Tag: Rachel

The Business End

Today’s strip

Naturally, anything called “Merchant’s Day” would have to feature the only two functioning businesses in Westview.  What I don’t get is how cavalierly John runs his comic book shop.  Here are a couple of potential customers who, yeah, might not read comics themselves, but might know people who do and thus might buy gifts, and John can’t even be bothered to look up.  Isn’t he perpetually behind in his rent payments?  Isn’t the entire town continually strapped for cash?  Does he not want to even try to make money?  Look at the expression on his face:  it just screams “Get out of my shop.  Get out of my shop.  If I don’t look up maybe they’ll just go away.”

Besides, given the fact that John frequently proselytises everyone about the art and value of comic books, you would think in his world there wouldn’t be anyone who wasn’t a potential fan, just waiting to have him open up a whole new world for them.  Yet here he doesn’t even try.

Yes, I do know that the words “try” and “attempt” and “strive” and so forth are considered curse words in Westview, but the continual avoidance of those activities is just so.  Damned.  Wearying.

…come to think of it, this particular episode seems to sum up Funky Winkerbean in a nutshell.  “Look…here’s something.”  Lady, if you only knew how wrong you are.  “Never mind…this isn’t a store.”  You know what else it isn’t?  A joke.  The joke is right here, and it’s on us.

Bland Camp

Link to today’s strip

TFH is sailing off to Bora Bora (or did he say Oradell?) this week on the good ship “WinkerHate”, so I’m bravely stepping into the box to pinch-snark, so to speak. So let’s see what fabulous, engrossing and hilarious tale Our Hero has cooked up for us this week…

Uh-oh, that empty-sleeve-flapping-in-the-breeze-like sound in the air can only mean one thing: it’s band camp joke season again. And right on cue, there’s Dinkle, smirking and cackling and waxing nostalgic about how things used to be back before he retired. Many years ago. From his job as band director. I think he was deaf at one time too, although he appears to hear everything just fine now. He just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary, you know, in case you just recently started reading the strip or something.

Last year’s band camp arc ended on a cliffhanger as Becky apparently reached the boiling point re: her mother’s incessant meddling. Then everything suddenly stopped so Batom could get Les & Cayla’s wedding in before all the leaves in Westview fell (and it was a close call, let me tell ya). Not that I especially care about “resolving” that arc, I think it’s pretty safe to say that no one else does either. One meddlesome old coot per arc is one too many as it is. But still, it was pretty strange how he just abandoned that storyline cold like that. My guess: he fell asleep, woke up, thought he’d finished it, submitted it, no one noticed/checked/cared and that was that. What, you have a better explanation???

Ring of Shame

The second most surprising thing about today’s strip: Montoni’s has a modern touchscreen point-of-sale system. you’d expect to see an old-time ch-ching! cash register behind the counter.

The real story here is how Rachel “I’m only a blonde on Sundays” O’Conner cleverly finagles a real engagement ring from her dishwasher fiancé. Fashioning a ring out of Wally’s I.O.U. initially seemed sweet and spontaneous. Now she makes it clear to Wally that she intends to wear that damn thing on her finger every day, informing every Montoni’s customer who asks “What’s this?” that Wally didn’t buy her a ring.

Tell Mama

“Wally says he loves you too…What’s that, Mom? Oh. Well, it’s…it’s an I.O.U., actually. But I folded it up and put it on my finger just like a ring! …Hmm? No, silly, we wouldn’t dream of having our wedding in a pizza parlor! We’re getting married in the gazebo!…No, that big white pavilion…in the park!…What? You’re breaking up…oh…Buddy. Buddy. His service dog, Buddy! Mom? What’s wrong? Mom, stop crying. Mom?”