Haha, because everyone confuses bands and football teams, they’re basically the same thing, right? I’m assuming this is supposed to be a “pun” on alternate meanings of “scoring” (which isn’t funny even if that is the case, a word can mean two things, that’s not automatically funny), but even if Batiuk was determined to do this strip there’s a much better way to go about it.
“Scoring for smaller bands”. “Not with groupies”.
And for all that Batiuk talks about how his strip transcends the stereotypes of the art form, or whatever crap he says on his blog these days, strips like this are just an insult to the art form. Literally no art is needed. This kind of “humor” is appropriate for an AOL email chain. It doesn’t need art at all. When your sequential art gains literally nothing from having art, you’re doing it wrong.
Tag Archives: OMEA
Scoreless
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Take a Long Rest, Tom
Aw, the lovebirds are enjoying a quiet moment together, enjoying someone else’s “pun”. (Is it a pun when you use a symbol? It seems like it could be.). As glad as I am to not have Dinkle or Becky talking, would it have killed Batiuk to have a little more of a joke here? Like maybe have one of them say “What an arresting display!” or something? At least the sign wasn’t crappily taped to the side of the table. I’m kind of amazed by that.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
I Wish He’d DisAPPear
I’m going to ignore the “haha, apps are confusing mystical objects that nobody can understand” “humor” here and just focus on Becky. What in the world is her expression about? The raised eyebrows and smirk look more seductive/romantic than anything else (although in the second panel she looks eerily like Pete and Summer, because for some reason only three or four face types exist in this strip). And honestly, if it was revealed that Dinkle and Becky were actually having an affair, it would vastly improve the logic of this strip. Because “deaf band director who retired decades ago is constantly shadowing the current band director for no real reason” is stupid. It was the same thing with Linda and Buck. I think it’s a sign of bad writing when totally unintended subtexts actually make more sense than the actual plot.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Tone It Down
I wonder if the school still pays the cost for Dinkle to attend the OMEA. Oh wait, in today’s strip it’s just “Music Educators Conference”. I wonder if the OMEA didn’t pay enough to be featured on a sign every day this week. Or maybe Batiuk thought it would be nobody would know “OMEA” was a music thing, and they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the hilarity without knowing that.
Apart from the weirdness of the sign, just the format itself of today’s strip confuses me so much. Batiuk does this regularly, where one character makes a “joke” and another character reacts with fury to tell them it’s not a joke. I don’t understand it at all, because it doesn’t add a thing to it. The only thing I see as a possibility is maybe that Batiuk does it to portray anyone who doesn’t appreciate “wordplay” as a jackass? Because I can guarantee he doesn’t have a problem with puns, since 99% of the content in Crankshaft is Crankshaft getting words confused.
I’d also like to know the set up of this joke-did Harry just randomly walk up to someone he saw talking and tell him this?
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Why Are Students at an Educators’ Conference?
It’s a very good thing the side of the room on Becky’s right wasn’t already crowded. It would have been very awkward for her to have to point in the other direction.
I had to think about this for several seconds before I realized there wasn’t anymore of a joke to this then the “young people are morons” beat that Batiuk’s been hitting over and over for years now. Although it really is Becky’s fault, since she’s telling them to wait “here” and pointing right in front of the door, apparently.
Also, why is the welcome sign on the inside, so people will only see it when they leave? It’s amazing how often Batiuk does that kind of thing, like having classroom numbers taped to the insides of doors.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
What reams are made of
Today’s strip begs the question, if Lefty has to print 47 pages of things not to do for her band students, why is she taking them all to Columbus for the Ohio Music Educators Conference? Or rather, why is she taking any students at all to the Ohio Music Educators Conference? I guess they make preferable company to her typical OMEA companion Dinkle, but so does a moldy dish towel. I would take bets on whether or not the kids’ presence at the conference ultimately gets explained, but I cannot find any casino willing to give me odds on “yes”.
And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow, same time… same station, as spacemanspiff leads us all through what is hopefully something other than a return to Funky at the eye doctor. Frankly, I hope tomorrow’s strip is something other than a lot of things, including but not limited to: Les, Lefty and Dinkle, the Lisa movie, Cindy complaining about her looks, and Batom comics remembrance.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Tracking the Rand Curdy
Boy, the folks running the OMEA are damned efficient! Compare the background of yesterday’s strip to today’s. They’ve managed to put up a huge number of booths and banners in a matter of seconds! Yesterday’s box of crap at the far right has been expanded into a nicely arranged table. Talk about can-do! Imagine how many band mattresses those guys could sell. Probably hundreds in just an hour. Oh, wait–they’d have to sell them in Westview, wouldn’t they. Well, they could probably sell at least one, right? And maybe come back alive, most of them? Sorry for sending you guys into that city–and I already knew it was infested with zombies, too. My bad, guys. Oops. Won’t happen again, you have my word.
