Porch Wry-rates

Cue the laugh track for today’s strip… because otherwise there’s just this long, awkward pause between non-jokes. It’s like a newsprint manifestation of those “sitcom without the laugh track” videos, only more more cringe-inducing. Why are these two ostensible friends (one of whom is terminally ill) being insufferable to each other? This kind of thing works when you establish that the two characters have some type of relationship and that unbearable wryness is their M.O. As far as I know, Crazy and Lisa never had much of a relationship of any kind (he was Les’ weirdo buddy), much less a whole Gilmore Girls thing going on.

Lisa really let Harry slide on that face after saying she didn’t feel as bad as she looked? Sure, she’s dressed like Crankshaft, but she’s also sick and at her own home. He’s the one who went out in public dressed like Gallagher wearing a Paul Simon Halloween costume.

It belongs in a mausoleum!

Today’s strip appears to be the latest installment of one of TB’s most recent recyclable story concepts: “old person has a Lisa flashback in front of Summer”. Of course, it’s also the latest installment in his most overplayed story… but we all knew we would be back here eventually.

Just how many Lisa tapes are there? We can see 5 or 6 peeking out of the top of the box Crazy is carrying today, meaning there are probably at least 10 total in the box. The box Summer brought to him close to seven years ago was about twice as deep, also with about 5 or 6 tapes visible out of the top. This suggests that there are about two dozen tapes, over two full days worth of Lisa video assuming she recorded a full 2 hours in SP mode on each tape.

Regardless of how many of these tapes there are, they can’t be much more than conversation pieces now given that Crazy baked them when converting them all those years ago. Not that Les wanted anyone conversing about them despite having 7 or more of them on prominent display in his living room.

Yes Mam…No Mam…

Perfect Tommy
April 17, 2022 at 11:23 am
At least Crazy didn’t run up to Lisa and loudly insist that she get a certain part of her anatomy examined. That might trigger some alarms.

Guess we’ll start calling you Prescient Tommy! Yep, Crazy, almost as an afterthought to brokering the eventual marriage of Lisa and Les, remembers something important that he probably ought to relate to young Lisa Crawford. Our security guard Cliff seems to have administered some kind of Vulcan Nerve Pinch, which renders Crazy Harry mute before he can blurt out “…a mammogram! Ask your doctor or your Mom but you must listen to me! Please!”

Please Re-Lisa Me, Les Me Go

It’s been great being able to comment on one of the weirder recent arcs.

spacemanspiff85, yesterday

And kudos to you, Spiff, for the past fortnight of great posts!

Listen: Harry Klinghorn has come unstuck in time. Harry has gone to sleep a befuddled boomer and…well, he’s still a befuddled boomer but he’s revisiting his high school years. He has walked through a door in 2022 and come out another one in…‘78? ‘88? Who the fuck knows?

Oh yeah, nothing sketchy at all about a graybearded stranger accosting a teenage girl outside the high school to talk about boys. But hey, that’s Crazy Harry! Mousy Lisa, for her part, is not the least bit fazed to find herself chatting with this weirdo.

Les’ teenaged penchant for hanging out alone in the bleachers (during lunch…after lunch, he would probably be expected in class) actually is a recurring Act I theme. And, speaking of Act I, who else remembers Westview High School’s Cliff the Security Guard? Me neither! But I’ll bet he and classic Crazy Harry were well acquainted, and they’re about to meet again…across…the Time Zone!


Hey Snarkers! Amidst all the “excitement” of Tom Batiuk’s 75th birthday, and Funky Winkerbean‘s 50th anniversary, I sort of let the 12th anniversary of Son of Stuck Funky go by unremarked. Yep, on April 9th, 2010, we picked up the sputtering torch of the original Stuck Funky, and kindled it into a blazing…well, into a very niche comics snark blog. A long-running comics snark blog, and this never would have happened without the contribution of Epicus Doomus, billytheskink, ComicBookHarriet, spacemanspiff85, beckoningchasm, and everyone who over the years has guest-authored, commented, or just read and enjoyed. Batty is showing no inclination to putting down the Funky Felt Tip, so stick with Team SoSF, the web’s premiere source for Funky Winkerbean snark. Thanks all!

Creepy Harry

Of course, you can’t have a time travel story without Lisa. It’s inevitable.

It’s already creepy enough for sixty-ish Harry to be walking up to a high school girl who doesn’t know him and address her by name, but telling her he’s been to the school before doesn’t help. Lisa really should know better than to stop and engage some random old guy who’s approaching her, but this is Lisa after all, she clearly has bad judgment when it comes to men.

I’m positive someone Harry’s age is bound to have friends or family who aren’t alive in 2022 anymore, but apparently he doesn’t care at all about seeing them. All he cared about was himself (literally), and visiting high school again, which is so typical of characters in this strip. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if he somehow enrolled in high school again (it turns out he’s missing a credit!) or becomes a teacher, and that lets Batiuk reboot everything.

It’s been great being able to comment on one of the weirder recent arcs. TFHackett gets to take over tomorrow, when Harry probably tries to make Les and Lisa get married as teenagers or something.