Tag: Logan Church

The Thousand Panel Stare

Kids don’t read newspapers or newspaper comics these days… Boo hoo, so sad, this generation is killing the papers and the cartoonists, blah blah blah yackity smackity… Sorry, don’t care. I’ve heard it all before, and in better comic strips to boot.

Today’s strip is bland, rote filler in a dumb, overplayed story arc, but… that second panel. Chuck Ayers artwork since taking over duties in Funky a couple years ago has taken a good step back from the solid work he did for many years in Crankshaft I would argue, but the second panel in today’s strip is a genuinely excellent piece of cartooning. The beady eyes, the nonplussed expressions, the unrealistic density of students packed into every millimeter of the panel… you can practically hear the crickets chirping in background of this non-reaction. It is an extremely rare and truly good thing to see in Funky Winkerbean. What a pity it isn’t in the service of a better joke.

Ultima Thulame*

*(Pronounced “Too Lame”)

Link To The Sunday Strip

What’s with the “pronounced Tor” gag there in panel four? Another sly dig at Hollywood? In order for something to be an “inside joke” someone else needs to get it, so I don’t know.

So poor, poor Klabichnik is annoyed and frustrated by his sub-cretinous students…there’s a theme FW rarely touches upon. It might make more of an impact if it wasn’t the punchline of every single FW teacher/student gag, but then again probably not.

It’s all the Streets you crossed not so long ago

Link to today’s strip (eventually).

As usual, Sunday’s exertion was not available for preview.  Perhaps it’ll be another semi-pleasant interlude with Funky and Holly, though since they got their own…”story” last week, Batiuk might feel we’re sick of them.  And he’d be right!  Of course, we’re sick of all of his characters, but no matter.

Maybe it will be a bunch of pictures of houses or trees or something, with no characters.  That would be the best Sunday strip ever!

The Les You Know-Part 6

Link to today’s strip (eventually).

Saturday’s strip was unavailable for preview, but we all know we’re going to get another Kids Today Are Terrible lesson.

It’s funny (in a peculiar way) how Les has spent an entire week telling the kids what a newspaper is, and this hasn’t dissuaded him at all from his plan of having them write for one.  Of course, has he really gone into any details of what the kids should be writing about–their experience at the fair, the stories of the folks running it, an overview of events…no, apparently “You’ll write for the paper” is all the instruction he intends to give.

Now, I haven’t seen the strip, so it’s possible that Batiuk’s baiting us, and that Saturday’s egg will be jam packed with informative and insightful content.  But, you know, trolling people for five days sounds stupid, not to mention “informative and insightful content” takes actual work–something Batiuk seems loathe to do.

I guess we’ll all find out together!

The Les You Know-Part 5

Link to today’s strip.

I suppose it’s natural for Tom Batiuk to resent the decline of newspapers–they are, after all, his bread and butter.  And I can’t really argue with Les’ dismissal of Logan’s question–this crew has proven itself remarkably cretinous.  (How much of this can be laid at Les’ feet is a question studiously avoided.)  It still seems rather nasty-minded, though.

Plus, if they spend all their time on their smartphones and their Nintendos, being internuts and twitter tots, how are they going to know what a “gas station” is?

A high point is Bernie’s expression in panel two:  Whoah–you’re actually wanting to do extra work?  What’s wrong with you?