unnatural hand gestures – Page 8

Tone It Down

I wonder if the school still pays the cost for Dinkle to attend the OMEA. Oh wait, in today’s strip it’s just “Music Educators Conference”. I wonder if the OMEA didn’t pay enough to be featured on a sign every day this week. Or maybe Batiuk thought it would be nobody would know “OMEA” was a music thing, and they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the hilarity without knowing that.
Apart from the weirdness of the sign, just the format itself of today’s strip confuses me so much. Batiuk does this regularly, where one character makes a “joke” and another character reacts with fury to tell them it’s not a joke. I don’t understand it at all, because it doesn’t add a thing to it. The only thing I see as a possibility is maybe that Batiuk does it to portray anyone who doesn’t appreciate “wordplay” as a jackass? Because I can guarantee he doesn’t have a problem with puns, since 99% of the content in Crankshaft is Crankshaft getting words confused.
I’d also like to know the set up of this joke-did Harry just randomly walk up to someone he saw talking and tell him this?

Eye Do Not Care Anymore

Is Funky telling the truth in today’s strip? Last time we saw him get a physical was in early 2017, when he and Holly flew to Dallas (sure…) to visit a so-called “superclinic” (sure… again) for physicals. Well, Holly claimed it was an annual physical back then, so maybe the Winkerbeans’ annual January Dallas superclinic physical trip just recently happened. Not sure when that would have been, we’ve seen Funky and/or Holly every single week so far this month…

Oh wait, none of that matters. Nurse Scrunchie doesn’t care about Funky’s physical health, she just needs to know if he can afford to pay for his cataract surgery. What a scathing and original commentary on the American healthcare system! Groundbreaking stuff!

Eye am about out of eye puns

And eye (ugh) *s-eye* (no no no) *sigh* (that’s better) sorry… I am about out of patience with this anti-majestic glacier of a story line. Every single thing in today’s strip happened in yesterday’s strip as well. I’m not sure even Garfield or Family Circus recycle at this level… I don’t know if this will help, but I have cut the 62 words in these last two strips down to 20 in an attempt to make this never-ending story stronger and more concise.

Dr. Droopy: Cataract surgery is pretty common nowadays.  It is quite safe and not especially complicated.
Funky: I'm worried! WORRIED, I TELLS YA!

Eye-ku

No need to induce
To put folks in a coma
Just use today's strip

Dramatic Funky
Or is he? Lest we forget
His time warp coma

Here's a third haiku
It is here to fill up space
Like this story arc

Frisket Business

Whew! I am so very happy to report that today’s strip doesn’t take place at the optometrist office, we’ve instead moved to a world where two Northern Ohio-based nonagenarian comic book legends are somehow meeting for the first time. It is, remarkably, a welcome respite.

Are we really supposed to believe that Flash and Ruby Lith, alleged fans of each other’s work, are meeting for the first time? Ruby Lith (hired in September 2019) wasn’t in the office during Flash’s last visit, when he dropped by to kvetch about “Turtle Thompson” (wait, was “Thompson” part of the guy’s nickname?) back in December 2019? Yes, Ruby Lith’s Miss American was a Capitol Comics title while Flash worked at Batom, but these two have both presumably been alive since the Coolidge administration working in the same industry in presumably a similar geographic area… they never met at a convention? Trade show? Art supply store? Comic book store? 3:30 PM dinner buffet?

While the plot seems a stretch, the puns today, however, are… well, they certainly are present. Though I incorrectly guessed her relation, I knew Amber Lith was coming. Really, I think we all knew Amber Lith was gonna be a gag in a Ruby Lith strip at some point. Didn’t see the dog’s related punny name coming, but it feels incredibly uninspired and unsurprising nonetheless.