On the other hand, this conference has been going on for several days, and they’re only just now getting around to setting up these booths. (Perhaps one of these booths was the one that had pizza! Mystery solved.) Okay, so…they’re very efficient once they start, but also lazy and unmotivated to start on their own. Well, no one will ever fault this strip for being too consistent.
As for this stupid app, weren’t they championing something similar a few years ago that could keep track of trombone sections? Yesterday they were dismissive of this thing, but throw in candy sales and their eyes goggle. Becky even gets to shove her pinned sleeve into frame, she’s so excited.
*Shrug.* As mentioned, no one will ever fault this strip for being too consistent. “Hey, Batiuk, loosen up! You don’t have to remember all the details, like things that have already happened, last names, and stuff like that. It makes you look like a beady-eyed nitpicker. You don’t want to look like a beady-eyed nitpicker, do you? No one gives awards for that.”
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Shrinky Dinks
As February dawns, the first strip of the month is not available for preview, but let’s be honest–Batiuk’s not going to cut away to something different, not when he’s got Dinkle to shove in people’s faces. Those seemingly endless weeks where he craps out those terrible, terrible Claude Barlow witlessisms should be proof of that.
Yesterday, he wailed and moaned that he couldn’t find free food. What could it be today? Perhaps…his ass, with both hands?
I wonder if Beck will get any lines…so far, she’s only spoken on Sunday, and it was, of course, nothing but praise for Dinkle. So, she’s really already played her part. All that’s left is a praise reprise.
(GAH, sorry folks, that was almost Batiukian…surprising how easily one slips back into this stuff…)
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
Along With His Sense of Humor
Oh, poor, poor Dinkle. He can’t find the free pizza, so his breakfast was cheese and candy. I may just burst into tears over this development.
Three days of this crap and Becky hasn’t had a single line. Looks like she was in the middle of a conversation when Dinkle just roared in and shut her down. Of course; Dinkle has to be the center of attention at all times.
And Batiuk’s really going out of his way to deny her any dialogue. You’d think she’d be the one talking about Dinkle’s Deficiencies, but no, it has to be some random passerby. Which makes sense in this world–after all, Dinkle is known and beloved by the entire high school band community, past, present and future, so of course they’re all up on his current state. I hear there’s even a newsletter, with a circulation of several hundred thousand.
What’s really surprising is that no one has taken him in hand and led him to the pizza table. But…I guess that might imply that there’s someone wiser than he, who knows where the pizza is, and Batiuk cannot have that. So, I further guess this means that no one has been able to find the pizza table. Because there can’t be anyone better than Dinkle in anything. Why, he even schools them in how to whine like a baby!
PS: The “Rand Curdy?” in the masthead made me think of Monty Python’s “Lemon Curry?” So there’s an extra laugh.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
How they Dinkle, Dinkle, Dinkle, in the icy air of night!
Today’s strip was not available for preview, but we all know it’ll be Dinkle droning on about something unimportant, or something else equally unimportant. And it will involve terrible, underthought wordplay somehow. And people will smile at Dinkle, like “Oh my gosh, that is so true!” You have to wonder if Batiuk is equally as bored creating this stuff as we are reading it. And he’s still got, what, five years to go? That sure seems like an awful lot of wry rejoinders to carve out.
Why is Dinkle even here? He’s frickin’ retired. But Batiuk just loves this character, possibly even more than Les. Les is the bestselling author he always wanted to be, Darrin is the comic book artist he always wanted to be, John has all the comic books he could possibly want. All understandable (if a bit off-putting) aspects of Batiuk’s desire that things in the past went differently.
Dinkle, on the other hand, just seems to be this father-figure mentor, a dispenser of wit and wisdom. (Yes, there should be quote marks around a lot of that.)
Apropos of nothing, I think one of the reasons we see less and less Burchett is that he wasn’t getting considered for other projects. Publishers would say, “Hey, the latest thing you’ve done is Funky Winkerbean, and the artwork in that is terrible. No thanks.” But if he can draw the fictional comic covers here (which admittedly are quite good–artwork-wise), he has something of quality to show to prospective editors.
Filed under Son of Stuck Funky
