John Darling – Page 6 – Son of Stuck Funky

Hello Darling

Programming note: Monday’s strip won’t drop until midnight eastern, so expect another “placeholder” post. Thanks!

Now this strip from last March (see detail) makes sense: the “we” moving back to Ohio is not Darin and Jess, but Darin and Pete. Turns out Boy Lisa was right, too. Jessica seems to have adjusted very well to being a long distance wife and mother. Shouldn’t she be “trying to sublet the apartment and wrap[ping] up her documentary film work with Cindy”? Instead, she’s lounging on the deck enjoying her fifth Ketel and tonic. She’s so sloshed that she accidentally texts her mother, who is grateful for this misdirected crumb of affection.

Readers of the official FW blog will recognize the bespectacled geek dad in panel one as John Darling, Jessica’s father who was murdered. Unless they read today’s “dialogue,” though, they’ll have a hard time figuring out that the woman who looks exactly like Jessica but with different hair is her mom Jan. As drawn by Tom Armstrong, Jan Murdock was quite the hottie. Batiuk (and the returning Rick Burchett) render her using the Blandly Attractive White Female Template.

The Hair-ried Author

Oh no, Les is back in today’s strip. And along with ol’ smirk n’ shirk we get three would-be nominees for This Week In Milford’s pantheon of hair. Let’s see… we’ve got a phone camera operator sporting a Dave Coulier mullet, a proud Lisa book-buyer wearing the Luke Skywalker, and someone so enthralled with the many justifications for John Darling’s murder in Fallen Star that they are morphing into Albert Einstein. Fantastic.

Well, that took my mind off of yet another strip where Les shows contempt for the people who want to give him money for his work, for a few minutes at least.

Thanks, SOSFers, for putting up with me and TB (mostly TB… I hope) for another two weeks. The unenviable task of covering a crazed bald man palming two imaginary grapefruits (and whatever else next week brings) falls to someone significantly more well-known to the average comic strip reader than Phil the Forecaster, our own Comic Book Harriet. Good luck.

Snow Job

Phil is implored to give the viewers one more forecast in today’s strip, a forecast so far out that even a good meteorologist would just be guessing.

And that’s… it? We spent a week watching the fifth or sixth most-prominent character from a decades dead comic strip get ceremoniously fired from a job we didn’t know he still held.

A lot of Funky Winkerbean story arcs make we scratch my head, but this one may have me wearing in a bald spot. I mean, I like a good deep cut reference as much as the next person but that doesn’t mean I would subject anyone to a week of posts consisting of nothing but Tonio K lyrics and Cattanooga Cats references. Well, at least Les wasn’t involved in this one.

Comic A-trophy

Apologies for the late post, but after reading today’s strip you may want me to apologize for posting at all.

Phil gets a final farewell for 45 years of (poor) service at the station. OK, I get that.

He is given a gag award (swiped from a cameraman’s daughter’s bedroom no doubt) for said service. I’d get it if it was played as an inside joke, but it is clearly intended to be an insult, so… what?

Then an anchor airs some of his dirty laundry on the air. Uh…

This strip took 100 steps and went nowhere. Phil’s award, at least, was better than the gift Coach Stropp got at his (forced) retirement party.

A Special Denouncement

It’s about time! I was wondering if we’d ever get there, but today’s strip finally gives us the call back to John Darling we’ve been expecting. Yes, Phil is terrible at his (former) job, just like he was back in 1979. Back then, making fun of the local weather forecaster was a comedy trend surpassed only by making fun of Billy Carter…

This strip appeared opposite an ad imploring you to come test drive the all-new Chevrolet Citation…

Oh, for Pete’s sake!

I remain baffled by the pie case at Montoni’s. Who eats pie there?
That’s a rhetorical question of course, nobody eats anything at Montoni’s. Not even Crazy, who is only ever seen there sipping a bottomless coffee or soda and avoiding his job. But still, what’s with the pie case?