Yes Tom. The Scapegoats used to be abysmal, Dinkle used to be zany and Holly used to explode a lot. Hearing the now-elderly characters reminiscing about Act I sure brings back memories, memories I’ve already forgotten. Buck, who most likely doesn’t have another friend in the world, suddenly decides to start razzing a clearly insulted Bull all for the sake of perpetuating Bull’s endless karmic comeuppance. Simply hilarious. I certainly hope this isn’t leading toward an entire week of “boy our team sure did used to suck” gags but sadly it appears to be inevitable now.
Tag: Scapegoats
Impermanent Record
Today’s strip serves no purpose whatsoever aside from moving us one day closer to the end of this “story” arc, and to Funky’s 50th anniversary, and to Tom Batiuk’s retirement. Buck’s inane question receives an inane answer from Bull, and everyone smirks. I just can’t get over the fact that had Buck not invited the Bushkas, Bull would be sitting unawares in his basement instead of in the nosebleed seats as his decades-old rushing record is challenged.
Yadnus Pirts
As is customary, Sunday’s strip was not available for preview. They’re always a surprise, but rarely a good surprise, something you’d actually enjoy reading. Here are some possibilities I’ve come up with; feel free to add your own guesses in the comments.
First, we might continue with Skyler and his g’rents, though that seems to be pretty played out. Now, never underestimate this cartoonist for stretching something past its sell-by date, but I can’t really see where he could go with this to “make a greater point,” so we’ve probably seen the last of Dullard & Co for the nonce.
Second possibility is we might re-visit the premise from a week or so ago, and pick up how Chester, the wealthy comics collector wants to get in touch with the comic book writer Peeved Radish.
Third, Funky and Les jogging. I mean, we haven’t seen that in pretty much forever! Not that I miss it or anything, but the cosmos feels misaligned.
Fourth, we might find out what happened to Becky’s mom. –ha ha, just kidding. That boat’s been scuttled for, what, five years now? No, the real fourth would be some sideways kids’ book that Ann found in her Dullard shrine, something that would inspire some wry remark about how things were better Back Then.
The fifth and final guess I’m going to add is that we’ll get something completely untied to anything from the last six months.
Anyway, we’ll all find out in a little less than a couple of hours. Wow!–it’s just like Christmas Eve, right? Only this is an eve where one measures not the delights that may come once morning breaks, but the various disappointments one is certain to encounter when one reaches the bottom of the stairs, beholds the menacing tree, and hopes that the bigger boxes are not addressed to oneself.
But, well, despite the paragraph above (sorry, folks, I’ve been a guest host for quite a long time, and it does leave a mark), there is one thing certain: no matter the subject, the characters, the dialogue or the story–it will be dull beyond bearing.
The Men Who Swear At Goats
Today’s strip is what passes for levity in Funky Winkerbean these days, I guess. Buck was apparently disturbed by a commonly-milked farm animal when he really should have been disturbed by the complete lack of almost everything at this football game. There appears to be no crowd, no officials, almost no players (look at that empty bench behind Stropp), and apparently no one else but Bull around to wrangle a loose mascot. Was Westview’s football stadium nicknamed “Uncanny Valley”?
Oh, and did you know that the Scapegoat mascot had a name back in Act I? It’s Billy, much to my chagrin… He once appeared on a book cover with Erma Bombeck’s name.
HomeDumbing Charade
I like the “I” on the front of Bull’s jacket, like the artist just couldn’t be bothered to draw a proper half a “W”. Nicely done there, new guy. What a totally pointless waste of time this piece of garbage was, it was pretty much the same thing as the first Buck arc except even less eventful. At least that one involved thinking and walking. I don’t get what he’s trying to “do” with Bull at all. He gave him a debilitating brain condition in order to force him into an early retirement (Bull is the same age as the rest of the Act I gang, remember) but all he’s done since then is sit around remembering things, which is kind of at odds with the whole point of it.
Earlier in Act III he did an arc about Funky having to put his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father in a nursing home, which led to all sorts of hilarious ramifications, but now Morty is a goofy peppy old coot, improbably enough. Lisa took a hundred years to finally agonizingly die from cancer, then she was hanging around in Les’ car like a month later. Now he’s doing an arc about Bull suffering from brain damage, yet his memory appears to be sharper than ever. There’s a definite pattern of sorts here, one I’d prefer not to analyze very deeply at the moment.
Son of Stuck Funky 