Montoni's – Page 11 – Son of Stuck Funky

A Dressing Down.

Oh good. I was getting worried. We hadn’t seen Montoni’s in what feels like FOREVER and I was starting to wonder if Batiuk had forgotten about it, just like he forgot about Wally Jr or Crazy Harry’s children.

I said once that I thought Lisa’s Legacy was the Axis Mundi around which this entire universe turned, and while Dead St Lisa is certainly the spiritual heart, the physical center of the Funkyverse is this stupid little pizza joint. Monk’s Cafe in Seinfeld, or the Central Perk in Friends pale in comparison to this monolith.

As many of you know, Montoni’s is based off of the real restaurant Luigi’s located in Akron, Ohio. So, today’s strip instantly raises the question, does Luigi’s sell salad dressing. After a little digging using that internet Dinkle loathes so much, I found out that yes Luigi’s does offer bottled Italian salad dressing for sale in store. Seven-fifty will buy you this little number.

Really, looking at Luigi’s, they should be insulted by the Montoni’s comparison. Sure, they share a band box, and a counter with stools, but Luigi’s looks like a decent place, with a much more inviting and charming interior. By all the accounts I read, this place is almost always packed, and with a line waiting outside.

They do have weird idiosyncrasies, like not accepting credit cards, instead having an ATM in the back that doesn’t print out cash, but prints out a receipt to use up front. And the monstrosity below is their interpretation of a salad.

Weirdest of all, while scrolling through pictures of Luigi’s looking for salad dressing, I found what must be the inspiration for another old Montoni’s friend. See if you can spot it.

Do you see it yet?

Cussing Kiddo

Link To Today’s Strip

Truly, Wally is the greatest hero of our time, next to Les, since he stared silently at a curb and had a wheelchair ramp built there.

Sadly, he had to pay for it out of his own paycheck, and Rachel won’t be able to get the treatment she so desperately and obviously needs for her hair cancer.

You know what’s legitimately hilarious about this strip? Billy, who I totally forget existed before this strip, has had more dialogue and a bigger role than Summer has had in the past five years or so of this strip.

Thanks for having me, everyone! The amazing ComicBookHarriet will be taking over tomorrow.

Ramping Up

In today’s strip, Wally finally gets around to memorializing his daughter Rana’s (R for Rana) gravesite, her having been buried underneath the Montoni’s sidewalk after she died of Ultra Breast Cancer she caught as a child from a landmine in Afghanistan. This all happened off-panel a few years back when Funky was shown working out in the gym. You can tell how moved Wally is by the thought of his late daughter since his face is literally melting off from sadness.

That is probably not what’s happening here, but gosh, what if Batiuk had used the time he wasted this week on exploring Wally’s relationship with his daughter, rather than his relationship with the sidewalk?

Tearing Up the Street

In today’s strip, Wally and his tube of toothpaste (he apparently waits until he’s at work to brush his teeth) walk by a construction worker. I wonder if it was Batiuk or Ayers who got really excited at the thought of being able to draw a jackhammer, because clearly someone put a lot of effort into that, and overlooked other things, like how the paint from Wally’s sign is somehow bleeding off the sign onto the curtains of the restaurant. I have a feeling that sign is now going to be shoehorned into every strip possible. It’s the new Becky’s Pinned-Up Sleeve.

Bricks and Shoelaces

In today’s strip, Wally stops to make sure he’s tied his shoes. Or he is stopping to think about what he’s supposed to do when he reaches the street. Or he’s freaking out because he thinks there’s a landmine buried in the street in front of him. Or he’s pausing dramatically just in time for Montoni’s to explode after Becky’s mom planted a bomb because of Wally’s sign. Or who the heck knows, because this is such a bad strip.