The Nitwit’s Guide To The Funkyverse

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Owen: the dirty-looking one with the goofy hat.

Cody: Owen’s pathetic sidekick who rarely gets dialog these days.

Alex: the girl!

John: Becky’s husband, owner of Komix Korner, all-around putz. Known as Skunk Head due to the hair.

Komix Korner: Westview’s premier creepy comic book shop and main loitering spot for local losers.

Holly: Funky’s wife, slow on the uptake, needs a real hobby.

The answer to the ultimate FW question? Zero times zero equals zero.

Hmmm, when did they legalize weed in Ohio? I can’t bash this one too much as it’s an upgrade over the last two week’s worth of aimless pointless meandering. At least there’s sort of a point, kinda. Although if you’re not familiar with Douglas Adams, you’re obviously going to be lost here. But hey, they’re discussing a NON-comic NON-Les book here, so let’s just enjoy it for variety’s sake, OK? This might not happen again for years, if not decades.

No Good Deed Goes Un-Comic Booked

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So Holly somehow topped Chester The Chiseler’s $50,000 bid in order to repay John for helping her to acquire a bunch of Starbuck Jones comic books for nothing? And now John owes Holly at least $50,001 for the favor? Welcome to BanTom’s whacked-out comic book-centric fantasy world, where happiness is bagged, slabbed, tagged and longboxed. There’s no need to point out the gigantic logic holes here, as the entire thing is a huge logic hole. I don’t mean this story specifically, I mean the entire strip.

Get a load of Skunky’s unbridled joy upon learning that he now owes Holly a cool fifty grand. Why, he’s just like a kid whose parents put themselves into crippling debt to buy him a candy store! I certainly hope Holly hides the vodka and firearms BEFORE she informs Funky about this rather implausible development, or we’ll be re-visiting Act II before you know it.

And, uh, what happened to Dick Tracy? It’s like the big crossover never even happened, which in a way it kind of didn’t, now that I think about it. Oh well, at least it didn’t involve Les in any way, thank God.

Whole Lot Of Dumb

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So which premise is more unlikely? That Holly could somehow scrape together $50,001 to spend on comic books she didn’t even know about until earlier that same day or that the detective that cracked the case that eventually made the comic books available to be auctioned off in the first place would hang around for that auction AND hand-deliver the comics to the auction winner whom he doesn’t even know? If you answered “both”, congrats. I know I’ve been pounding on this theme all week but seriously, someone over there at Batom Inc. HQ really needs to tap TheAuthor on the shoulder and snap him out of this bizarre comic book fantasy reverie he’s in, as it’s getting out of hand. It’s almost as if depicting DT delivering boxes of comic books was his goal and he wrote the “story” around making that scene happen. And that’s just f*cking weird.

Coming next week: the long-rumored FW/For Better Or For Worse crossover finally begins. Over in the FBOFW-iverse, Funky hits Farley the dog with his car just as Michael opens his rejection letter from comic book writing school at the same moment his gay best friend’s grandfather dies at his sister’s shotgun wedding. Meanwhile, the Pattersons visit Westview and debate the merits of Silver Age vs. Golden Age comic books while eating pizza. Or, alternately, they eat comic books while reading pizza, as if there’s any difference anymore.

Fifty Shades Of Lame

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For a vaunted and feared comic book chiseler, Chester kind of lacks a working knowledge of how auctions normally work. He’s not “chiseling” correctly either. And there’s no need to shout, the auctioneer is standing right there to the left of the panel there, Chester. In typical FW fashion, our “heroes” show up for an auction lot containing a trove of rare and valuable comic books with a whole fifty bucks scorching a hole in their pockets. Good plan there, guys. Thankfully they’re able to shrug off their idiocy with a wry remark and those “deadpan” expressions, which no doubt sent BanTom to the floor of his studio with a massive laughing fit right after he dreamed this bit of nonsense up. Well, I guess it’s marginally better than not amusing anyone whatsoever, right?

FW routinely botches even the easiest of premises, but this one might mark a new low. The guy gets an opportunity to use an “iconic” (much more so than any FW character at any rate) comic strip character in his daily strip and instead of doing anything that’s even remotely different or entertaining he decides to make it all about a f*cking comic book auction. It’s mid-week and DT isn’t even there today! Why even bother with DT at all if this is all you have? He’s a f*cking detective, TB, have the guy go find Becky’s mom or Harry’s missing kids or your sense of humor (provided there’s enough time for that last one, that is).

Throwing Shade

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That was fast. Dick Tracy is indeed in the strip, but today he’s only playing a background role as BanTom has decided to focus on two totally forgotten stupid one-off characters from last year’s idiotic Starbuck Jones arc instead. So typically self-indulgent. I can’t believe he’s actually making this DT crossover arc all about a f*cking comic book auction, I mean talk about a lack of imagination.