Did you ever attempt to explain a FW story arc to a non-FW reader? “Well, these two characters are driving from Ohio to Florida to pick up the one character’s mother so they can bring her to a Big Alumni Band Reunion and today the one character falls asleep in the car”. Then you get the “look” every FW reader gets when they try to explain the strip to those who’ve never dipped their toes in Batiuk’s tepid pool of failure and apathy. It’s very similar to today’s panel three.
Tag: Holly
Reach Out And Punch Someone
Ha ha, look, a callback to a recent arc! You remember, the one where Holly was all upset because Cory never answers her calls! Remarkably, it’s still exactly as funny as it was the first time. Even funnier is the wary look on Funky’s face, good thing they left Mr. Weisenheimer in charge instead of someone qualified. Nice going, fatso.
So I guess they’re really taking this trip to Florida. Holly and Funky in a car together for six days…(shudder). That’s considered torture in some countries. Not this one, though. At this rate the Alumni Reunion Band thing could take years to play out. Then again, tomorrow’s strip could feature Funky and Holly talking about the trip and the reunion in the past tense and honestly I wouldn’t even bat an eye. After yesterday’s strip, a two-week car ride arc is the least of our problems, as a senior citizen marching band arc appears to be, uh, looming, let’s say. Sigh.
Those eyeballs in the corner really freaked me out until I realized it’s just the Montoni’s logo in the window. The sudden attention to detail really threw me off.
They’re Gonna Need A Bigger Pack
Fanny Packard? Because Funky and Holly are old boring fuddy-duddies who wear fanny packs? Ummm, OK then. “Things to do…”???? They’re picking up Holly’s mother, not going sightseeing. You can almost see BatNom’s self-satisfied smirk as he set down his felt-tip after coming up with this stellar bit of wordplay. Geez. Just when you think an arc bottoms out, Batom lowers the floor.
The Ups And Downs Of Being Funky
In a strip where elderly Alzheimer patients cut albums in Memphis and surf the web like pros and people take sixty-plus year breaks in their careers, this whole daffy premise is pretty tough to swallow. It’s astonishing how little Holly and her mother think of Funky, which is supposed to be the joke here I guess. He can’t even count on his own wife to have his back, as she has no qualms at all about forcing him to close up shop and take a four thousand mile round trip with his mother-in-law, which would be valid grounds for divorce in at least forty-nine US states but unfortunately for Funky, not in Ohio.
Poor Funky, the FW character you always laugh at, never with. Every single other character in the strip is a wry wisecracking wordplay machine, snidely smirking after another unbearably clever pun or smart-alecky remark, but never Funky. Funky just shuts up and takes it, week after week, year after year, decade after decade, all because he was the “normal well-adjusted” kid in high school and BatNom will never let him live it down. The guy survived crippling alcoholism and an even more crippling car crash to become the local president of the chamber of commerce and the only most successful businessman in town. He’s convivially and generously hosted and/or catered literally every single major social event the town has ever seen, he’s employed a bevy of family members and pals at his restaurant and he’s acted as a kind and patient landlord too.
His reward? To be kicked and kicked again, over and over. His family doesn’t respect him at all, his friends mock him, he suffers from a litany of health woes and he’s fat, old and physically repulsive. The guy who writes this thing never stops heaping abuse on him and (oddly enough) it just makes it impossible for me to truly hate him like I hate Les and Lisa and Darin and Dinkle and Pete and Holly and Cory and Summer (whoever she is) and Chester and Mason and Cliff and Becky and Cindy and Vera and Crazy and Owen and Cody and Nate and Cayla and that bus driver (I forget his name) and the other characters (except Buddy, as I really love that dog).
Let that be a lesson to all those kids out there just now discovering FW (guf-faw) for the first time: don’t peak in high school. Pick a thing (dork, stoner, “it” girl, baton twirler, jock) and f*cking run with it because living down your high school identity will be the most important thing you ever do. Also, invest in comic books and whatever you do do NOT get involved in the pizza industry, although eating it three times a day is fine. See, there’s actual educational content in this strip, you just have to wade through forty-plus years of crap to find it.
And The Bland Played On
The good news: no comic books!!! The bad news: mail is still playing a pivotal role in the strip.
Let’s take a moment to talk about shitty storytelling. Holly has apparently just opened her invitation to the Big Band Alumni Reunion Event (sigh), which oughta be a real barn-burner by the way. Yet somehow, despite just finding out about it, she knows that a) her mother was also inexplicably invited, b) she wants to attend and c) she wants them to drive to Florida to pick her up. Which opens a whole host of mysteries best left unsolved, which they no doubt will be.
I don’t remember Holly’s mom being a character in the strip at all, which seems to indicate that the “goal” here is a) more “adorable old coot” humor and b) another excuse to trot out Holly’s Act I flaming baton trick persona, neither of which has generated a lot of clamor among FW’s (chortle) fan base as far as I can tell. Anyone who’s had anything whatsoever to do over the last forty years has forgotten all about Holly’s baton silliness and if FW contained any more “adorable old coot” gags it’d come with a year’s supply of Coumadin. Unless this Big Band Alumni Reunion Event (sigh) is just another excuse to have the loathsome Dinkle wobble down Act I Memory Lane yet again, which seems sort of likely given the premise here.
Son of Stuck Funky 