Westview High School – Page 76

Tuesdays with Snorey.

Guest blogger DavidO here again, making a quick entry from the road, trying to be as funny as I can at a Motel8 lobby’s shared PC while a couple argues loudly about estate planning in the hotel breakfast bar no less than 10 feet from me.

Cory, Westview’s favorite badboy, has been reduced to that “kid sleeping in class character” for a quick gag. We’re so rarely given any glimpses of the Winkerbean homelife that it’s impossible to tell what’s keeping him up at night. Meanwhile, we’re treated to a possible sighting of Cell Phone girl and Celebrating Guy from Westview’s big win!

As the school year grinds down (In real life, a good amount of school years across the country are already over) it’s looking more and more like Westview’s kids might be keep in class well into August as TB tries to make up ground lost to the utterly pointless Promeggedeon storyline.

The Envelope? Puh-LEEZE!

Jinx Bushka is not only the one-woman prom committee; she’s also the official emcee of Westview High. She gets to do cool things like give the morning announcements to her fellow students via closed-circuit TV. As the most controversial senior prom in WHS history draws to a close, it’s Jinx’s job to announce the Prom King and…King? Isn’t the suspense just killing you?

Let’s hope this wraps up tomorrow…the whole envelope-opening cliffhanger aspect of today’s strip has me worried that we may be in for another “The Week in Funky Winkerbean” (from Dean’s Comic Booth):

Talk to the Hand

You were wondering what could be even more gutless than inventing a disposable, nameless same-sex prom couple as a vehicle for “addressing” gay rights? How about icing the cake by having another anonymous student (seen by us only as a fluttering, disembodied hand) confidentially coming out to Nate to thank him for making today better? TB’s shoulder must still need an ice pack a year later after he dislocated it with this epic self-back-pat.

Charles
May 22, 2012 at 3:06 pm
[W]hat is the deal with Batiuk showing high schoolers with significantly receding hairlines?

That’s no high schooler! It’s today’s special celebrity guest star, Tom Hanks!

If These Walls Could Talk

Nate’s prom night reverie is interrupted by what appears to be a talking castle.

More TB News

So Marvel Comics is jumping on the “Boys in the Band” -wagon, gay-marrying superhero Northstar to his non-super partner. The Washington Post sought out Tom Batiuk for comment, since he’s a cartoonist and a comix fanboy. He offers up basically the same talking points he’s given everyone else since before Promagaydon:

“I think I’ve created a space for myself” to deal with serious issues, Batiuk tells Comic Riffs. “It’s not such a big deal for myself as some other strips. It’s been incremental … that I can grab my readers’ hand and [say]: ‘Let’s come over here.”

What really makes the Post piece noteworthy, though, is this illustration:

…it depicts an alternate reality in which actual confrontation takes place! This would have been so much better than the way it went down. Note the dude holding the “It’s Our Prom” sign: where’d he come from? My guess is that Batiuk inserted him into the tableau lest non-readers assume that the same-sex couple is Summer and Keisha. The “real” gay couple (and they don’t even match; are they sure they’re gay?) stand meekly behind their fellow students as Roberta gives them the evil eye, and Mr. Blackburn silently rolls tape.

Who's That Lady?

A good comics writer can keep the reader off-balance with any number of literary and/or visual devices. TB accomplishes it by employing lax, slipshod storytelling and draughtsmanship. I assume that’s Nate’s wife, and not Cayla from a hairstyle ago plus glasses. We were able to establish that Mr. Blackburn appeared in earlier Funky Winkerbean strips; can any of you FW scholars tell me when, if ever, we’ve been introduced to Mrs. Nate Green? I mean before today?