Tag: Montoni's

Water You'll Have

Epicus Doomus
December 28, 2012 at 8:37 pm
…Rule #2: DO NOT try to make sense of the timeline…it is a fool’s errand.

Not so much trying to make sense as just pointing out how wack this “25th soberversary” is. Funky’s battle with the bottle was depicted in Act II sometime during 2006 (and was published in book form in summer of 2007). If you figure in the 10-year time jump, and the five years and two months that have elapsed since then…oh, screw it. Why do we care if the author doesn’t? Careless!

Let’s ponder instead why John and Crazy Harry are entering Montoni’s through the back door. Is the “Comic Book Convention” we saw them at yesterday taking place in Montoni’s back room? Holly and Funky toast his sobriety with a couple glasses of “City of Westview” because Funky couldn’t find anything cheaper. Crazy Harry seizes the opportunity to appear magnanimous, by offering to pick up the tab on just about the only thing he can afford on what John’s paying him.

Dear Tom Batiuk:

Over the course of 2½ years of presiding over this forum, sharing nearly a thousand daily posts and over 19,000 reader comments about your work, I’ve managed to hang on to a tiny shred of admiration for you. When the “Fuck you, TB” comments flew, I could confidently poke my head out of the foxhole and say, “Hey! Give the man credit. He’s made a forty-year career of doing something he loves.” Or, “He’s seems like he’s actually a nice guy in person.” Or, “Well, he has some interesting musical tastes.” Or, “He’s raised a fair amount of money and awareness to fight cancer.” Or, “O.K., today’s strip is truly funny.” All right, that last one, not so much.

And then, today, Tom, you pull this. You spend three weeks on an arc where Crazy Harry gets fired (or retires, according to one strip), with one week’s notice, and no severance, pension or unemployment benefit, and has to sell off his books and comics before accepting a part-time temp job (which he’d willingly do for no pay) at the Komix Korner. Come Sunday, he-e-e-e-e-re’s Harry, in full postie drag, to deliver the annual “Buon Natale dalla soleggiata Florida!” postcard from Tony (along with a bonus potshot at e-mail).

Admit it, Tom: your heart’s just not in it any longer. This is more egregious than having Les show up in Westview a week after getting on a plane to Tanzania. You fancy yourself a writer; you regularly lecture and chastise the readers; you dismiss as “beady-eyed” anyone who finds fault with your creative output. Even in a fictional milieu where continuity long ago became an afterthought, today’s strip signals to the readers that you flat-out don’t give a shit anymore.

The Retiring Type

Crazy Harry’s “retired”? That seems a little different from “cancelled“. Although in either circumstance, one would expect that there would be a pension, severance, even unemployment benefits that would make it unnecessary for Crazy to have to sell all his books. And selling them to John, who passed on buying Pete’s collection because he couldn’t afford it? Crazy might do better trading in his SUV in favor of a tiny Batiukmobile® like everyone else in town drives. With Maddie away at Kent, and his two younger children missing and presumed dead, what does he need with that gas guzzler?

I Helped With the (Slow, Inefficient) Delivery

Epicus Doomus
November 29, 2012 at 12:08 am

…Old slang from the 1940’s, obscure sports references, weird mixed metaphors and Funky not just being unlikeable and dour but downright obnoxious…this is one peculiar little arc.

Peculiar indeed. It started out with Crazy’s career crisis, then we witnessed Funky’s reaction (to its impact on himself), moving on to Funky getting fired up on his friend’s behalf, before wrapping up (or not) today with Batiuk revisiting to a favorite theme: bashing the U.S. Postal Service.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Inkwell
November 29, 2012 at 3:11 am
It’s official: Funky is turning into Crankshaft. What kind of time loop led to this?

And I  officially agree with Inkwell’s comment. Funkshaft’s “light at the end of the rainbow” anti-proverb yesterday was the first sign. Today his “by-golly”, finger-wagging indignation has blinded him to the irony of registering his displeasure to the postmaster via e-mail.