Jim Kablichnik – Page 2 – Son of Stuck Funky

Bell Pepper Curve.

First of all, there is an absolute horror show of a human in the background. A literal dickhead emerging from a shirt made of pubes. The guy is smug as shit too. No doubt having just eaten an entire plate of the grilled processed meat tubes that he has descended from in some kind of twisted Westviewian evolution.

Does Westview grade on the curve? That’s a horrific thought. Because while some teacher claim that pretending that the smartest kid’s 85% correct on the test is the new 100% is ‘grading on the curve’, what it really means is the draconian application of the bell curve to the entire class. Every student ranked, in direct competition with the other students for the limited number of A’s, 40% of students doomed to C’s regardless of what actual percentage of the material they got correct. All your A or B tells you is that in Mrs. McGiggins 2005 Fall semester of Pre-Calculus you did better than 15 other people.

My junior year of high school, the calculus teacher was gone the entire year on maternity leave. For the first semester, they gave the advanced math students taking precalc and calc a teacher they had previously relegated to teaching remedial general math because she was so inept, despite the fact she was technically qualified. Because of her I never learned the difference between cosine and cosign.

When the most gifted kids in the school started struggling and complaining to their parents, the principal had the audacity to come to the class, pull out a bell curve and try to explain to us that, really, most of us SHOULD be getting C’s in the class.

I shot my hand right up and explained to the class that ‘the bell curve’ was both old-fashioned and unfair. We were supposed to be graded on the percentage of the material we got right, not in competition with other students for limited number of A’s. The fact that most of us were getting C’s meant that, as a class, we were understanding barely half of what we were being tested on. He fumbled around for a bit, but didn’t really have a good response. He was talking to the smartest kids in the school, and our GPA’s, and thus our college prospects, were on the line.

They pulled an old math teacher out of retirement for the next semester.

I remember the impotent frustration, the despair, and the eventual fatalistic resignation that we, as a class, felt that semester. So many of us just gave up trying. There was no reason to attempt to succeed on our own, because that would only hurt our classmates by driving up expectations. So most of us sat through every day of math class that semester, silent, sullen, and unresponsive.

What I’m saying is, I’m guessing that Westview grades on a curve.

Please, peas?

Link to today’s strip

So was Sunday a one-off as usual, or was Batiuk just really hungry so we’re going to get weeks of unrelated food strips? Or are we in for an entire week examining Les and Cayla’s weird aromantic relationship?

Yes, a black and white and sepia flashback, with old timey scrapbook corners, really takes me back to 2011. Makes me remember when Cayla didn’t look like someone dipped Cindy in chocolate.

Why is Bill Nye surprised someone is grilling hot dogs at a picnic? He is asking Les this, when the only possible alternative interpretation of the scene is that Les is about to skewer his wife with a hot poker. For a science teacher those are some top notch observation skills. I imagine he wanders about asking similar questions.

Enters his classroom. “So, you’re the students who are working on your science projects in my science class today?”

Standing in the lunch line. “So, you’re the the school cook, who cooks and serves the food to the students?”

Entering his bedroom. “So, you’re the man who’s been sleeping with my wife?”

Shooting Gallery

Today’s strip

Greetings, folks, BChasm temporarily in the captain’s chair for the next little while. What’s this?! The viewscreen shows a sea of hostiles–ready photon torpedoes! We must annihilate this threat before it spreads across the galaxy!

I’m going to skip over Mason’s “movie we filmed here,” comment, because while I don’t think any of the film was shot in Centerville, I honestly don’t remember the “school bus drives into shot” bit well enough, and–Tales to Astonish–I have no desire to look and see. So I’ll give him that.

What else? Well, we’ve got a crowd shot of almost everyone, including Les–which sets our Les Watch back to zero, damn it. At least he’s not saying anything, and is both poorly drawn and partly covered by a word balloon. Funny, though, I’d have expected both Comic Book John and Imbecilic Harry to be there, but I guess they got their exposure in at Comic Con, so no need to feature them any longer. But who is that between Jim KibblesNBits and Marianne? It looks like they flew Marianne’s mother out there after all! I guess?

The fact that so many of the cast and crew are in the audience–and sitting right up front, too–makes me wonder if Tom Batiuk believes that the first time anyone involved with a movie actually gets to see the finished film is at the premier. In the real world, the director would have seen the film dozens of times by now, and there’s almost always a screening for the cast and crew. So all these people would be backstage, or at the back of the hall, gauging audience reaction–pacing, room for laughs, people getting bored at certain parts, and so on–and looking for “oohs” and “aahs” for the cast members.

