Tony’s back in today’s strip you all!
TONY! IS! BACK! Ring the bells! Toss the confetti! Kill the fatted calf!
Yes, he’s back! Wearing the same shirt he had on when he left for “God’s waiting room” back in October, no less. And carrying the same suitcase, because… he lives at Montoni’s?
Also, Rachel is handing out invitations A WEEK before Wally’s graduation? Miss Manners ain’t gonna like this… I know I don’t.
So long Atomik Komix! Not sad to see you go.
Today’s strip moves us on to the greener pastures of… *sigh* Montoni’s.
Yep, nephew cousin Wally is having one of those newfangled January college graduations. He is also too cheap to spring for (recently-increased) postage it would seem, having Rache hand-deliver invitations and putting the savings toward paying Wally Jr’s ransom.
Meanwhile, uncle cousin Funky is wistfully wondering when Wally, who began high school the year after Funky graduated from college, became an adult. Probably sometime during the the time he joined the military, became a POW, got married, volunteered with a minesweeping organization, adopted a child, had another child, became a POW again, spent over a decade in captivity, came back to the US, got a job at Montoni’s, started going to college, got a service dog, got married, and qualified to graduate from college.
That is one long, narrow table. And I assume that’s Rachel’s kid sitting next to her, even though I’m pretty sure he should be in high school by now. He’s definitely going to be in my nightmares for a while though, the way he’s staring right at the viewer for some reason. He looks like he should be in a horror movie, where none of the people can actually see him.
Wally’s expression is also pretty uncomfortable, although it’s more of the incredibly smug variety then creepy. I guess his expression is supposed to be saying “hey reader, look how awesome I am, having MUSLIMS at my (uncle/cousin’s) THANKSGIVING! Isn’t this mind-blowing, and award-worthy?! Damn, Tom Batiuk sure is one HELL of a writer”.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. 🙂
So apparently Rana can’t speak for herself, and Wally has to clear this with her mom, because she’s eight years old and not a grad student. Wait, that’s not right.
I mean, why would Becky object? It’s the first time in like ten years Wally’s even been aware he has a daughter. Becky’s got to seize that moment while she can. And this will allow her and John to have a romantic Thanksgiving alone. Who am I kidding, of course it would be the two of them and Crazy Harry.
And it’s one thing for an individual to say that they personally are putting on the “freshman fifteen” (grad school fifteen is just lame and continues the long Batiukian tradition of thinking just switching two words is enough to be hilarious). It’s another thing for Becky to “joke” about this totally behind Rana’s back to her dad. It just comes off like complaining about her getting fat, which is laughable, but totally in line with the general mean-spirited nature of Batiuk’s strips.
Based on appearances I’d say that age gap is maybe five years or so. Honestly, it doesn’t look like an age gap as much as a “Funky is a lot fatter” gap, since Wally doesn’t look like a young buck or anything.
It’s funny, Batiuk passing off forgetting the basic relationships between his characters as “oh yeah, that was a joke all along and you didn’t get it”. I assume coming up soon someone will say they call Pete by the wrong last name to be funny.
Son of Stuck Funky 
