Strips like today’s, where whatever value there might be in the strip would come from the audience being familiar with the recurring “Pizza Monster” and being excited to see it in the strip again, are among the most baffling to me. Even as out of touch as Batiuk is, it seems hard for me believe that even he thinks there are people out there who think Halloween is Pizza Monster in Funky Winkerbean season and are dying to see it come back. It’s not the Great Pumpkin. And most other strips with recurring “gags” like this actually do something different with it each time. With Batiuk’s recurring gags (especially in Crankshaft-Lena’s bad at bowling! Lena’s coffee is terrible! Lena’s brownies are terrible! Crankshaft is buying gardening supplies again!), he thinks that just repeating something over and over is enough.
So, yay, the Pizza Monster showed up again, everyone can relax now.
Tag: Montoni's
ICE, where’s my car?!
Today’s strip marks one week since we’ve heard so much as a peep from Amicus Breef, and yet he is still there like he did anything at all to help Adeela or anyone else. He doesn’t even get to bluster to the ICE agent, Funky fills that role today. Things ICE should have to show if they are going to arrest Adeela should be Amicus’ wheelhouse, not Funky’s. And yet, ICE backs off at Funky’s incomplete demand (seriously, what was he demanding to see?) while they never wavered when confronted by Amicus, making Funky a far far better immigration lawyer than Amicus, who is literally an immigration lawyer.
Son of a gun, TB remembered the insulated bag! Before we praise him too much for this, it should be pointed out that the insulated bag officially spent more time in ICE custody than Adeela.
Also, Funky still hasn’t gotten his delivery car back.
Special Dumblivery
The panel borders of today’s strip are just holding it, just enough to keep it from —
It burst into the frame! Get out of the way! Get out of the way!
Get this Funky! Get this Funky! It’s boring and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh my, get out of the way please. It’s boring, bursting into the frame and it’s — and it’s falling on the boring cast and all the folks agree that this is terrible. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world.
And oh, it’s…boring, oh, four or five segments into the strip. It’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. The smirks and the lameness now and the text is crashing into the foreheads, not quite to the boring cast. Oh, the humanity and all the characters smirking around here. I told you. It’s — I can’t even type to the readers whose snark we host here. It – It’s….I — I can’t type ladies and gentlemen.
Honest, it’s completely a mass of smirking dreck. And everybody can’t hardly read it. It’s hard, it’s crazy. Folks, I — I — I’m sorry. Honestly, I — I can hardly read it.
I — I’m gonna step away where I cannot see it. Funky, that’s terrible. I – I can’t….Listen folks, I — I’m gonna have to stop for a minute because I’ve lost my head. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.
With sincerest apologies to Herb Morrison and humanity… and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (who TB should also apologize to).
Patience Zero
Today’s strip is filler. Total filler. In fact, it is possibly the filleriest filler that ever filled four panel borders. Filler filler filler filler…
The idiocy of Winkerbeans here is wearing the same clothes they were back before Wally and Amicus visited Adeela in jail, so it is presumably the same night/day that Adeela was arrested and President Clinton was called. Why are they all so resigned? Just how quickly do these people think Federal agencies work? And they expect a call back from Mr. Clinton himself, assuming failure when that doesn’t happen within an hour? Between yesterday’s strip and this one, there is probably a long list of right-leaning organizations that have more trust in the Clintons than these five.
Getting the runaround
Did you know President Bill Clinton likes to jog? I sure didn’t, at least not until today’s strip… and when I say “today’s strip”, I mean “when he was first elected President”. Does TB think calling him “President Clinton” is not enough of an identifier for readers or did he just recently start watching a DVD box set of 1990s Saturday Night Live episodes?
What’s with all the Eeyores in the first panel? Funky just dialed up BILL CLINTON on a whim, got the former POTUS to answer directly, and was told by the man himself that he would help. Why is Rachel even questioning this?
Better yet, why am I questioning this? Any of this? It’s been a fool’s errand for decades.
