Rocky – Page 4 – Son of Stuck Funky

Snarky Answers To Stupid Questions: Holiday Edition

“No, it’s my father’s room. He has some pretty severe developmental issues.”

“No, it was my bedroom when I DIDN’T live here, you clod!”

“Whaddya mean “when I lived here??”

Those bedroom eyes are pretty freaky, eh? I wonder if he’ll ever actually marry these two or if they’ll be perpetually engaged, like how Boy Lisa and Jessica are perpetually” young kids just starting out”? It’s uncanny how Batom always misses the most obvious story arcs. Like with these two. Cory comes home, gets engaged, gets married in a quick blow-off Sunday strip, tells everyone he’s moving away to Chattanooga or wherever and bam, out of the strip. No need for updates, forced dialog and etc. Quick and easy. I mean who would care anyway?

And Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except In Mort’s Pants

Link To Today’s Strip

Good old horndog Morton, fully recovered from his advanced Alzheimer’s disease and as randy as ever. Gross. I honestly forgot all about Melinda, who apparently still lives with Funky and Holly in Pizza Mahal. And Cory and Rocky…apparently they’re still characters in the strip. Who knew? Other than the fact that they’re engaged we really know very, very little about Cory and Rocky. Comic books, pizza, the army, engaged…and that’s about it. They’ve had one or two arcs at most over the last six or seven years and those were when he first came marching home.

Where do they live? Where do they work? What do they do? Why are they even in the strip in the first place? Continuity? That’s, uh, “inconsistent”, let’s say. As far as Morton is concerned I don’t want to belabor the point as I’ve ranted about it many times, but his transformation from “advanced dementia patient” to “sassy and adorable old coot” is one of the more offensive things BatYarn’s done over the course of Act III. He milked that Alzheimer’s arc for a shitload of pathos, it really takes a lot of balls to just suddenly drop it and have Mort jamming with jazz combos and hitting on elderly women.

Defused

Link to today’s strip.

And just like that, the whole situation is defused. This is a good example of Batiuk’s poor writing choices. In the normal Archie-type sitcom scenario we’ve been seeing this week, the situation would be resolved when the wife confronts the husband, and it’s the husband who has to explain how everything is innocent. Here, it’s like Batiuk is thinking, “Well, everyone loves my characters and I can’t keep implying that they’re doing bad things, so I’d better stop this now.”

So, Wally’s helping Adeela get her driver’s license. So, purely innocent…and rather helpful on Wally’s part. Those of you who, earlier in the week, guessed that something more interesting was afoot…well, sorry. It wasn’t.

I’m really surprised Wally offered to help her. Everything he encounters seems to trigger him into a psychotic breakdown–and given his history with women in cars, I should think this would be even more of a nightmare for him than showing up at Kent State to go to class. According to that story, Wally leaving the house was a major milestone for him.

I think he would probably refuse to get into any car, let alone one with another person, where that person might be charged an arm and a leg.

But that’s the Funkyverse–where consistency doesn’t even apply to milkshakes.

Driving Me Backwards

Link to today’s strip.

Gad, the pacing in this damned strip…”glacial” isn’t the word for it, since glaciers manage to move a few inches per year. This is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, except you have to wake up a really old caretaker to hand you each piece, one at a time. And in the end, the resultant picture is not worth the effort.

Let’s recap: We have a date, Wally’s off with Adeela, I’m mad, Wally and Adeela are driving….

Tomorrow, I expect them to impart that Wally and Adeela are driving a car, and they’re not on the golf course starting wildfires.

Credit where it’s due: Rocky’s been drawn nicely, especially panel three.

Here’s what Brian Eno had to say, back in the day.

John Foxx had some thoughts as well.

Snowbird Sanctuary

Link To Today’s Strip

Well, it may be the 26th and all but yuletide festivities are still in full swing over at Winkerbean Manor aka The House That Tony Built. Apparently Holly’s mother has been staying there this whole time, as that whole “band reunion” thing appears to have been nothing more than an excuse for Holly’s mom (does she even have a name?) to make Funky’s depressing life even more of a living hell. Despite it being a pretty tired old trope (mother-in-law gags are as trope-y as it gets) I was not altogether un-amused by Funky’s reaction there in panel two, nor by his sidewards comma eyes in panel one for that matter. Maybe it’s my misguided Christmas cheer, but IMO this is at least a baby step up from seven week PTSD arc or watching a befuddled amputee bumble around haplessly for a week, so there is that. I mean sure, it isn’t “good” by any measure but given how abysmal 2018 was overall, I’ll temporarily take it.