Tag Archives: pizza boxes

by | February 7, 2021 · 10:29 pm

À la Recherche du Temps Pizza

Link To Today’s Strip

Comic Book Harriet here again! Can’t believe I’m up again already. It seems like yesterday I was struggling to find a band turkey joke that wasn’t as overdone as the ones in the strip. But Tom rolls on like an ever flowing stream of consciousness, bringing me back again, panning through his muck for fool’s gold.

I want to give special commendation to SpaceManSpiff 85. He was given a relentlessly dim and myopic arc, and managed to fill the week with a overwhelming flow of cataract puns. Sir, you have my admiration. And my sympathy. Because it seems I’m going to be just as burdened this week with shortsighted visual humor.

I asked earlier this arc if Funky has always been a hapless character that only exists to be neurotic and spout lame puns. My interactions with Act I Funky come through flashback photo-cornered panels, car accident coma dreams, and the offerings of our resident Batiukian researchers. Longtime Stuckfunkians Rusty Shackleford and Banana Jr 6000 were kind enough to reply, and both used the term ‘burnout’ to describe Act I Funky, which kind of surprised me. I can’t see the preachy Batiuk, with more cheap soapboxes than a Palmolive warehouse, insinuating his main character was dating Mary Jane Wackytabaccy on the weekends, and playing it for harmless laughs. Crazy Harry? Sure. But the eponymous protagonist?

I can see it now. Panel two has Act I Funky, in all his mellow glory, blissed out on his tiny bed, with every comfort a baked adolescent needs within arm’s reach: lamp, pizza, soda, music, The Amazing Mister Sponge. Curled up in a tiny cluttered nest of his own hedonism. He even has his SHOES on the bed, that’s how much he DNGAF.

Stark contrast to Act III Funky in panels 1 and 3, sitting on a huge, empty bed, in a mostly empty room. Only a featureless smartphone and a rapidly expanding mattress his plebian pleasures. His specific interests have been pulled out, leaving us with a boring box containing a boring man with a face slowly drooping like a blobfish.

I wish Funky could have gotten glaucoma instead. We could have had burnout Funky back.

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by | October 29, 2020 · 10:58 pm

That Brown Mush on the Plate is Disturbing

Haha, can you imagine? An actual(?) superhero man is petrified just at the thought of being near a woman! Hilarious! Can you imagine if maybe an actual superhero was a woman, and not just this evil supervillain(?) Pizza Monster? The entire multiverse would collapse! They’d have to invent new words like “superheroine”, probably! Ha, total fear just from being near someone who merely suggests they might be a woman, truly this is the epitome of hilarity and quarter-inch from reality writing.

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by | October 28, 2020 · 10:30 pm

Unmanned

So I guess some guy dressed as Mr. Monster (who is actually a character not created by Tom Batiuk, so I do feel bad now about making fun of, but really, if you’re doing a “tip of the felt tip” to another artist, maybe don’t do it super tiny in between the panels of a daily strip?) really did just bust into a crowded (ha) restaurant and pull what sure look like two real guns on somebody, just because they’re dressed up in pizza boxes? Just to find out their identity? And this is supposed to be funny? Wouldn’t it have been easier, and safer, if Funky and Harry and just pulled out bats and started beating the Pizza Monster, or maybe set the boxes on fire so the Monster would have to remove them? That seems much simpler than arranging for someone to hold somebody at gunpoint in the middle of your restaurant.
Putting aside the “haha, he never thought it could be a woman” angle, which is weird since Funky also referred to the Pizza Monster as a he earlier in the week, shouldn’t it be obvious who the Pizza Monster is, just based on the voice? Only like five people, at most, are ever shown eating in Montoni’s anymore, and it would be very weird (although much creepier) if this was just some random person with no ties at all to Montoni’s. Or is there a voice changer under the pizza boxes (that also have no eye holes, but that’s another issue)?

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by | October 27, 2020 · 10:30 pm

Mr. Lame

“Mr. Monster“? And he’s just a guy in a goofy looking spaceman outfit, and nothing remotely monster themed? Batiuk is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with his fictional superheroes here. Which probably means he’ll still have fifty more, before his strip finally ends. Each somehow worse than the last. I thought for sure this guy’s name was “McMonster”, which makes as much sense as “Mr. Monster”. Again, I can’t imagine how that would be at all legible in the newspaper.
Also, I don’t think Batiuk understands how to properly honor a beloved local tradition, or whatever he’s attempting to do with these “Pizza Monster” strips. Drawing attention to how silly it is is not the way to go.

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by | October 26, 2020 · 10:30 pm

The Westview Horror

Yep, the Pizza Monster is here. Just like he was yesterday. Not sure why today’s strip couldn’t have just taken place yesterday, other than just to waste time. But of course that can’t be Batiuk’s reason, so I must have missed a subtle nuance yesterday.
I really, really do not like the sideways daily strips. But making them multiple panels is even worse. I can’t imagine what a nightmare this would be to read in black and white in an actual newspaper.
Do you think the PM has been standing motionless in the doorway for long enough for Funky to notice and make a phone call, or did Funky have nothing better to do at work than stand around with his phone ready for the PM?

