Tag: Wally

Tardee-la

Nice as that introduction is, Epicus, I don’t know if my return is triumphant. Even so, billytheskink is here for a couple of weeks of wading through the marsh that is TB’s latest “substantial idea”.

Last week’s slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow build up continues in today’s strip. I guess this is supposed to build suspense while we wait for Wally to become uncomfortable enough around Adeela to win an award or at least generate a Tuesday Arts & Entertainment section quarter-page story about how Funky Winkerbean is more serious than Sherman’s Lagoon.

But there is no suspense in this strip. There is only Dilbert’s brother, the Human Bowling Pin:
FunkyDilbert

Issues Of Futures Passed

Link To Today’s Strip

Poor, poor Wally. At long last everything appears to finally be going his way. He’s about to graduate with a coveted six year degree in pizzeria management, he’s once again able to freely mingle and fraternize with co-eds and his uncle is about to bestow upon him the highest honor a Westviewian can achieve. So naturally the Great Pulitzer Nominee is setting him up for yet another brutal gut-punch, another cruel setback, another trigger that will send his PTSD into overdrive and destroy the happiness he’s painstakingly built for himself over the last several years.

Apparently “Adeela” is some sort of new character hailing from the war-ravaged Middle East, a character who just happens to be enrolling at Westview Community College just as Wally reaches the apex of his long and painful recovery. And if I know my FW, this Adeela will probably be a one-armed radioactive comic book fanatic who stepped on a “bouncing Betty” on the way to the chemo ward after gaining a lot of weight. Lord only knows where this might be going but if Wally’s involved it’s a safe bet that it’s nowhere good.

Relatively Speaking

Link To Today’s Strip

As usual the characters are furiously babbling and making no sense whatsoever. Wally already DOES “work with” Funky and has been doing so for YEARS now. Are we to believe Funky has been withholding the most important and meaningful secrets of the pizzeria trade from his nephew until he was sufficiently educated? Why are they talking about Wally like he’s some sort of child and why are the carrying on as if being made assistant manager at Montoni’s would represent some great career leap for him? “Fresh ideas”…”thriving”…LOL, I mean come on.

The Analogies Of A Short Distance Runner

Link To Today’s Installment

Ol’ Man Winkerbean, fifty-five going on eighty-eight. Pass the baton, break the tape…what, is Montoni’s somehow involved in some sort of bizarre long-term business competition or something? “I’ll be damned if Kowalski Shoe Repair beats ME for longest continually operating Westviewian business! Help me pull out these IV tubes”. All of a sudden he’s Carl Lewis with the running references even though when he does run all he does is complain about it.

It’s pretty funny how Wally needed to earn a six-year business management degree in order for his uncle to consider him worthy of operating his pizza business. Working for six years to earn a college degree only to find yourself exactly where you were when you started…that’s just so, so Wally. Then again maybe he’s just pacing himself and biding his time until he hits his 80s and life becomes wacky and zany again. Either way it’s profoundly depressing, I mean hasn’t he already suffered enough?

That’s A Good Boy

Link To Today’s Strip

FW’s most beloved character (by far) is finally back! No, not that bizarre Wally impostor, whoever he is. Of course I’m referring to Buddy The PTSD Service Dog, who’s as fuzzy and lovable as ever. It’s about goddamned time too. That’s a good, good dog!

Mysteries abound in today’s somewhat peculiar installment. Did Wally always wear those scholarly glasses? Why aren’t Wally’s male classmates smothering Buddy with love as well? Why is Rachel so insecure? Didn’t Batiuk use this exact same gag at least once before? So people still say “co-eds” in this day and age? I really don’t know, but I do know that these idiots are a breath of fresh air after two hundred consecutive weeks of Pete, Boy Lisa and f*cking comic books, that incredibly clunky line of expository dialog in panel one notwithstanding.