Y’know, these days, many high school sports fields, even Batiuk’s alma mater, feature modern, expensive, artificial turf fields. So in today’s strip we’re witnessing two clowns causing costly damage to school property. Even a natural turf field would likely have an irrigation system below the surface. And besides that, the ground is frozen. But Batiuk’s not about to let any of these details get in the way of us “earning” whatever “ending” this is all leading up to. Why all this phony closure-seeking on behalf of a man who sadly will soon be unable to remember anything? And if the mission here is to somehow scrape up Coach Stropp’s ashes, they need to move over a little more to the left.
Tag: Westview High School
Shovel Off to Bull-fellow
If you are reading this and your name is not Thomas Martin Batiuk, you read Funky Winkerbean not for its depiction of “contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner” (because all that ended with Act II). You don’t seek real-life situations, believable dialogue, likable characters, or coherent plotting. You likely were a true fan of this comic back in the days when it did have these characteristics, in abundance. Perhaps you’ve continued reading faithfully ever since, or, perhaps you picked up the funny pages after a lengthy absence, decided to check in on ol’ Funky and his pals, and wondered what the hell happened.
But if you’re reading this blog, you share a very special perspective on the Funkiverse. You keep coming back either to see how incoherent, tone deaf, and awful it can get…or…you cast aside whatever passes for narrative around here, and inject your own. In which case, today’s installment could be right out of a Coen brothers film: repressed midwestern matron Linda gleefully looking on as strapping Buck marches docile Bull out to dig his own cold, lonely grave.
Every Day Is Like Sunday
The above link goes to the NJ link since, as is traditional, the Sunday strips are too precious to drop on the unwashed. So you’ll have to wait until midnight to taste Tom Batiuk’s genius. (Yeah, I know–ewww! Total double–yuck!)
I’m guessing we’re going to get more Dinkle, because what better way to spit in the face of your readers than with Harry Dinkle? I’m not really asking for alternative answers to that question, but feel free in the comments to describe Batiuk’s ultimate expression of disdain.
Les Moore and Darrin Undesirable are equally awful characters, but at least they can be defeated–in the first case, by having to meet his public, in the second by denying certain pens, but Dinkle…how does one defeat Dinkle? Near as I can remember, in the diminishing brain-space left to me, Dinkle has always been praised and has never suffered a setback.
I think it’s well past time for that lack to be addressed, but I suspect that will never happen.
One more thing to regret too late on this year’s Anti-Thanksgiving’s Black Weekend.
Dinkle Dinkle, Little Hell
A smoldering dump, an overflowing toilet, and a cretinous idiot walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’ll it be, Mr. Dinkle?”
It’s hard to convey how much I loathe Dinkle, but today’s episode provides some evidence as to why I do. Normally, this strip would end at the second panel, with Becky’s pun (admittedly far superior to anything offered by the students). But no, Dinkle has to have a panel to explain how he, in essence, “allowed” Becky to have her joke, but she shouldn’t get any ideas about how she “got” him.
I find it surprising that Dinkle wasn’t the one to deliver the pun. Maybe Tom Batiuk realized that Becky was, in the main, a pretty worthless character and he ought to have her do something, even if it’s not much of a something. Bonus points to Rick Burchett for not showing the pinned-up sleeve at all–a first, I think–and for giving Dinkle a really bad profile in panel three. I mean, look at that! He looks like a someone drew a face on a pinto bean. Maybe Burchett is learning to hate these characters as much as normal people do.
If Batiuk had Dinkle die horribly in a fire, I would lobby the Pulitzer Committee so hard…I mean, that would actually deserve the award.
Quite a load of Bull
SosfdavidO here, and I hope no one was hoping for any kind of resolution at all because today’s snooze-a-rama doesn’t resolve a cotton-pickin’ thing. My guess is Sunday will be all about Starbucks Jones decoder rings one head-tilting one panel strips tipping hats to artists who died 30 years ago.
Son of Stuck Funky 
