Tag: sports

Misery, Golf Style

Oh yay, the totally random unnamed golfers with no context or purpose are back today. He’s done two full strips of these guys without any hint as to why it’s even close to relevant, or supposed to be interesting.  Does he think he’s filling a void by making comic strips about golf?  Because that is totally not the case.  And is just me or do this three just look slightly off versions of Funky, Bull, and Les without his beard?  I don’t know if it’s the directions Batiuk gives the artists, but for a while now almost all the characters look far too similar.

Pickup Basketball

We’ll have to take Les’ word about the “beauty” of Mason and Cindy’s second home: what we’ve been shown for the last three days, the exterior resembles a loading dock. We don’t get to see much of the interior: most of the scenery is obscured by word zeppelins. I’m sure it’s not Batiuk’s intent, but there still feels like a lot of sexual tension between these two. I’m not able to dig up the strip where Les first meets Lisa (help me out, billytheskink), but Les’ “main pickup move” must have been strong indeed with Cayla, as seen in this 2008 strip.

Habakbuck

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand… we’re still watching Buck and Linda wade through Bull’s sports junk in today’s strip? Of course we are. This is post-40th anniversary Funky Winkerbean we’re looking at, expectations are for fools.

Oh hi, I’m billytheskink, and speaking of anniversaries… I’m proud to be the one to take you all through the 10th anniversary of this here groundbreaking blog. I will, however, profess nothing but lament that we must be subjected to the maudlin nonexistence of a story arc that is surely coming this week.

So Buck has the same problem with hoarding sports memorabilia that Bull had? That sounds like a trite but reasonable “men, amirite” bit until you consider that Bull followed his high school football career with a 4 year college career, an NFL training camp invite, assistant and head football coaching jobs at Westview High School, a head girl’s basketball coaching job at WHS, a rescinded offer to coach a college football team, and championships won in both high school football and girl’s basketball. As far as we know, Buck’s football career ended when he walked off the field at Big Walnut Tech for the last time. Bull has an excuse to have collected a bunch of junk from his decades-long career in sports. What’s Buck’s excuse?

Burn It All Down

Link to today’s strip.

Well, my wish from yesterday wasn’t granted, and we’re back with the Mope Set.  As before, I don’t know what to make of this; I wish I’d had the arc where Funky misses the winning basketball shot, because that’s easily explainable as Tom Batiuk’s utter hatred of his title character.

Then this would be relevant:

(Larger and more satisfying version here.)

In today’s case–well, is it true that fewer high school kids are going out for football?  I have no way of knowing either way.  My impression is that sports are always popular for students.  If the numbers are falling, one thing I do know is that it’s NOT because the kids read a powerful anti-CTE story in Funky Winkerbean.

And the last two panels, again, make me wonder if we should be concerned about Batiuk’s mental state.   Much as I disdain his work, I have no animus against the man himself.  May he live long and prosper.  But what on earth is Buck talking about?  How does cancelling the football season mean that the band “wins”?  Aren’t they tied in great measure tied to one another?  Yes, there are other band activities, like the odd concert and student assemblies and so on, but the main display of the band is at sporting events.

And please tolerate a dumb question from a non-sporto, but it’s March.  Isn’t the football season already over?

As for Linda’s curtain line, does Tom Batiuk know what “Pyrrhic victory” means?  It’s when you win a war, but at such great cost to your side that it might as well be a defeat.  Trying to spin the logic here, she means no football games means, um, no band half-time shows, but, uh…there’ll be other occasional activities for the band (which the football team wouldn’t have).  So the band has marginally more stuff to do.  But there may be so few of said activities…uh, lemme think.  I guess she means that the school might consider cancelling the band as well?  Is that it?

Why would she care?  A) She’s retired.  Other than retirement pay, the school is in her past.  (Of course high school never really goes away in Funky Winkerbean, but still.)  B) She never had any interaction with the band that I can recall.  If the school cancelled football and band, why would she care either way?

In order to really have that line work, the band members would have to be actively persuading students not to join the football team.  Which is not what they spoke about.  And neither Linda nor Buck would know anything about such a scheme.  (And that kind of scheme would make a very interesting storyline, honestly…which is why we’ll never see it.  Damn.)

I keep bashing my head against this strip, trying to figure out the logic or sense behind it, and all I get is a headache.  I think Funky Winkerbean is giving me CTE.