Tag: technology

Padding Out The Week

Link to today’s strip.

Well, I sure get the image of Tom Batiuk, after posting today’s strip, sitting back, having run around his tiny baseball diamond, waiting for the phone to ring.   Hey, it’s Apple Computer!  And they love his idea of an arm holder!  And they want to pay him millions for it, and they also want to produce Lisa’s Story for theatres–and the way Tom Batiuk wants it made, too, with none of those dumb changes that are dumb!  Halleluiah!  Amen!

In reality, of course, there may very well be such an item already on the market…and I have to say it strikes me as completely idiotic.  No one who is a serious runner would be capable of using this–you have to use both arms when running, after all, but beside that you also have to be aware of where you are going and what’s in front of you, meaning you’re not fully concentrating on showing those mean commentators just how jobless they are.   Most technology used during exercise is meant to keep your mind occupied so it can’t tell the body, Hey, knock it off!  I’m trying to write!  So listening to music is great, surfing the web, less so.

I would think such a device would actually be an impediment to getting any exercise, but of course that assumes it’s made for a human.  Clearly the fellow above is not a human being, his face alone tells you that.   He looks a bit like The Man From Planet X, honestly, which is great that he got work after so long…even if it means being an extra in Funky Winkerbean.   Oh well.

This is a rare strip indeed where I don’t feel like punching Les, but then I am currently quite ill with the flu so perhaps I don’t have the energy.  But look at Funky’s Expression in Panel Two (clearly, this is the Theme of the Week).  He doesn’t look surprised to see such a device–he looks utterly crushed, as if his dreams have all just screeched to a halt.

Maybe between writing the first panel and the second, Tom Batiuk learned there was already an existing arm-holder thing.   Ah, that makes it all make sense, now.  Well, no, but when there’s a straw, might as well grasp it, right?

SPECIAL BONUS:  HOW TO COMPOSE A COMIC STRIP PANEL – The Tom Batiuk Way!

If you put your character in front of a tree, like this:

–then you’re putting a mental image in your readers’ heads, so you might as well go all the way.

There!  Perfect for the cover of the latest issue of The Nostalgic Punk.

Atten-shun

Today’s strip is a triumph in forced perspective. See how the spindly tip of Owen’s chullo appears to be scratching the temple of a young Spike Jones in panel 2. Remarkable.

And don’t forget to pick up your tickets for Saturday’s 8:00 PM Winter Concert. That is a thing that is going to be happening, a stark contrast to this strip, which is the very opposite of the definition of “happening”.

Not-quite Emu quote of the day:
“I ran three miles today… finally I said, ‘Lady, keep your purse.'”
– Emo Philips

Final War and Other Fantasies

Link To Today’s Strip

And here we are, almost at the end of the week…and perhaps, almost at the end of this chapter in the “Holly Buys Comics, Because Cory” saga?  Not much room left for Holly to get what she wants, is there?  All those pings!

My mutant super-power of being able to see future Funky Winkerbean strips–which is, trust me, the worst mutant super-power ever–is failing me at this point.  So let’s speculate.

I see today’s strip leading to the following three possible conclusions.

1 – a bitter Holly lectures everyone how evil technology has ruined her quest (for the moment).  She should have put her faith in people, and not processors.   This scenario has the advantage of ending the arc with Saturday’s strip, allowing Sunday’s to be another comic cover with a smirk in the corner.   Of course, we know Tom Batiuk is not a fan of short-and-to-the-point; the whole comic strip screams that.

2 – Holly receives an email from the winning bidder, which goes something like this.  “I am sorry that my $11.54 bid meant that you did not get the comic.  I did not know, at the time, that your son was in the service.  I am therefore going to mail you the comic, free of charge, along with a personal check for $11.54.”

3 – Holly goes to the Komix Korner to, uh, drown her sorrows or something.  And a smiling John Howard produces the comic!   “I outbid everyone else, to a final cost of $15,011.54, just so I could give you the comic for free!  Because Cory Winkerbean!”

Both 2 and 3 mean extending this by another week–which would be kind of difficult to do, since all it really needs is an extra couple of panels…D’oh!  What am I saying?  Funky Winkerbean specializes in stretching things way past the breaking point!

You know, I write these entries a year in advance (give or take 360-odd weeks) and I was a little surprised that everyone here already guessed all three of these outcomes.  Of course, they’re all blindingly obvious.  But maybe Tom Batiuk has a surprise for us!  I guess we’ll see, together, how this flops across the finish line.  In the meantime, I just gotta say this:  Holly’s unborn clown face in panel one is terrifying.

Move Toward The Light

Link To Today’s Strip

Hands up, everyone who didn’t see this coming a mile away.  Let’s see–that’s one, two, three–OMG, you people are going to have to see me after class if you have any hope of passing the mid-term.  Or that kidney stone.  I’ll let you choose which is less painful.

Of course, if, in a strip from next week, Cory returns home and, before it can land, that helicopter blows up, why, that would be great and I would personally buy Tom Batiuk a beer.   Of course, odds of that happening with the sacred cast are probably as close to zero as you can get without squinting.

Now if, as some have speculated, Rocky ends up dead or maimed, well…she’ll fit in nicely with Kerry, Carla, that biker dude who sold comics, and the rest of the anonymous horde who only serve to illustrate the troubles of the Funky Winkerbean cast in a greater arena before disappearing into their respective hells.   IE, it might be used to briefly illustrate a point, but then they and their sufferings will be shuffled quietly off-stage, never to be seen again.  After all, Les Moore, after all.

And before you ask, yes, I was going to call shenanigans on Holly’s surprise, since her cellphone probably flashed “Cory Winkerbean” when it rang, but…then I thought, perhaps Cory is using someone else’s phone.  Or perhaps the Winkerbeans never store anything in their contacts, or use different ring-tones, or any number of other stupid reasons why I hate writing about these people.  It is, after all, evil technology(R)(C), use of which is prohibited.

The wrap-up, here, of this arc (I am being optimistic) illustrates one of the major problems this strip has–it’s so static.  Nothing ever really changes.  Oh sure, Khahn moves away, Dopey Pete moves away, Cindy moves back…but those are all relatively trivial.  Since the death of Lisa, Tom Batiuk seems to have decided that this strip is just going to drift along on weak wordplay, smirks and depressive smacks to the head until someone in quality control notices what they’re paying for.  I guess payments for Funky Winkerbean are like the paychecks for Milton from Office Space.  Someday, someone will fix the glitch.

Perhaps I’m just someone bummed out because my favorite character, the Pouncing Darkness, is brutally dispatched over the course of today’s offering.  Farewell, Darkness!  I’ll–I’ll never forget you!  And I’ll vote for your Pulitzer!