Tag: holidays

Bird Up!

Contrary to popular legend, there is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever publicly supported the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), rather than the bald eagle, as a symbol of the United States.

You know who else suggested that the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, should be the national bird of the United States? Not Ben Franklin, according to Auntie Wikipedia. Perhaps Dinkle knows this, and he’s delivering the “national bird” remark satirically. This is supported by the fact that he’s smirking so hard when he says it that his mouth threatens to escape his face. But wait, here comes the punchline and…it’s…Butterbald? Hell no, I’ve never heard of a Butterbald Eagle. Or a “Butterbald” anything! Did Batty feel that the good people at Butterball® LLC wouldn’t be OK with a free mention in 400 newspapers right before Thanksgiving? Batiuk’s propensity for coming up with jokey, soundalike “brand names” once again tramples what would have been a borderline decent gag.

TurDinken

I, your genial host, on behalf of myself and the rest of Team SoSF, stand in line for comicbookharriet and her always unique and entertaining take on Funky!

I don’t know about you, but Thanksgiving reminds us to be grateful to have made it nearly to the end of this calamitous year. Whatever else can be said about the distortion of time in the Funkiverse, the holidays usually coincide with our own, and Thanksgiving brings the Scapegoats’ annual fall fundraiser. I didn’t call it the “band turkey sale” because, in addition to turkeys and “rand curdy“, Becky and Dinkle have gone door-to-door peddling non-comestibles, like mattresses, and indigestibles (volume 3 of Dinkle’s autobiography).

(This time last year)

COVID-19 has yet to arrive in Westview, and depending on how you reckon strip time, it might yet take place ten years before or hence (yours truly is betting that the characters in FW will finally begin sporting masks sometime in March 2021). But you have to give Becky credit for having the foresight to take the whole thing “totally online” via Bandigogo™ a year ago. She showed this accomplishment off to Dinkel, who either didn’t comprehend or care; that is, until Becky got to the part about never having “to actually touch a turkey.” Looking at today’s strip, we can understand why this resonated with so strongly with Harry. “Why, when I was band director,” Dinkel himself would show up at your door, proffering an unfrozen, unwrapped, whole uncooked turkey. In his bare hands. This is about as far as you can get from today’s “contactless delivery.”

When Batiuk inserts flashback scenes showing the casts in their Act I & II iterations, those scenes usually employ the sepia tones and photo album corners. I’m wondering if that visual shorthand only applies when it’s a conscious flashback and not a dream? At any rate, contrast young Harry the Hat’s nearly featureless mug with his exquisite, old man grimace in panel 3.

Snark and Gripes Forever

Will ya get a load of Dinkle’s friend’s wife? Talk about “hair in a color that only yarn comes in“! “Busy Harry” Dinkle has taken a break from writing books that no one reads, and has squeezed into his old uniform to conduct the annual July 4 concert. Sadly, the music ensemble from Bedside Manor has been decimated by Covid-19, leaving only Mort Winkerbean on trombone and some new guy on sousaphone who, judging from all the notes above him, is really wailing.  It is here in the park that this guy casually informs his wife of his decision not to retire.

Miscellany: Does anyone else see Act I Les and Lisa in the audience? Has the time pool opened up again?

NTYFGTL Day

More like National Sneak Up Behind Your Favorite Guy and Startle the Shit out of Him While He’s Working Day, according to the motion lines alongside Darin’s elongated head.

“This is a Cintiq, a 3D drawing board. I’m actually more comfortable working at my old drawing board, which I bought in junior high school for $25. At the time, it seemed like a lot of money. It’s where I do most of my work.”

Tom Batiuk, February 2016

Good enough for Tom Batiuk, good enough for Darin, who sits at a rather small, inclined drawing table under a vintage “floating” draughtsman’s lamp. Very old school and analog, and it makes me wonder how Mindy is able to do her coloring (remember, she thinks Dr. Martins is a brand of footwear).

Facing the Music.

Link to today’s strip

Went on a weird journey for today’s post. At first I was just going to point out bad art. Like Dinkle touching his face with a tiny little prop hand. Then it occurred to me that Dinkle has touched his face in shocked contemplation no less than three times this week, which is gross and not something you want to be doing during cold and flu season.

But I stopped when I noticed that Becky mentioned practicing music for the Christmas Concert…because Westview doesn’t have a Christmas Concert. They have a Holiday Concert, so as to not offend those who do not celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, and/or a night where the undead soul of a fourth century Turkish bishop breaks into people’s homes. I had vague recollections of an entire Holiday Concert arc dealing with Principal Nate becoming a somehow more exaggerated prototype of South Park’s PC Principal. So I dug into the archives, and sure enough there was an arc from December 7th through the 13th in 2015.

My trip took me farther back, because I decided to review some of the tired old Band Turkey gags, and I discovered that Dinkle himself assisted Becky in selling something other than turkeys back in 2014.

Then I looked up, and right there, November 2014, I found the arc where Bull had been offered a college coaching position, only to have it snatched away from him when the college’s first choice called back. And I was stunned to see that, five years ago, Batiuk thought to include a strip where Bull and Linda include their children in life decisions. Probably the last time Jinx has spoken in strip.

Reading that arc again, after everything, had me genuinely sad. And also kind of grossed out. Because Batiuk wrote Linda as incredibly horny back then.