Tag: Tarzan

I Dreamed a Dream

Has working in a comics shop always been your dream?
…asked nobody, anywhere, ever. Except, of course, in the Funkiverse, where who wouldn’t want to work in a comics shop? Screw the postal service, with their generous salary and benefits! If I can’t be Tarzan, why, this job suits me just fine!

Jason
December 18, 2012 at 8:09 pm
…is Harry trying to sell a comic book to Sarah Palin?

I think with the mousy brown hair with the unruly lock in the front, she looks more than a little like Susan…speaking of missing characters whom we wouldn’t mind seeing again.

Contest update!
I wish I could be like Oprah and say “You get a mug! And you get a mug! And…” but failing that, I’m happy to announce that our own Merry Pookster wins the coveted mug from the official Funky Winkerbean CafePress store! Thanks to everyone who commented!

Bungle in the Jungle

To those who, like yours truly, scoffed at Crazy Harry’s well-intentioned offer of his Tarzan collection to Les? Turns out Les actually read Crazy’s Tarzan comics and as a result is now trippin’ balls. James the Guide (inexplicably portrayed today by a young Geoffrey Holder) solemnly warns the climbers that due to the high altitude they “might experience some hallucinations.” This warning comes after the hallucinations have already begun. While TB uses Les’ condition as an occasion for humor, and to indulge his fondness for jungle comics, Les is actually experiencing the onset of high altitude cerebral edema (or HACE), “a severe (frequently fatal) form of altitude sickness”. He really needs to be moved to a lower altitude, stat! On second thought: keep climbing, Les, keep climbing!

The Three Faces of Crazy

In typical Westviewvian fashion, all of Les’ friends are offering unbidden and useless “help” with his Kilimanjaro conquest. First, self-styled personal trainer Bull shows up to whip Les’ pasty ass into shape. Today Crazy Harry offers to loan his precious collection of “comical books about Tarzan”. I think Crazy may have confused “Tarzan” and “Tanzania”. Look for Funky to send Les and Summer off with a shipping crate of freeze-dried Montoni’s pies to sustain them on the climb.

I’m sure you all recognize the delirious kid with the Tarzan comics swirling around his head as young Harold Klinghorn, pre-hat, pre-nickname and pre-drugs, back in those innocent times when his only “high” was Tarzan funnies. The Sunday-strip color gradients and shading do not make him any cuter. We recognize his teenage (and actually likeable) self in the little portrait in the banner. Would anyone not familiar with Funky Winkerbean see today’s comic and figure out that the boy, the kid in the hat, and the old geezer are the same person? Or that the two men talking went to high school together?

La Donna Della Mia Vita

Wow. In a comic strip legendary for its epic sadness, I don’t think it’s ever been sadder that it is today. Bad enough that Harry’s devotion to Tarzan “comical books” would lead him to consider cashing in his daughter’s college fund. But when Donna, the only woman in the world who finds him desireable, dares to (only-half-) jokingly expresses her longing for him, everyone in the room is immediately and visibly repulsed. I suppose Maddie can be forgiven her reaction to hearing her parents allude to “gettin’ busy”. As for John, he’s probably skeeved at the thought of caressing anything besides pubescent boys.

A while back, someone stated on Twitter that the Komix Korner was based on Ground Zero Comics in Strongsville, Ohio (15 miles from TB’s home in Medina). I couldn’t find GZ Comics’ website, but some pics found on patch.com seem to support this. The store’s nestled in a strip mall, not above a pizza joint, but like the Korner, it’s decorated with nerd tchotchkes. They also have a Space Invaders machine just like Tony’s.

I'm an Ape Man, I'm an Ape Ape Man, Oh I'm an Ape Man

After an almost solid month of girls’ hoops “action”, it’s something of a relief to get back to “Krazy’s Kwest for Komix”. It’s also a relief to note that Harry is not his postal uniform, which means he’s loitering on his own time for a change. It only took him four months of “nosing around“, but John’s finally located the rare volume that Harry needs to complete his Tarzan collection (I thought that Harry had already found it on his own). It took me five minutes to find it on Amazon.