Tag: Les

Racqueteering

I mentioned yesterday that I don’t play or know anything about tennis, right? So, as is often the case when trying to grasp a Tom Batiuk punchline, it was necessary to resort to Google to try and understand today’s strip.

Googling “why two tennis rackets” turned up, among other results, this page titled “Why two racquets?” which suggests you should have “one for your service game and one [slightly heavier] for your receiving game.” I found a 2009 article at the New York Times about a guy who believes “playing tennis with a racket in each hand improves brain function and balance.” While Funky, given his genetics, should be concerned about brain function, that’s probably not what’s going on here. Tennis.com‘s editor states that “players carry multiple racquets, of the same make/model, so that they’ll be prepared in case one’s strings break,” which makes a little more sense.

What doesn’t make sense is Les’ action in panel 1: it looks as if he’s rubber-cemented his two rackets together and now must pry them apart.

Blame the Balls

Hello there, snarkers, and welcome to Son of Stuck Funky’s 3,000th post! Once again, big ups to Beckoning Chasm, Epicus, and the rest of the author roster, and to all who read and contribute and comment.

When SoSF began, that week’s arc involved Funky and Les closing up Montoni’s New York City location. Today we see the same two old(er) pals playing—well, talking about playing—tennis.  “That tennis lesson I took isn’t helping much…” I think when it comes to tennis, “lesson” needs to be plural before one’s game begins to show improvement. Now, I’m not a sporto, and I know nothing about tennis: I have no idea how using old tennis balls vs. new would affect one’s play. But I do know that decent quality tennis balls cost between four and eight bucks for a can of three; might be worthwhile to invest, if it’s that much of a “problem”. And I know that tennis balls are usually a bright green-yellow, and somewhat larger than that tiny white orb Funky is gingerly holding in panel 3.

Rich Burchett is back behind the Funky Pencil, as you can tell by the dizzying upward perspective in panel 1. Judging from the orangey background, Funky and Les are playing their match either at sunset, or amid a flaming hellscape.

No

Today’s strip shows the unbelievably named Maris Rogers giving an unbelievable impromptu news cast about the unbelievably petty problem of Les blowing through his monthly copier privileges. But what’s most unbelievable about it is that any student who goes to Westview High would actually be willing to defend this jackass. Les, on the rare occasions  when he’s actually shown teaching, is an extraordinary asshole to his students. It simply wrecks my suspension of disbelief that the three students on the Bleat would go up against their principal, in such an inflammatory fashion, to defend this insulting prick. Perhaps that’s why the diminutive Bernie Silver is conspicuously missing.

Btw, I find it instructive that in order to find a sequence of Les actually teaching a class rather than insulting his students over parental permission for a Washington D.C. trip or simply grandstanding, I had to go back nearly five years.

Anyway, if the copier limitations that Les so strenuously protests were so draconian, you’d think the improbably named Maris Rogers (was Ruth Babe too obvious?) would find a more sympathetic teacher than the one who’s been throwing a massive hissy all week before no doubt going back to insult his students yet again.

Missed open layup

Today’s strip shows Les continuing to chase Nate around to berate him over his copier use. And not surprisingly, he’s wrong. He’s not being penalized. He’s simply not getting credit for it. He’s not allotted fewer copies than his fellow teachers. He gets just as many, but since he decided to go double sided, he used half as many pages. It’s not Nate’s fault, or the fault of the other teachers that Les was sloppy when heeding the rules.

But I’m more annoyed by the punchline. Batiuk uses a legal term, “don’t make a federal case out of it”, but rather than bringing the Legal Society students in, he brings in the kids in the journalism club (media club, or whatever the hell it is). Wouldn’t a better punchline be “don’t turn this into a front page story”? Or “don’t make a national story of this”? You know, something to reflect the fact that these kids are specifically in the school’s media news activity?

But I don’t know why I’m annoyed. To mix my metaphors, flubbing an open layup like this is par for the course as far as Batiuk’s concerned.