It’s a hell of a mishap when a flying pole with burning rags wrapped around both ends gets away from the majorette. It might cause the football field to catch fire, as Buck Bedlow can tell-not-show you. Which is a funnier circumstance than that of a girl forced to spend her teenage years hiding hideous, painful deformity to please her twirler mom. Oh, and the spelling you want in panel 2 would be “trouper.”
Tag Archives: Flaming batons
Asbestos You Can Get
At least in this case we know that the red blur in the picture isn’t a ball of fire. It’s Holly, in her classic Scapegoat majorette uni. I don’t know what’s worse: a “fireproof” garment that leaves your extremities exposed, or one that’s made out of material that can potentially cause cancer. Why not both?
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Girl on Fire
beckoningchasm
September 12, 2021 at 10:36 pm
Interesting that the only color we see on the photos is blotchy red. Are these photos of shooting victims?J.J. O’Malley
September 13, 2021 at 10:37 pm
…[A]ll the photos appear to black and white with occasional splotches of red. Was Fun…er, Holly taking pictures at a screening of “Schindler’s List”?billytheskink
September 13, 2021 at 10:24 am
Given all of the red smears on the photos…I’m guessing most of these “old” photos date back to Holly’s days as a red-and-white clad high school majorette…
December 3, 2013
Kudos to the above-quoted snarkers whose beady, nitpicking eyes were drawn to the red splotches in nearly all of Holly’s photos. Those are all great (and funny) guesses, but apparently the pictures depict teenage Holly engulfed in flames.
The flaming baton gag dates back to the Act I days, and it is amusing to imagine it going horribly awry. It’s a little less amusing to imagine it causing disfiguring burns. And it becomes horrifying when we learn that her mother’s response was to schedule Holly’s yearbook photos accordingly. Also, disfiguring burns aside, Holly needn’t be so modest about her “skill” with a flaming baton. After all, she was still good enough, years later, to show a Xenon warrior just how it’s done.
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Maybe We Could Do the Twirl
Try saying “Twirling Tots” five times fast, I dare ya! Holly has settled into her ponderous pandemic picture project and is actually enjoying a little quality mother-daughter time. I don’t think I noticed until just this week that Melinda is drawn with the same weird, wide cartoony eyes that Holly had in her majorette days, and even when she was still a “Tot.”
Holly has been pictured in this outfit before. She’s wearing this uniform and boonie hat in her picture that hangs on Montoni’s Wall of Fame. I started searching the archives to find the strip that shows this, but quickly became flustered, and I soon found myself sitting cross legged on the living room floor, being comforted by my mother. I’m going to need another pandemic to find it, har! har! har!
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Batteredday, September 1
Today’s strip was not available for preview. I would apologize, but I’m not sure I’m sorry I did not have to see it in advance.
Is it simply more of Dinkle’s megalomania? Yeah, probably. Dinkle, of course, has always been a megalomaniac, but his megalomania has gone from cartoonish and over-the-top to appalling and monstrous. Some of that is due to the fact that this strip’s tone has become so self-serious that attempts at humor seem either discordant or simply illustratitive of terrible behavior.
As much as that, though, Dinkle has changed too. In Acts I and II, his constant appearance in full dress uniform with his eyes always hidden under the bill of his cap gave him a cartoonish appearance to match his portrayal as obsessive perfectionist for whom marching bands are the pinnacle of human existence. Since his “retirement”, however, he has taken on the appearance of post-2010 Chevy Chase, and has come to behave much like Chase is said to off-camera.
To visualize, he went from this:
To this:
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Holly Smoke
SosfdavidO, coming up short on fire related puns for today’s today’s mope-a-thon. Once again, Tombat leaves the viewer with a confused sense of wondering what the heck they’re supposed to be feeling. It sure ain’t comedy. It’s more akin to Garrison Keillor’s brand of humor but we the reader don’t get the enjoyment (or misery) of hearing Garrison ramble on out-loud.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
A Sundered Sunday’s Sundry
As usual, Sunday’s offering was not available for preview. As I said last week, Sunday strips tend to be outside the continuity of the previous (or upcoming) week, so who knows what we’ll get? I’m going to guess “band camp.” It’s been a long while since we enjoyed one of those. …many, many years in fact. I’m sure we were presented one within the last year, though.
