Tag: photo album corners

Doomsday, January 30

Today’s strip was not available for preview, but it is easy to speculate on what it will involve based on yesterday’s “hat”-focused anti-humor. Bull will be there, Buck will be there, and a retcon may well show up too…

Bull’s football career has been one of the most heavily-retconned aspects of this strip in recent years, with much of this re-written continuity in the service of the super-serious CTE story arc. Bull went from simply being contacted by a St. Louis Football Cardinals scout before he hurt his knee to actually trying out for the team (presumably during the 1982 strike) after suffering a major knee injury in college. The recently and incessantly-discussed goal line officiating screw up game was originally said to have been Coach Stropp’s final game against Big Walnut Tech, not Bull’s. This goal line play situation’s only actual roots in Act I are a 1980 “Casey At The Bat” parody arc called “Westview At The Goal” (much thanks to SOSFer Don for pointing this out a few weeks back) which was nobody’s final game against Big Walnut Tech. Heck, even the backward-facing emu seen on Bull’s college helmet in yesterday’s strip was originally forward-facing.

Frankly, I wouldn’t comment that much on these retcons if they weren’t being used to try to punch up the maudlin nature of a story that doesn’t need any re-written history to be maudlin. Are we supposed to take everything in this strip seriously except its continuity? Please.

Riddell Me This

Happy Monday SOSFers (well, happy until you read today’s strip…), billytheskink here to take us all into February. February is typically Funky Winkerbean‘s best month, by the way, as no month sees fewer FW strips published… Much thanks to Charles, who endured the last two weeks stalking the halls of Westview High School to set our daily snark tone. Your efforts are much appreciated.

Speaking of two weeks… Two weeks back, when TFH handed the reigns over to Charles, he implored us all to wear a helmet. Alas, that wouldn’t have done us any good. Not in this universe.

One Nation Under A Groove

Les finally remembers his creepy Centerville contemporary in today’s strip, something he lied about just two strips ago.

While this comic would like you to believe that Les’ memory was jogged by this girl’s foolish belief that she was going to meet George Clinton and Co. on a school-arranged trip to Washington DC, let’s be honest here. Les really remembers her because she looked like a proto-Lisa back then.

Tuesday, September 26

Today’s strip

And there’s our least favorite guy, sitting there in his earnest earnestness in the Columbus Museum of Art with his latest cancer porn books. And Batiuk decides to do another damn Crankshaft crossover by bringing Lillian into the strip as Les’s lone customer. She’s got to be, what, 137 years old by now?

And then Batiuk flashes us back in what I presume is today’s “hook” that makes the strip seem somewhat less perfunctory. Les is sitting there with his hands similarly cupped, but instead of his earnest earnestness, he has his standard “oh, how jejune” face, no doubt over how debased he was to be appearing at such a crappy venue as Lillian’s attic-turned-used bookstore.

But what intrigues me the most about the throwback panel is how Burchett hasn’t bothered at all to change the appearance of flashback Lillian from today’s Lillian. She’s still the same woman, clutching the same book in all three panels, despite the fact that in panel two she’s supposed to be something like 25 years younger than she is in panels 1 and 3. After all, Lisa died 20 years ago in the Funkyverse and Les’s publication of the book about Jessica’s-father,-John-Darling,-who-was-murdered, was before even that. Hell, Lillian was old when she was first introduced in Crankshaft, which by going by the screwy timelines between the strips, was probably supposed to be around 43 years ago. Way to mail it in, Rick Burchett.

Panel 3, with its underhanded insult of Les, is pretty much par for the course.

Mitchell!

SosfDavidO here, and I had to throw in a classic MST3K reference for today’s strip, which makes me want to hate alter-Pete and alter-Darrin even more. Really? You want a little kid to fail? Is that what we’re supposed to take away from that smirk? Is that a smirk or are they laughing about the situation and it’s a genuine smile? Who knows!