Again with the friggin’ cartoon cavemen! I’ve tried to use restraint when it comes to judging Wally’s behavior on the chance that this might be a true-to-life depiction of life for an afflicted vet. But folks, Wally’s been back Stateside over seven years now. And sure, his wife and everyone in his hometown mostly left him to fend for himself. But seven years. This fish-out-of-water act is really getting old. Fortunately, the day is saved by a young lady so unconcerned about campus security that she cheerfully unlocks the door for a gaunt, older stranger in military fatigues.
Tag: Wally
Look at that Caveman Go
Okay, there seems to be a motif at work here…I mean aside from the fact that today’s strip is a rehash of the day before, with Wally as a cartoon caveman in the last panel instead of the first. It’s a pretty safe bet that everyone recognized Fred Flintstone in Monday’s strip; no doubt some of you recognized Alley Oop, but I had to shake my head at this Tip of the Funky Felt Tip to a character I thought obscure even by Tom Batiuk’s standards.
According to Wikipedia, the Alley Oop comic strip was created by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin in 1932. This surprised me, as I’d had Oop pegged as a prewar contemporary of Little Nemo and The Yellow Kid. I was even more surprised to learn that the strip survives over 80 years later and today appears in more than 600 newspapers. That’s roughly half again as many papers that carry Funky Winkerbean.
Yabba Dabba Duh
Instead of allowing the “Bullzheimer’s” prestige arc to gain momentum, Batiuk has us check in on another of Westview’s lost souls. Not only does Wally find the campus environment daunting: the mere act of online registration makes him feel hopelessly ancient. Perhaps he’d have an easier time had he not waited until the semester had already begun. I don’t know if Fred Flintstone’s what you call a “real” Neanderathal, but Rachel does kind of resemble Wilma, now that Batiuk’s remembered to make her a redhead.
Wrappin’ Around
Well, now that we’ve enjoyed a week of nothing at all, it looks like we’re seeing some actual hazing! But no, just turns out to be a glimpse of something that happened to that Ol’ Punching Bag Himself, Wally Winkerbean, many years ago.
Odd, isn’t it, that Becky’s example has to be something that happened twenty or thirty-odd years ago, and she’s only just this year put a stop to it. I mean, we couldn’t have used someone slightly more contemporary, like Owen, to make Becky look a little less uncaring and incompetent. But one suspects that when Owen graduated, his model sheets were thrown into the fire so that Tom Batiuk wouldn’t be tempted to take the focus away from Dinkle and Les.
The last panel does, on the face of it, constitute a “punchline” and it would ordinarily be a pretty good one. But given the slant of this strip, my first thought was “This store is going to go out of business.” Odd again that the store seems to sell nothing but plastic wrap (and lottery tickets) again indicating that this prank has been going on so long local merchants are dependent on it for economic survival–but only now is Becky addressing it. The town will probably dry up and become abandoned, and the band camp will be relocated to Camp Crystal Lake (at least Jason would be easy to draw). An interesting view of Chesterton’s Fence. I guess I’m defending hazing! Funky Winkerbean has made me a terrible person now.
I guess also that this tosses a glitch into the Batiukian Theory that men are the only ones who can act; that the sole function of a woman is to supply cookies and milk to a comic-book reading session. Turns out women can utterly destroy things. Here’s to equality!
O, Ho! Verily, Wally is a Project, is he not?
Behold Saturday’s mild drollery.
Buddy sure is happy to be home, as he’s followed in the door by the Twits, who probably forgot to feed him before they left. Bet he’s headed straight for his dish. Meanwhile, we’re treated to blah-blah-blah followed by another lame attempt at a punchline involving Rachel’s mother. Rachel’s unseen mother, I might add, since T-Bats has attempted this kind of joke before…
Anyway, I was trying to think of what kind of project I’d make if I had a stack of Wallys at my disposal, and I figure I’d just notch them all at their enormous foreheads and interlock them into a little Ohio Wilderness cabin, like Lincoln Logs.
The only surprise left this week is Sunday’s strip, and whether or not there will be some sort of Rachel-and-Wally wrap up, and if so will the colorists make Rachel’s hair blonde like they usually do on Sundays in complete yet typical disregard for continuity.
Son of Stuck Funky 