I doubt we’ll get a continuation of the “Flash Museum” arc, as Saturday showed both Pete and Dullard leaving the place. I suppose they could babble and babble about the stuff they’ve seen for six panels–it would not come as a surprise.
Note that I said “the stuff they’ve seen.” We sure as Hell didn’t get to see much of it. Jay Garrick’s hat, about half of Captain Cold, a distant picture of Gorilla Grodd, and some boomerangs. Someone who had never heard of the Flash, reading that story…would still never have heard of the Flash. On Wednesday, this person would learn that a comic book is involved, and on Thursday he’d hear about “Flash villain(s).” Though whether or not “Flash villain” is a villain opposing the Flash, or a type of villain, he would not know. Also, is the Flash a person, or an organization like SHIELD? For being such a big Flash fan, Tom Batiuk doesn’t seem to be able to say much about the man himself.
As Charles mentioned yesterday, Mr. Batiuk seems to have some peculiar ideas about Hollywood, and I’ve long suspected that the entire strip is just Mr. Batiuk saying, “This is my universe, and I can make it work however I want. Comic books are the most revered art-form. Anyone who works on a movie is paid enormous amounts of money, but they constantly daydream about what they really want to do–work on comic books. Females are there to see that the man is supported in all things, unless it’s Funky, because screw him.”
Speaking of money, I’ve occasionally ordered DVDs from Warner Bros online store, so they send me periodic emails about other things. One of them is a life-size statue of Wonder Woman, made out of some kind of foam and looking pretty realistic. In order to get one of those, prepare to have $1300 dollars on hand. Pete’s “dolly” looks less and less like an indulgence and more like an illness.
UPDATE: Well, today’s offering did involve the flash, though not the one people were nattering on about last week. The art in this one has a nice sense of space, flows well and looks pretty nice, though the two images of Dinkle do what in film school is called “crossing the axis.” It’s something you’re not supposed to do, as it tends to subliminally confuse audiences.
The one thing I really want to mention is that image of Funky. He has now become indistinguishable from his father, which makes that last panel pretty…disturbing.
Well, I see the light at the end of the tunnel is growing dim, so time for me to climb out of the pit before it fades entirely. Please welcome your new dungeon master, DavidO! Let’s all look forward to tomorrow, when, uh, a thing, er, might happen…or might not, but as always…um…[slinks away awkwardly]
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Burn, baby, burn!
Link to what Bats hath wrought.
Wow. An entire week of Starbuck Jones and every bit of it has been peripheral to the actions of Funky Winkerbean regular cast members. I have to take back all the nasty things I’ve said about the writing in this strip – it’s obvious that Tom Batiuk is a genius – he’s managed to bring about a whole new comic (Starbuck Jones) while keeping the science fiction out and revolving the story entirely around the residents of his beloved Westview Ohio. Truly he is a master of his craft. Though I have to say that it would have been nice if there had been just a teeny bit of Mason Jarr hamming it up, or Marianne Winters’ cute little implied butt. No matter, there are still a few years to go until Bats gets that Lifetime Doodler Award or whatever, so I guess there’s plenty of time to inflict entertain us with the continuing interweaving of Funky Winkerbean and Starbuck Jones.
Oh, yeah, and before I forget – my wish was granted, too!
Mason, please, for the love of all that is holy, have Holly do her her Flaming Baton act.
One last thing…we joke about this movie being “straight to cell phone” bad, but c’mon. We all know how bad it’s really going to be.
And…that’s it for my turn in the barrel. Beckoningchasm will be here tomorrow with some more high-quality snark, and I’ll be back in the comment section ruining T-Bat’s artwork.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
