Tag: holidays

Every Kick Begins with Cayla

O.B. Dan
December 28, 2012 at 12:56 am
Is it just me, or does anybody else see that Cayla has put a little edge on since she married The Grounded One?

Since her “best thing that ever happened to me moment” last fall, Cayla has seemed kinda cranky, as the enormity of the mistake she made in marrying Les has begun to set in. Today she lets slip that Les is not her first choice to spend New Year’s Eve with, before regaining her composure in panel 3 and offering a weak apology. Is Les offended? Not at all: he’s already got a date for when the clock strikes twelve…

The Child Is Father to the Man

Well, we let him get away with it yesterday, but Batiuk goes back to the well again today to try and wring a little more pathos outta Pop. Today’s comic is perhaps notable because it’s the only time that I know of where we’ve seen Funky’s mother, a rather nondescript needlenosed and chinless Batiuk female.

O Come Let Us Adore Cory

Sigh. Gonna tread lightly today. After all, it’s Christmas. I sense that many if not most of you reading this are boomers like myself, which makes us close in age to Funky and the gang. Hence, we’ve watched Mom and Dad grow old, and maybe one or both have passed away. And many of our first and fondest memories, especially today, are of our parents. So while I have a beef with how Batiuk uses Pa Winkerbean as a prop rather than a person (another character whose name we’re never told), this one does tug a bit.

While it’s impossible to read Pa’s expression here, one thing’s for sure: Army life seems to agree with Cory. He appears relaxed and smiling, his unruly hair now shorn “high and tight” and his Wilma Flintstone necklace presumably replaced by dogtags. I’m wondering if in the coming year he’ll have an arc devoted to his life as a soldier, or if he’ll simply live on as a face on Skype.

Wishing you the happiest of holidays

and the brightest of new years! Stay Funky!

—TFHackett

What a Dickens

Well, for starters, it’s Bob Cratchit, not “Cratchet”. And what’s going on with Crazy’s proportions in panel 1? It appears he’s so bent on assuming Kevin’s role at Komix Korner that he’s actually becoming a little person himself! Or perhaps he’s just “dwarfed” by John in his Jolly Green Giant pose. That symbol on John’s t-shirt means something, but I know not what, nor care, though it’s nice to see him sporting something besides the Batman logo.

Christmas Past

TheDiva
December 22, 2012 at 12:06 am
Because we all know how much interest Funky and Les showed in music and singing back in the Act I days…well, I can’t think of any right now, but I’m sure they exist, because otherwise Batiuk would just be pulling random bits of backstory out of his ass for the sake of a cheap gag, and we all know he has too much artistic integrity for that.

I’m not using the above quote here to show up TheDiva, because I’d never have recalled this either (the most musical one of the gang was Crazy Harry with his air guitar). But today Batiuk gifts us with an Act I strip to prove that, yes, Virginia, they really did go Christmas caroling.

I’m convinced that TB’s reproducing a vintage strip here, rather than trying to recreate his old style, as he’s done in the past with mixed results. The logo in panel 1 is the old style. Even the lettering in the dialog balloons is somehow more cheerful. Compare it to the lettering in the weird snow globe that shows our current-day cast: the “L’s” had yet to acquire their painful hump.

Les and Funky, see how young and how likeable! The redhead, of course, is poor, doomed Livinia. I have no idea who the blond girl is, or why she’d have anything to do with Les, even back then. Dig those bell-bottoms in the penultimate panel silhouette! Lastly, it’s interesting to note that before he started taking himself so seriously, Batiuk could use excessive drinking to get laughs.