But not in the fantasy land that is the Funkyverse. Here, everything happens the way a five year old imagines that it happens–it’s all just magic, and friendship, and comic books and pizza, and it works every time! In a way, that sounds like an attractive world…for a few minutes. But after those few minutes, I’d want something of substance, something that would stir the imagination rather than just “be” everything forever.

Poorly thought-out as the Lisa stuff is, it’s at least an attempt to address adult concerns–something that a comic strip aimed at “contemporary problems of young people” should attempt more often. Because I’m pretty sure the contemporary problems of young people aren’t that they wish there were more comic-book movies.

The Long Goodbye…

…starts today, as Westview High School’s CCTV news program announces Bull’s retirement to the student body. I don’t know what to call it anymore, though, because apparently either Tom or his Sunday Artist Intern is spelling the title “The Bleet” nowadays. So, what do you think? Is T-Bats slipping in mistakes like this intentionally to screw around with the snark community, or is he just going a little soft in the noggin?

Since we’re talking about The Bleat/Bleet, say hello to Bernie Silver who seems to have inherited the anchor’s chair from Owen. And since he reports that the official retirement sendoff will be on Friday, we can probably expect the entirety of next week to depict =- or at least talk about – said ceremony.

So, we’ve got Bull’s retirement, a new anchor, and a stupid typo. Other than that, this is pretty much your typical mediocre Sunday throw-away, just like last week with Funky’s leafy hairline. I can’t help thinking, though, that Tom is setting Bull up for a fall. Look at Les in panel three. That filthy, squint-eyed, lifted-eyebrow smirk. He knows something, that smug fuccboi. I’m starting to hate Dick Facey as much as Epicus Doomus does.

CTRL-ALT-DULL

Link to today’s strip.

Well!…and that’s that. Anyone who thought that the computer might actually do something has to be contented with some hot wheeled-away action. Yet another disappointment, one supposes, though at least memories of the “fun” Act I weren’t ruined. In other words, it could have been worse. Far worse.

The way things develop in this strip is truly unfathomable; one can’t help but wonder why the computer was brought back at all, except 1) as a tease to long-time readers, only to be dashed to earth, signifying this strip is serious so look elsewhere for “fun”; 2) as a form of “striking the set,” ie, removing anything that might be entertaining, and 3) as a means to mention Starbuck Jones yet again, though Tom Batiuk is slipping by not using his full name. Which “Starbuck” is this, Tom, I’m all confused!

Maybe now that it has, *cough*, contributed, the computer will go to Washington DC on a senior class trip! That should take, oh, half an off-screen panel.

For someone who contributed nothing at all this week, Les sure looks remarkably smug in panel one (though to be fair, that’s his default expression). And in panel two, Tom Batiuk’s itch is finally scratched and Les opens his mouth. Jim Kibblesnbits is a complete ass, but I’m willing to reduce his massive negative score by one for shutting down Les. (Personally, I would have used one fewer syllable, if you know what I mean, but then that’s me.) His stance perfectly conveys utter contempt and disdain. Oh, I’m sure the lesson we’re supposed to take is that Les is so wise and deep, such that no one is capable of swimming in his waters. They’d rather stay in the warm, ignorant shallows. Anyone who has read this strip for any length of time will take the opposing view, that Les is being deservedly beached on his deserted isle.

Jim Kibblesnbits is one of those characters who rarely appears, but like a fly discovered embedded in the lemon meringue, his rarity doesn’t lesson his loathsomeness in any way. He shines out like a rotten, crumbling sun, spraying sickly light on vast dead plateaus and their attendant population of shriveling bacteria and scrubby lichens. Today, though, in this one thing, I give him a half-lidded smirk and the offhand flick of a salute. Here, I wish more people would look to him as an example. (And nowhere else.) He’s been an ass all his life, and he’ll be an ass tomorrow, but tonight by God he’s everyone’s hero.

The three of them walking away from an already forgotten, completely despised Les is a truly poetic image, made more so by the vent lines on the locker near Les’ mouth. It looks like he’s bleating…which he probably is.

Les should be broken in half, placed in a paper bag on your worst enemy’s doorstep, then lit on fire. Ring the doorbell and prepare to be entertained.