Tag: 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.

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?

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.

Trolling the Depths

That guy in the first panel sure looks happy. I hope he hasn’t discovered a new addiction to donuts.
Is it just me, or is that sentence in the second sentence super unwieldy? I can’t really think of a better way to phrase it, and it doesn’t really lead into the third panel at all.
Haha, “news that’s unfit to print”, that’s never been done before. I guess “Troller” is supposed to be a play on “Twitter”? Except it doesn’t sound at all the same, and I’m positive Batiuk has already made up a spoof of Twitter.
But yeah, reading the news is stressful and can lead to a relapse into alcoholism. True, but not really great material for a comic strip.

Who Was the First New Participant?

Haha, Funky couldn’t possibly be a real name, this definitely isn’t a well that Batiuk has gone to way, way too many times. Yes, Tom, we know you hate the name Funky Winkerbean. You’ve made that point clear. The first “person can’t believe Funky is a real name” strip wasn’t particularly funny, and none of the subsequent ones have been any funnier.  I wonder if he thinks that the sole thing holding him back from Pulitzers and Academy Awards is just the name of the strip. I mean, if he really wanted to, he could do a storyline where Funky decides to change his name, but that would take too much effort.
Two more observations:
1. Nothing says “old out of touch man writing young person dialogue” like “character with backwards cap saying ‘gamer handle”.
2. Is Alcoholics Anonymous really the kind of place where people criticize the names other people give? Because it is supposed to be anonymous, after all.