Tag: gazebo

Old Man, Take a Look at My Life

“When I look in the mirror, I can’t believe what I see
Tell me, who’s that funky dude, staring back at me?”

–Weezer, The Good Life

It’s not only endings that have to be earned: readers of Funky Winkerbean are made to wait like obedient dogs for even a crumb of plot advancement. Anyway, today we get a payoff of sorts, as embittered, befuddled old Funky encounters…well, that’s too skinny to be Owen, right? Yep, it’s the classic, carefree High School Funky who captured our hearts over thirty years ago. And there’s Crazy Harry…clean-shaven (probably not even having to shave) and sporting his Fidel Castro hat instead of a tweed cap.

Stop Making Sense

(I’m back! Many thanks to DavidO for filling in this past week! –TFH)

Funky finally puts two and two together and realizes that he must be “back…in the past! ” (emphasis Batiuk’s) And it’s not making sense. Neither does the fact that he’s toting a jacket in July. On the plus side: props to TB for preserving Sunday-to-Monday continuity (to the point of redundancy). Minus side: he’s stretching this out wayyy too long. Also: in these pre-Bluetooth headset days, the locals would surmise to be crazy anyone who wandered through the middle of the town square talking to himself.

Time jumps and dopplegangers..

Click to view larger

Funky is back in time! Is this supposed to be a twist!? Everyone saw this coming. It would be like if in “The Sixth Sense”, Bruce Willis’s character had been wearing a sheet and dragging a chain throughout the whole movie. Yes, Funky, you’re in the past; all four of you! And although it looks like a Nuremberg pep rally with all of the whiteys around, I can assure you that one of the following things happened.

1. Your car accident knocked you back in time somehow by opening some kinda space/time portal.
2. You’re in the afterlife.
3. It’ll never be explained and everything will go back to normal ala a Simpsons style reset.

Considering you’re still in Westview and sweating profusely, I’d be hoping for a way back to 2010-ish, where you’re the owner of a failed pizza business and a kid that can’t stand you, because this plotline is starting to resemble the movie 1408 more than It’s a Wonderful Life.

Which improbable plot point is he gawking at now?

Where to even start!? Tommy B has left us hanging yet again (Lost was spewing out answers faster than this claptrap) as he streeeetches what should have been two day’s worth of strips into a full 6 days. What is Wideload gawking at? I’m guessing it could be any one of the numerous, ridiculous plotlines that have been juggling in and out of Westview for the past 10 to 50 years, depending on how you’re viewing the time jumps, which I’m starting to think are Bautick’s way of getting around the fact it takes a character six full days to go to the post office to open a letter.

I’m doing something on my end: it’s called reading.

My guest blogging duties are ending soon, so I’d like to pose the following question to all my fellow snarkers; if you could spend one evening alone with a FW character, which would it be? There would be no witnesses, and there would already be a hastily-dug grave in a weed-choked lot waiting for you…

The Walk

(Guest blogger update: TFH here; our guest blogger will be taking over soon!)

With his jacket jauntily flung over his shoulder, Funky waddles casually back to town, talking to himself the whole time. It is surprising to note that in fact, the sign as you enter Westview does not say “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

Funky notices that the trees are strangely less full than when he headed out of town just this morning…but he does not notice the dark-haired stranger that he passes on the way into…the Twilight Zone…