Happy Thanksgiving, folks! To celebrate the holiday, Tom Batiuk presents…a Black Friday joke?
As “Black Friday” jokes go, well…this is…um, running on Thanksgiving Day? I guess when you’re writing drawing your comic strip a year in advance, and the calendar falls behind the couch, well, holiday mistakes will happen, right? I know that stores opening on Thanksgiving Day is a Thing now, but only in Funky Winkerbean would that be the aspect of the holiday that you want to highlight. Because that’s what holidays are all about–annoyances and boorishness.
I guess that means for Christmas we can look forward to a strip where Funky is stuck in the mall parking lot, waiting for a tow truck to haul away his car because it ran out of gas.
As for today’s offering, as a regular, plain old joke…well…this is…um, obviously a joke, so there’s that. It’s been done a few billion times before and has, therefore, lost its freshness, but it’s…uh–
I don’t know, I hesitate to call it an “attempt” since it doesn’t really try to do anything. Crowds on Black Friday, they’re wild and make stores super crowded, and even old ladies with walkers want to grab those big screen TVs that the youth like to watch Grand Funk Railroad on. And little kids won’t eat their vegetables, and women are always shopping for shoes, and old people like to rock in their chairs and complain. And teenagers today, those dance steps they do are like someone who has ants in their pants! Plus, with their long hair, you can’t tell the boys from the girls!
You know, I always like to give Tom Batiuk credit when he makes the attempt at humor. I went a bit overboard last Spring with a “Funky at the Gym” arc, but I thought the attempt to put actual jokes in the strip was worthy of notice.
Here, not so much. My main feeling when looking at this is a sense of tiredness, of being told a joke you’ve heard so many times it’s depressing, and you’re too weary to smile at the teller.
(Oh my God…I’m turning into a Funky Winkerbean character! Argh, today’s strip is the worst ever!)
Still, it does have one thing going for it–absolutely none of the Funky Winkerbean cast appear. I guess that’s a pretty decent holiday gift from Mr. Batiuk, so let’s all give thanks for that. Thank you, Mr. Batiuk.
Son of Stuck Funky 