along. The strip could have easily spent a month unpacking all the repetitive backstory Summer is hearing about today. Maybe her author arc won’t take as long as I thought. Batiuk probably just wants to get Summer her book tour, movie deal, and Nobel Peace Prize for Literature faster. But I’ll take the positive side effects where I can.

There’s still a lot to complain about, though. The intellectual bankruptcy of Summer’s stupid “oral history” is on full display. She asks her father’s friends about things that aren’t remotely history-worthy, and which she should already know anyway. Harley the janitor, a character so irrelevant that Linda and Kablichnik talk about him like he’s not there, gets his second mention in three days. Dinkle and the Eliminator get two panels each, even though the strip rehashes both stories constantly. No doubt this dross will be enough to make Summer the greatest historian since Pliny the Elder.

Is she interviewing people during the auction? I know I asked why she and Harry weren’t at this event, but isn’t this kind of rude? And how are you going to have a conversation while this is going on the background?

And with that, my guest hosting shift is up! This was one confusing fortnight in the Funkyverse. Though I had a blast, as always. My esteemed colleague BillyTheSkink is on deck.

Eliminated

Today’s strip

The Eliminator, who has been presented all week as an important figure in Westview’s history, walks through the front door. Funky proudly tells Summer “but here comes the person you really need to talk to! A man!”

This is like when Ruby Lith was elected to the Comic-Con Hall of Fame, and the strip replaced her with Phil Holt in the middle of her own press conference. Tom Batiuk thinks he’s an advocate for women with his showy, award-grubbing, phony empowerment stories. But Funky Winkerbean‘s day-to-day treatment of women is very different.

Donna’s sarcastic expression is perfect. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m nobody important. I’ll just turn my head to look at my own pictures on that ‘history wall’ you’re studying. Which I earned at age 12. You want a real insight into Westview’s ‘social dynamics’? Ask me why I hid my gender from these people.”

That’s it. I’ve got nothing else to say. Today’s strip speaks for itself.