pandemic – Page 3 – Son of Stuck Funky

Please Re-Leese Me

Marianne Winters, the sexy young Hollywood starlet with the small-town morals and a heart of gold, was stricken with breast cancer. But, because she just happened to be starring in a movie about a young woman (with small-town morals and a heart of gold) who was stricken with breast cancer, she understood the importance of early detection and successfully detected the breast cancer she’d been stricken with. What luck!

And, even more fortunately for Marianne, hundreds of thousands of people got sick and died from a horrible virus that pretty much shut the entire country, including Hollywood, down. And even MORE fortunately, a gigantic wildfire roared through the Hollywood area, leaving untold destruction and billions of dollars worth of damage in its wake, thus enabling Marianne to set aside the time to seek the very best medical attention for herself.

So it all really worked out well for her and, even more importantly, it all worked out for the deeply-conflicted Delicate Genius too. Because you see, Les was very deeply conflicted about sharing his innermost pain (that he painstakingly documented in a best-selling book then talked about non-stop for over a decade) with the world, at least until he discovered that his personal courage, fortitude and tremendous artistic gifts were responsible for literally saving Marianne’s life. So like with Marianne, the pandemic and the conflagration, the whole wife dying of cancer and sending him into a twenty-four-year-long cycle of depression and misery thing all worked out great for him in the end. Heartwarming, ain’t it?

BatYam could probably save all kinds of time if he just nailed Les and that f*cking book of his to a big cross, then had the various other characters pass by and genuflect before him, but there probably wouldn’t be as many opportunities for dumb puns and stupid wordplay that way. The fact that he spent years on this story only to have it end up here just boggles the mind. We all should have seen it coming, too, but once again Batty somehow managed to surprise and bore us all at the same time, which is quite a trick when you think about it.

Your Mask Too Small To Band Box With God

Link To The Big Sunday Strip

See, he just explained how Funky got his special pizza-themed masks, but nothing can explain how, on the spur of the moment, he suddenly found or made a bunch of tiny masks for the stupid band box. I’m never discussing this arc again so, for the last-ever time, it’s just remarkable how much affection Funky has for his old nostalgia-steeped junk, like his stools, jukebox and (of course) that f*cking band box. The whereabouts of his old revolving beer sign are still unknown, as that plot thread has been dangling for like eight years now.

Coming next week: after briefly acknowledging Morton, Holly, Wally, Rachel, Adeela, Cory and Rocky’s untimely COVID-related deaths in passing, Funky seriously contemplates drinking himself to death after the green pitcher comes out of the dishwasher all faded and teal. His fellow AA members agree that it’s probably the best course of action given the gravity of the situation.

Sanitized For Your Objection

Link To Today’s Strip

“Reserved for a vaccine”??? Yes, I know what he meant, but LOL. He really should have maybe waited to see how things played out before he sent this batch of strips over to CK. But then again, it’s been a hundred years so why start now?

Correct me if I’m mis-remembering this but didn’t he just REMOVE THE F*CKING JUKEBOX THREE DAYS AGO? This isn’t just a typical lapse in continuity, it’s like a whole other universe where “continuity” isn’t even a word. And why is Adeela being forced to wipe down the virus-infested jukebox (minus gloves too by the way)? That’s no way to treat your pizzeria’s number one Muslim architect. Someone needs to hook that girl up with a LinkedIn or Indeed account, pronto. These FW characters just settle into these lackadaisical phases that drag on for YEARS at a time. She’s squandering her talents AND her youth on these pizza-shilling infidels, if she’s not careful she’ll become an overweight bulbous-nosed sad sack before she knows what hit her and…oh, right. Never mind.

And what’s that anon-o-dude grinning about? Getting to play one of Funky’s old Danny Kaye records? Or is he just excited about the jukebox being sanitized? “Oh man, she’s sanitizing that jukebox just for ME! There’s NO CHANCE I’ll contract COVID from this now!”. Sigh.

Heart Of Plexiglass

Link To Another One

So the “soul” of Montoni’s is customers eavesdropping and breathing on one another from adjacent booths? Again, Funky’s main concern here isn’t with the PEOPLE affected by the pandemic, but for the actual building itself, which is really odd. It’s a pizzeria, thus its “soul” is those big ovens where the pizza is made, as without those he has nothing. Now that things here in the good ol’ USA are slowly returning to normal this one seems kind of dated already but hey, if Funky didn’t have anything to complain about he’d be filling those forty-two extra weeks with Les arcs or something, so there is that. Sometimes you just gotta find the upside, I suppose.

Jukebox Zero

Link To Today’s Pandemic Fun

Again we see Funky fetishizing an inanimate object with ties to his youth that only holds meaning to him. And once again it makes no sense whatsoever. Why would the jukebox “have to go”? They couldn’t wipe it down with some sanitizer a few times a day? I mean it’s his building and his jukebox, I can’t think of a single reason why he couldn’t just leave the f*cking jukebox where it is. Yet there they are, hurriedly rushing the jukebox out the door like it’s packed full of anthrax (the disease not the band although both could be deemed as alarming). Why? Does it shoot COVID from the coin return or something? Will the song choices compel listeners to violate social distancing standards? I don’t get it.

And look how they didn’t even bother to coil up the cord. That dumb jukebox is one of Funky’s most treasured objects yet he’s carting it around like it’s a broken toaster. I don’t know what the idea behind this strip was supposed to be but I’m just baffled.