How It Went Down

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20110208&name=Funky_Winkerbean

Cayla paints the word picture for Les. Between Our Lady of the Cedars and now “Central Catholic”, it seems that the parochial schools have just been giving the She-Goats hell.

Summer blew out her knee falling on top of two other players? I can see her getting hurt at the bottom of a pile…whatevs.

Even Slam-Dunk Summer’s injuries are spectacular: “The whole gym heard it pop!” If Wally had been at the game, no doubt he’d need Buddy by his side to keep him calm!

Funny as a Crutch

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The bald guy in panel 2 has that look on his face because he just spent the last four hours on a plane listening to Les abusing the flight attendants. And now Les is walking behind the poor guy and muttering to himself.

I guess Les’ cellphone battery died again, because he doesn’t know if his superstar daughter’s team won tonight’s tournament game. By the way, Panel 3 Les: the momentum would take the team into the next round, not vice-versa.

Les arrives home (didn’t need to be picked up this time?) not to the expected victory celebration, but to be greeted by the sight of his golden girl on crutches. A tip of the SoSF porkpie hat to the many FW followers who predicted a career-threatening sports injury to Sum’ Mo’.

Frequent Fryer

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And you thought the Book Tour was over? I wonder how Principal Nate is feeling now about giving Les unlimited personal days?

I thought Les was getting “fried” too, when he got that courtesy call from his dead wife. But as far as we know, he never shared that incident with his daughter. Instead, Les apparently regaled her with stories about how he behaved like a complete asshole, annoying lowly, hard-working security personnel, newsstand vendors and flight attendants, everywhere he went.

I wonder if he tried the Spinal Tap foil-wrapped-cucumber-down-the-pants trick?

Hedge and Trap

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20110108&name=Funky_Winkerbean

Today TB trots out one of his favorite themes: that role-reversal in which children feel the need to protect their poor hapless parents. Although when your father is a complete idiot like Les, perhaps some sheltering is in order.  And we see another Batiuk trait in panel 3 when Keisha says “Point” where in real life one would say “Good point” or “I get your point”  (she could also have come back with “Bingo, Sherlock”). There’s only enough space in the panel, though, for her one-word reply. Maybe if he spread the plot more evenly over the week’s panels, it wouldn’t be necessary for TB to cram all the dialogue into Saturday’s strip.