Tag: random students

Goodness Gracious

Lower your expectations! I’m left to swim in BeckoningChasm’s wake after his most excellent guest hosting duties. A tip of the Funky Fedora to you, BC!

Now, onto the snark.

Quick, Les, take a seat with the rest of the class so we can pick *someone* we know out of this sea of unknown students. Cody, Owen, pressed into service as one of the only two students we’ve been introduced to in this gaggle of malformed, floating heads, does his best with the predictable but bad news he’s been given in today’s strip.

Hoo-boy. I hope this strip doesn’t indicate we’re in for a cycle (recycle) of “The Scapegoats are terrible” knee-slappers. That could make for a long snark fortnight for yours truly!

“BC”=”Before Cthulhu”

Today’s strip

NB:  BC does not stand for BeckoningChasm!  Let’s just swat those rumors down right now!

Now, as for today’s thing…whoa, Les is straying from the Moby Dick/“Snows of Kilimanjaro” syllabus!  Let’s be generous and say he’s only brought this particular work into his class in order to point out its shortcomings compared to those two works…”bullying it,” in a sense.    Now, I confess my knowledge of ancient texts is pretty weak, so can anyone tell me what this work might be?  The Satyricon, maybe?

Given the sorry state of the Westview educational system, Owen’s answer seems to be a genuine one, not borne of his own personal ignorance.  There’s no evidence of a typical religious presence in Westview, although I seem to recall a priest performing Les and Cayla’s wedding.  So Jesus Christ (no matter your personal view of him) would not be an item that anyone in this benighted town would discuss openly, and hence the meaning of “BC” wouldn’t be common knowledge among the community’s teens.  (It’s not BeckoningChasm so stop asking!)

In fact, seeing the evidence of how the characters in this comic regard the endless and instant hostility of the cosmic fate that continuously observes and judges them, I suspect that the only gods known in Westview are those theorized by H.P. Lovecraft…

–okay, that was a jokey aside, but in all seriousness, it suddenly makes the undercurrents behind this strip much more interesting.   Did Lisa really die of cancer?  Did Susan Smith really leave town?  Last year’s high school class…have they really gone on to college somewhere?  Where are Jinx, Chien, Crazy Harry’s kids, Rachel’s son, Wally’s son?   Why aren’t they mentioned at all?  Did you notice we didn’t have a “senior prom/graduation day” arc this year–what happened to last year’s entire junior class?  And maybe Khan isn’t “Khan,” but the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred?  Maybe “Citizen Khan’s” isn’t a deli at all!

Now I really want to see a Sunday strip showing the Westview folks attending mass.  I want to see a priest facing the crowd and saying, “Okay folks, repeat after me–Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

*cough*  Well, rather than end on that dark thought, let’s take a closer look at panel two, where Les is at his most punchable.

If he swallows him, he'll make a BLEAH face and spit him out.

There you go.  As our friends at Mad magazine once said, “Suitable for framing or wrapping fish!”

(Credit Where It’s Due Department: image of Cthulhu created by someone who calls himself Somniturne1)

I thank you for your indulgence, fellow snarkers!  As Fearless Leader says, stay Funky!

Cuts Both Ways

Today’s strip

So, one of the reasons Bull wanted to enter the world of higher education was so he could continue the great tradition of being a huge dick to the students.  That seems rather humble, doesn’t it?  I mean, all the teachers are huge dicks to the students; it must be the first instruction in the first paragraph of the Westview High School’s So You Want to be a Teacher pamphlet.  Being a huge dick just means you’re earning your paycheck.  I guess I can’t really blame anyone in the Funkyverse for setting his sights low; ambition is typically rewarded with a cosmic swatting.  Still, it’s interesting to see such a naked lack of ambition.

By the way, I went to high school and I don’t recall any teachers taking advantage like this.  Everyone, teacher, student and administrator, got in line and stayed in line.  Of course, there’s nothing funny about playing by the rules…just like there’s nothing funny about Funky Winkerbean.  Hey wait a minute–how can Bull “get cuts” in line, when lunch itself has been cut?  Is Bull fantasizing?  This…this is what he daydreams about?   Yeah…that’s some ambition all right.

I see that the “smart-pad” has already been dropped (by Les, into the swimming pool).  Someone from Apple must have hrmm-hrmm’d at Tom Batiuk’s lawyers, and the change from “iPad” to “Smart-Pad” probably didn’t mollify anyone.  Well…perhaps Mr. Batiuk has learned a bit of humility from the experience, and the next time someone uses a bit of the old Funky Winkerbean magic, he’ll…oh, okay I can’t really keep up the pretense.   My sense is that Mr. Batiuk will continue taking the advice from the So You Want to be a Nationally Syndicated Cartoonist pamphlet very seriously indeed.

I Call "Bull" Shit


That was nice what you just did, Bull“?!? What English teach– uh, sorry, Language Arts teacher, let alone a pretentious douchebag like Les, would utter such a colloquialism? And the “nice thing” he did? Catching a trio of repeat-offender school bullies in the act and letting them walk away without even a verbal warning.

TheDiva
April 4, 2013 at 1:47 pm
A few days ago, I wondered if it would be worse for Batiuk to treat bullying in an inappropriately (and unfunny) humorous manner or a insufferable serious manner. Now I know an even worse third option exists: total schizophrenia.

…and TB’s schizo tendencies extend to his continuing retconning/re-retconning of Les and Bull’s high school relationship: two years ago he went to great lengths to posit that Bull was just pretending to beat Les up in order to protect him from the real bullies. But for the purposes of the current storyline, it turns out that Bull really did pick on Les, and now must spend the rest of his life atoning.

Thirty years ago…not only was the bullying real, it was actually pretty funny!

Close to the Wedge

bad wolf
April 1, 2013 at 10:22 pm
[I]s that our old friend Wedgeman? It’s been so long but one of the few ‘new’ students from last year (who i assumed was also a senior at the time) may still be around!

Good eye, bad wolf! Even though his hair has the “Superman blue” highlights these days instead of brown, that’s gotta be Wedgeman, who last year was fixin’ to “kick [Cody’s] butt off” before Summer came to his rescue. Now that Sheriff Sum’ Mo’ has ridden out of town,  somebody has to man up and come to the rescue of Wedgeman’s victims.