Tom Batiuk’s got a decade-plus on me, but I reckon my high school experience had more in common with his than with that of today’s high school student. In my days, the only “device” a student might carry would be some kind of orthodontic implement. Any phone calls a student made would have to be from the principal’s office or the corner malt shop. Logan Church and her peers are never without their cellphones, and thus, are never without access to all the world’s knowledge. No wonder the unpleasant Jim hates teaching a class. When Logan correctly answers a physics question, Jim’s initial surprised reaction immediately shifts to narrow-eyed suspicion. She couldn’t have known this answer without Googling it, because Jim believes, as does Les, that these students never even open their textbooks. The thought that he has actually taught a student something brings Jim to actual tears. Unless that teardrop in the corner of his eye is a prison tattoo.
Tag Archives: Google
Run the Joules
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Fourth Wall Frown
Sure looks like Dinkle is ALWAYS ENJOYING giving piano lessons here. In panel two his face looks like it’s about to melt right off from all the pleasure teaching this child has given him. He stares out at us, his droopy face limp from all the aching joy coursing through him.
Kids today, amirite? What with their lazy ability to access nearly the sum total of the world’s knowledge through advanced pocket sized electronics connected to an invisible network of radio signals wirelessly transmitting nearly instantaneously across the entire nation. How annoying, that they can use this vast storehouse of information to interpret things they encounter that they don’t completely understand.
Back in Dinkle’s day, if someone purporting to be an expert told you something, you believed him. If you didn’t know the answer to a question, and you weren’t within arms reach of 100 pounds worth of encyclopedias, you lived with your ignorance. You didn’t get to instantly know why the sky is blue, or why mules are sterile, or when The Pet Shop Boys released the single, “I’m in Love with a German Film Star.”
So no, you snot nosed brat, you can’t ‘google’ it! You don’t get to know about Mr. Piano’s Mr. Middle C key until Mr. Harry Dinkle, The World’s Greatest Band Director, tells you!
And don’t you dare ask where my potted piano plant went!
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Grandpa Batom Always Does
At least demented, Alzheimer’s-ridden old Morty had a unique FW personality all his own, uninteresting and un-entertaining as it may have been. Now, alas, he’s just like the rest of them. Sigh.
Note to Tom: “Grandpa Google” is never, ever going to catch on, mainly because it doesn’t make any f*cking sense whatsoever. Perhaps it’s almost time to stop carrying on as if The Internet is some sort of newfangled marvel and just allow the characters to use it without acting all incredulous about it.
Coming tomorrow: Mort’s three-hundred pound box of old catalogs arrives and is unfortunately dropped on Ed’s oxygen hose. It crimps and he dies. Entire generations of comic strip readers shrug and/or say “what the hell is a “Crankshaft”?
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Does This Spell The End?
Having been informed in today’s strip that the name of his newfound comic book company is already trademarked, Chester decides to employ the strategy of phonetic misspelling that made the TurboGrafx-16 the number one name in video games.
I find this strip to be fairly discordant because of the use of “Grandpa Google” combined with the revelation that an Atomic Comics already once existed. First, “Grandpa Google”… please stop trying to either make this a thing people say or pretend that it already is a thing people say. It is not and it never will be. However, stupid as it is, I can allow that it is some kind of in-universe slang. But that brings in the second point of discord. If this is a fictional universe in which people say “Grandpa Google” without being blackmailed then why does “Atomic Comics” have to be an unusable trademark? Skirting a real-life trademark is a spectacularly uninteresting story arc, not to mention that “Atomik Komix” isn’t likely to stave off a lawsuit that “Atomic Comics” would invite anyways. This makes the set up of The Phantom Menace look like Macbeth.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Not Too Swift
Today’s strip has been upended, leaving only a narrow width within which to frame Pete and his pretty prey. Was Googling Pete part of Mindy’s premier prep duties? In particular, researching his arrest record? Though his record is likely clean, ’round here we all know Pete’s shady history, including changing his surname as well as his proclivity for flrting with high school girls.
My less-than-encyclopedic knowledge of the “Crankiverse,” and the decade-wide time gap existing between Centerview and Westville, make it impossible to discern Cind—dammit!—Mindy’s true age, but we’ll slot her in that same vague twentythirtysomthing range along with Pete, Darin, and Jess. One thing these two both have in common: they both refer to the famous search engine as “Grandpa Google“, making them two of the only three people on earth to refer to Google in this manner.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Son of Stuck Funky 
