Tag Archives: Pete

by | September 8, 2017 · 10:30 pm

Skin Flakes, Phlegm and Excrement for Color

Link to today’s strip.

So, everyone wanted to see Crankshaft, probably in the futile hope that his demise would be depicted onscreen.

Well, here’s Crankshaft.  He looks like a plastic bag filled with pus trying to decide if gravity is worth resisting any longer.

Tom Batiuk keeps trying to shove Crankshaft down our throats.  And it never works.  No one cares about Crankshaft, it has never generated any interest in anyone to watch it unfold.  I suspect it’s a very low performer, newspaper-wise, and perhaps Mr. Batiuk is trying to shovel his legacy over there now that he has destroyed Funky Winkerbean.  But that’s like trying to choose between a burning building and a sea full of sharks.

And to be honest, the fact that Mindy seeks the approval of the Old, Unplaceable Odor makes her a truly terrible person.  At least Pm N Jff recognize that Crankshaft is something to be tolerated, not cultivated.

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by | September 7, 2017 · 10:32 pm

But The Grandfather

Link to today’s strip.

Pete looks utterly distraught in that last panel–Oh, my God!  She’s making me meet her grandfather!  Well, this relationship is over…too bad, I thought it might have worked, but no, she’s gotta bring in the grandfather….

I can’t think of any other explanation for the expression oozing off his face–unless he once had a dream that he would die at the hands of some girl’s grandfather, and all of this is exactly like that dream….

The point is, he sure doesn’t look happy at all about this, and it’s worrying him to the point where he doesn’t even notice Mindy’s transformation into a 1960’s toothpaste advertisement.

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by | September 6, 2017 · 10:30 pm

Re-Pete-I-Tion

Link to today’s strip.

I find the most reasonable explanation for Mindy’s attraction to Pete is the one offered by a number of commentors–she’s hoping to sleep her way into some of those Starbuck Jones/Cable Movie Entertainment millions so she can buy her way out of this strip.  That’s surprisingly cynical for a strip like this, but, let’s face it–Pete is otherwise a repellent character, who has no attractive features of any kind, and only an insane/desperate person would find him worthy of affection.  I mean, he and Mindy had two remarkably stupid conversations, and suddenly she wants to divert from the airport to Bedside Manor?  (To meet He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Strip, of course.)  I’d find it more plausible if she was driving him to some remote field where she’d force him to dig his own grave before gifting him with a bullet.

Pete is one manifestation of the Ultimate Batiuk Form–the Whiner.  If Mindy is serious about wanting to be with him, she had better get used to endless whining about how hard he has to work at what would otherwise be his dream job.  Because those who exist in the Funkyverse without constant complaining don’t truly exist at all.

Of course, the sleeping-to-the-top theory falls down when you realize this would mean a female character has drive and ambition–and those things are not directed toward bringing milk and cookies to her comic-reading man.  Sorry, everyone.

It does remind me of the old Hollywood joke–this one comes from the 1930’s I believe, so it’s right there on Nostalgia Boulevard.  “Did you hear about the aspiring actress?  She was so stupid, she slept with the writer!”

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by | September 3, 2017 · 10:32 pm

Door-To-Door Dullard

Link to today’s strip.

The problems of working a year in advance are many, but this instance sets up a lovely contrast with reality.  I’m sure you can all see the headline on “Variety” there, trumpeting the Starbuck Jones movie’s success.   Well, IMDB has a headline that’s probably nearer the mark:

I still find it odd that there’s no room in Funky Winkerbean for anyone’s success but Les Moore…that we’re told of the movie’s success by an off-hand headline that you kind of figure Tom Batiuk didn’t want to put in at all.   I wonder if the new artist said, “Damn it, I spent a couple of hours drawing all that Starbuck Jones crap, so it better be a hit film!”

Oh, and speaking of a pile of festering garbage, there he is, smirking away!  He doesn’t get a line today, but we all know that won’t last.

I have to admit, I like the level of detail on the doorframe.  It’s meaningless and adds clutter to the image, but damn if someone didn’t decide that you just can’t have a doorframe without all the holes for the locks and such.  Pity none of those locks actually work, as it didn’t keep Dullard from wandering right in, but look at it this way:  they also wouldn’t keep an insane murderer out, either.

Hint, hint.

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by | August 24, 2017 · 10:30 pm

Wreynolds the Writer

She may be unclear about Mason’s presence at the premiere, but Blondie McMicrophone positively gushes over “The Writer,” Pete Reynolds. Pete’s actually the re-writer, hon. He was only brought aboard to “rework the script”  after the movie’d already been in the works for a year.

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by | August 19, 2017 · 11:30 pm

DOUBLE STARBUCK WEDDING

“Both Mason Jarre and Cliff Anger have separately asked me to find a minister for just after the premiere.” If you’re gonna “tell, not show,” Mr. Batiuk, couldn’t you at least do it using less unwieldy sentences? So assuming that Mason and Cliff don’t intend to marry each other, each man holds matrimony in enough esteem to require a minister to perform the ceremony. But neither man has a problem with delegating the task of finding a clergyman to Pete. Guess this falls under Pete’s “advance work” duties. But that’s not the gag here, folks: the gag is that John is shitting eggrolls over the news that the film’s male leads have (separately!) decided to wed their betrothed after the premiere.

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by | August 18, 2017 · 10:30 pm

Another Pizza My Heart

Another perpendicular panel and more of Pete and Mindy meeting cute. I can’t tell you “the age of that joke” (I’m guessing ancient) but I can tell you Batiuk last used it six months ago (in another sideways strip no less). I guess he forgot, just like he forgot that it was a Tweet, not a “coded Junior Spaceman message” that Jff sent to the director. Pete nurses a glass of coyote urine as he watches Mindy gorge on pizza and Italian bread. He’s either too cheap/broke to get a slice for himself, or perhaps he’s already grooming svelte Mindy to join the ranks of dumpy blonde Westview wives.

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