Tag: Funky

Off The Deep End

today

Yes, Summer, by all means, climb the snow and ice-covered diving board hanging over the abandoned swimming pool. Remember, this genius has ten years of college under her belt. What an idiot. Again we see something that happened in high school resonating through history, yet college seems to make no difference one way or the other. If she slips, falls, and ends up freezing to death in that abandoned pool, this whole thing will have been quite worthwhile.

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

September 20 – October 4, 2015
Crazy Harry finishes transferring (and ostensibly watching) the hours of Lisa tapes. He informs Summer that he found “a couple of Easter Eggs” on the tapes, which he burns to separate DVD’s marked “For Les” and “For the Other Woman”, and Summer presents these to Cayla. Cayla’s starts with a lecture from Lisa about how to handle her duties as Les’ wife (before devolving into threats that Lisa will haunt Cayla if she ever hurts “our Les”).

The “Other Woman” Easter Egg arc, definitely one of Batiuk’s weirdest Lisa fantasies. And, of course, Cayla just sat there with a stupid look on her face, content as always with her role as Les’ good-natured doormat. Cayla was one of Act III’s least-believable characters. Being attracted to Les wasn’t enough, so over the course of Act III he neatly excised her already-barely discernible personality and turned her into Cayla Tyler Moore, always ready, willing and able to indulge Les and his demented Lisa nonsense. This arc SHOULD have ended with Cayla lobbing those DVDs into the fireplace with middle fingers extended, but she just sat there grinning stupidly instead. Yuck.

It Seems Some Comic Strips WERE Left Behind

“So I find now, as some eight years ago I was doing things for the first time, I am doing them now for the final time.“

Hi folks, it’s me again, BChasm here for a one more romp through the Funky Winkerbean swamp.

And I must say, as romps go, this has been one of the most enjoyable. The hosts, the guest hosts and the commentors have been absolutely wonderful companions on this forage through the train wreck, and as we’ve sifted through the wreckage we’ve found some wonderful artefacts and some poor-grade sewage. Such it is on a journey like this, and I could not have asked for better companions. I love you all.

I’m going to ignore the current nonsense in today’s strip and touch on one of the defining strips of Act III.

Last week as you’ll recall, Epicus mentioned the events of June, 2011.  Les inexplicably finds himself pursured by two women, and Crazy and Funky make some very mild comments regarding his romantic past.  

A normal person would respond in one of two ways:  1 “Heh, I guess it is kind of funny.” 2 “I really need some help with this, guys.”

Les uses neither, instead storming off in high dudgeon. 

https://beckoningchasm.com/graphics/other/funky/douchebag2.png

Funky feels remorse over this, and we get the strip below.

https://beckoningchasm.com/graphics/other/funky/douchebag1.png

Again, a normal reaction to Funky’s contrition would be something like “It’s okay, I was just upset” or “Hey, you’re my friend, don’t worry about it” or some such acknowledgement of the sentiment while diminishing the event.

Not Les.  Les’ response is that of a man whose ego dwarfs the sun itself.  If I were Funky, my reaction would be to mentally cross Les off my list of friends.  I would know, now, that if I ever needed sympathy from Les, all I would receive is a counter-complaint (“Well, sure, your house burned down, but I thought I’d lost a Lisa tape.  I was in a real panic, let me tell you–“).

The above strip was the biggest indication that Les Moore is a world-class prick.  Looking back, I cannot recall a single moment when Les was sincerely concered about another (living) person; everyone around him exists solely to validate him.  

And this, ladies and gentlemen, was our star character.  But allow me to fix this one strip, to put it a quarter-inch from reality.

https://beckoningchasm.com/graphics/other/funky/110611.png

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your indulgence.  I have read and enjoyed the posts and comments here and I am glad that I was, in some small way, a part of this mosaic.  For my final trick, let’s enjoy an old favorite!

https://beckoningchasm.com/graphics/other/funky/lesbees2.jpg

Knox Landing

Mitchell Knox will obviously want the picture of John Darling, Jessica’s father who was murdered.

erdmann

Maybe Mitchell Knox will make some outrageous bid on the John Darling photo that will be enough to bail Montoni’s out of whatever supposed financial straits they’re experiencing.

bobanero

I wonder whose photo they’re removing to make room for Summer’s. John Darling’s? Somebody call Mitchell Knox!

be ware of eve hill

Winners, please come to the pay window!

A lot of you predicted this development, and today we get it as the “memorabilia auction” starts. This is the kind of detail Funky Winkerbean never gets wrong. Characters fluctuate between being dead and alive, and their surnames randomly change. But it would never forget the memorabilia preferences of a comic book artist!

Beyond that, this scene raises so many questions. What’s in all those boxes? It looks like framed pictures and rolled-up posters. Is Funky selling memorabilia that wasn’t even good enough to put on the walls? “Now up for sale, this historically relevant artifact we took off our history wall to make room for a third picture of Tony Montoni. The bidding starts at $10,000.”

How – and why – did Montoni’s con Lillian out of her tiffany lamp? That anecdote has more story potential than anything we’ve seen all week.

Where are any of the regulars? Where’s Les, who wanted to buy the sign? Where Summer, who’s supposed to be recording all this history before it’s lost forever? Where’s Crazy Harry, who spent so much time at Montoni’s he forgot to do his job?

Is “Ferris Wheeler” the best punny name Tom Batiuk can come up with anymore? He doesn’t sound like an auctioneer, he sounds like a carnie played by Matthew Broderick. At least “Amicus Brief” got his profession right. And when I’m holding up Amicus Brief as an example of how Funky Winkerbean used to do something better, there’s a real problem.

I feel like I’m watching Funky Winkerbean deteriorate in real time. It can’t even be bothered to follow up its own self-serving story points, which it just introduced last week. Did Tom Batiuk forget he has to make Summer famous? Or does he think he did enough already?

The strip’s laziness, lack of focus, and emphasis on all the wrong things, are getting worse.

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.

Get The Funk Out

Today’s strip.

If comic strips can have clip shows. I guess they can have voice overs, too.

No characters are visible today, as (presumably) Funky rambles about how great Montoni’s history wall is. It’s the same irrelevant junk we saw Sunday, except that Mason Jarre is up there now. It’s not even drawn with much more detail.

And it feels out of order in the narrative. Summer has spent the last two days interviewing Tony about Montoni’s history, so she doesn’t need to be convinced Montoni’s has a lot of history she should investigate. Was this supposed to be Monday’s strip?

It even has another rewriting of its own history, calling John Darling a “TV celeb.” Oh, come on! The man’s dying words were a lament that he never got to become a celebrity:

On top of that, we saw John Darling being equated with these ancient fossils barely a month ago.

“Much of Westview’s history has passed through Montoni’s doors.” Yes, it’s amazing that prominent people in a small town have eaten in the town’s only restaurant. Sheesh. Get over yourself.