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by | October 3, 2020 · 10:30 pm

Like A Shit Brickhouse

Link To Sunday’s

The thing finally happened, on a Sunday no less, which of course means it’ll happen again tomorrow. Perhaps they could deport Adeela to a city in dire need of architects, as the idea that this self-made immigrant is somehow supporting herself by being fifth in command at a failing local pizzeria gets dumber every time I ponder it, which is rarely.

I think the arc should just end right here. Adeela just disappears and is never heard from or mentioned by name again. Then in a few years Wally could do something stupid and quote her out of context with that annoying snide-yet-dunderheaded look on his dumb face.

“My old Muslim friend whose name escapes me always used to say that mozzarella is the saffron of the common folk.”

“Wow, your Muslim friend must have really been quite a character!”

“She was, Rachel, she was!”

I mean who would even care? Maybe forty people in the world even know who the hell Adeela is and if you were to poll those forty people and ask them they would unanimously not give a shit. She’d be like the Russian in “The Sopranos” or Becky’s mom, an enduring mystery for die-hard fans (chortle) to forever ponder.

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by | November 1, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Don’t Box Me In

Link to today’s strip.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Funky so determined on a goal as in panel one.  Run, fat-boy, run!  And panel two is also pretty remarkable, as the “monster” managed to shed his costume…and the boxes comprising said costume don’t have any holes cut into them!  You know, what you’d need to do to make a costume out of pizza boxes.   Either that, or the “monster” is still fully boxed and we see that Montoni’s just tosses the trash into the alley, like everyone else in Westview.  Because what is there, apart from trash and garbage?  Certainly nothing valuable.

The third denouement–that this was a magical pizza monster made of intact boxes–is probably what Batiuk hoped people will take from it, but the dash around the corner kills that stone dead.

And thus ends another remarkably stupid storyline.  If I had to say something positive, well. at least Les wasn’t in it.

That positive won’t last, by the way.  Just thought I’d throw a late Halloween scare at ya.

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by | October 31, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Hollow E’en

Link to today’s strip (eventually).

Today’s strip was not available for preview, but thanks to Fearless Leader’s diligence, we got a tiny glimpse of it.  Looks like the pizza monster has obtained his yearly token of appreciation and left in a hurry.   And there’s some speculation as to the identity of the fiend, with guesses of Crazy Harry and John, and a request for the monster operator’s initials.

Again, presented sideways–because Art has to Hurt or it isn’t REAL Art.

Looks (from the “preview”) like tomorrow’s episode will show Funky exerting himself, and…that’s all my eyestrain can take.  Seriously, I already have ailments, I don’t need vision-related ones based on a gag.  A gag, I note, that started out with a bit of promise, but as always with this strip, soon succumbed to the author’s inexplicable need to lower all standards.  Can’t he tell a single stupid joke?  Apparently, at one time, he was able to, but that ability was traded away for some magic beans labelled “Respectability.”   And we all know what beans are best at producing.

Happy Halloween, everyone!  Here’s hoping you enjoyed the holiday.  It’s sometimes fun to be scared, but never fun to fear what comes next in Funky Winkerbean.  Because the abyss is always looking back.

(I bet trick-r-treaters have learned to avoid the Batiuk house, since all he gives out are copies of Lisa’s Story.  With the flourish of a felt-tip and an offer of an autograph.)

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by | October 30, 2019 · 10:30 pm

Breakneck Pacing

Link to today’s strip.

Looks like we’re in for a whole week of sideways strips.  And once again, the format is pointless.  Does Batiuk think New York Times readers will enjoy his daring staging?  OOOoooOOoooOOooo…so avant garde!  Expanding the boundaries of the comics page!

Or does he think they enjoy stretching their necks?  If so, at least reward them with something worth the effort.

Which this decidedly is not.  I thought the week started out well, as noted a tiny bit whimsical, but now it’s just more revenge porn against Funky.  Yes, we are supposed to believe that Funky is so stupid he thinks this is a real monster, and he’d better cater to its wishes…or else.  I mean, the damned thing is weaponless.  Any sudden movement would send it to the floor in a heap.

Sigh.  Heaven forbid you were the popular kid when Batiuk was in your high school class.  How dare you be popular, and well-liked, and generally normal!   Don’t you know Les’ wife died of cancer twenty years ago!!

In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems that the “Lisa’s Story” garbage was thrown into the strip to point out to “new” readers that, yes, Bull died…but that’s not the death you need to concern yourself with.  Just imagine the panic that must have gone through his mind when he realized people might say, “Funky Winkerbean?  Oh, yeah, that’s the one where the coach died.”

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