Haha, wives sure are heartless, am I right? I really, really, do not understand what the point of this story was. People in the real world don’t usually tell stories that highlight what clumsy buffoons they are. Or that their wives don’t care if they’re injured (and are incapable of telling if the wall in a room they’re in is damaged and have to ask someone else). The only way this would make anything close to sense is if Funky really was dying for a beer when he was on the treadmill, and this whole story is actually about him relapsing.
Tag Archives: Funky
Her Father, Moving Treadmill, Who Was Moving Treadmilled
Wow, using the phrase “moving treadmill” three times in three consecutive panels seems like bad writing to me. If you have to signal the setup for a joke so obviously, it’s probably not a very good one, and you probably don’t have too much faith in the intelligence of your readers. Like, if he’d referred to it as just “the treadmill” once or twice his readers would have been too confused and not understood that Funky hurt himself.
I always wonder about the genesis of these storylines. I assume this is something that happened to Batiuk in real life. I do wonder if he replaced “Flash action figure he placed on the treadmill to pretend it was a Cosmic Treadmill” with “Discman”.
Oh, and telling a story at AA about how you had to interrupt your exercise because you needed “a drink” so bad that you ended up injuring yourself and (presumably) a prized possession seems problematic.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
R.I.P., Funkman’s Discman
I love that third panel. Funky used to be one of the few characters in this strip I could tolerate. Lately I’ve just gotten sick of how Batiuk constantly has to dump on him and portray him as just a pathetic fat loser every time he appeared. But now he’s just rambling on about yet another nostalgic obsession like everyone else in this strip. I doubt he reacted as much to Wally getting kidnapped or Cindy leaving him as he does to that Discman “floating” to the ground.
Oh, I don’t think an AA meeting is really the best place to talk about how you stepped off a moving treadmill and did something clumsy because you needed a “drink” so bad. Has Batiuk forgotten where Funky is? It would’ve been so much better just to say “water” instead of “a drink”.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
I Wish Funky Was Stashed Away
Oh, yay, Backwards Cap Young Alcoholic gets another line today. Today’s strip is really funny, because apparently Holly had no idea that Funky still had a Discman, despite the fact that they’re husband and wife. Had he never used it before, despite the fact that he somehow still has two? Or did she just not pay any attention to him, ever. Which is understandable.
The worst thing about these strips, to me, at least, is the smugness. In the third panel, Funky is acting like having a Discman still in the package is the greatest accomplishment of his life. Which, it might be.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Ding Dongle
Oh yay, more obsolete technology for Batiuk to fetishize through one of his characters. Was Funky’s record player or eight track player broken? Crazy Harry will be so sad. And this seems like one of the silliest possible times to be using a Discman. The whole point of the things is that they’re portable. Listening to one when you’re by yourself in a room in your own house seems to defeat the whole purpose. Does Funky somehow own a Discman but not a stereo that can play CDs? This strip is mind-boggling sometimes.
Oh, and apparently there are still several companies that make portable CD players you can buy, at least on Amazon. They’re not Sony Discmans, but still. I also have a strong feeling that when Discmans debuted, Batiuk probably loudly proclaimed that his portable tape player was way better. And knowing him he probably did comic strips about it.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Shouldn’t He Be in Perfect Shape By Now?
Man, I hope Funky is about to go on all week about the dangers of your personal trainer being hot. Because that’s an uncomfortable and unnecessary story arc Batiuk hasn’t gone to in a while. It’s also kind of hilarious, because every single time Funky is depicted as exercising in this strip he’s miserable, so how exactly is that helping him with stress?
Am I the only one who thinks if you want to keep people from alcohol, forcing them to listen to Funky ramble on and on about his many many woes is the worst thing to do?
Oh, yeah, and there’s bricks in this strip.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
One Long Boring Day at a Time
“When I had to close my business, business really picked up!”. The dialogue in this strip is so often very very awkward. It’s funny, just three days ago he was talking about the financial stresses he was under, and now he’s talking about how much business they had. It’s almost like whoever writes this doesn’t care much about continuity.
It’s funny, the last line is surely meant to be very dramatic, but given the context and history of this strip it’s way more likely that Batiuk is just talking about how Funky likes to cosplay.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Ominous Donut Box
So today Batiuk takes a shot at PBS for being obsessed with the pandemic, for some reason. I’m guessing it’s solely because it was low hanging fruit for what qualifies as wordplay to Baituk. it I would have gone with “Coronavirus News Network” myself.
This is very odd too, because it seems to be implying that the news was covering the pandemic too much? I mean, maybe some were, to a certain extent, but the vibe of “Stop talking so much about the pandemic that’s brought the entire world essentially to a screeching halt for over a year” is very strange to me. I really think Batiuk wrote this in early March last year and assumed the virus would blow over in a month.
The first panel is kind of hilarious to me. “I tried to avoid the news as much as I possibly could…but it just kept chasing me down and forcing me to watch it!”. If you don’t want to watch the news, don’t watch the news.
This arc really makes me feel that “recovering addict” is the perfect character type for Batiuk’s style of melodrama. You can milk a ton of cheap drama and pain out of it without anything really having to happen. Funky will never drink again, because that would be drama, and that doesn’t happen in this strip. But he will moan and complain, you’d better believe it.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Take a Pass Too, Batiuk
“Wine with DeWine“. I had no idea what this was supposed to mean until I searched and realized that’s the name of the governor of Ohio. I’m not sure if Batiuk thinks that everyone reading this strip will both remember that it takes place in Ohio and immediately recognize the Ohio governor’s name, or maybe he realizes that nobody outside the state (or his house) pays attention to the strip anymore.
I still have no idea what this is supposed to mean, actually. I’m guessing he’s talking about drinking wine while watching the governor’s press conferences (I have a strong suspicion that this entire “Funky gripes at an AA meeting” storyline was created just because Batiuk thinks it’s funny that “DeWine” sounds like “wine”), but I’d like to think that mister “Not to do” was just hanging out with the governor on a regular basis at his shuttered restaurant.
Also, what work was Funky doing alone in an empty restaurant that was closed for months that he couldn’t do from home?
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
A Little To Do
I have no idea what the gag here is even supposed to be. It just seems like a reject from Crankshaft (for a gag to be rejected from Crankshaft it would have be extraordinarily craptacular). Most of the gags in that strip just seem to be “one word sounds sort of like another word” and don’t even approach what anyone would call worldplay. Or this could just be a sex thing, and Funky is saying nobody wants to do him or Holly.
Also, I think if you can fly from Ohio to Texas and back regularly to visit a doctor, you’re “to-do”, whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
