You may have got it in one. Unless it’s an OOB experience without the coma. (But then I have to wonder, how can he be thirsty or have his blood pressure rise if he’s not corporeal?)
DChord, since I’m here, first of all I did stop reading the strip, two and a half years ago. This current storyline was brought to my attention by a meatspace friend, and since then I’ve learned enough about the strips I missed to be glad I stopped. Second, when Dylan went electric, he still made good music. Same with your Beatles example. This is more like the Beatles putting out an album on which every song was in the same style as Revolution 9. It’s clunky, heavy-handed storytelling, and that’s even when it’s factually correct. For example, no high school* is going to put on “Wit” as their only stage production that year. Or stage it at all. If you’re including me among those who have “weak supporting arguments,” I wasn’t trying to have an argument. I started out explaining that people are irritated by FW for many reasons, not just because Lisa had cancer. You may find that weak, but it doesn’t change how people regard the strip.
*Okay, maybe a performing arts school. But not a suburban school like Westdale.
No doubt you’re all disappointed to learn that Funky “is gonna be OK” according to the paramedics who found him…his flashback experience apparently a dream of some sort that is helping him come to grips with his current reality. It’s looking like a positive resolution to me…sorry.
No, my Beatles example was perfectly apt…a response to someone who said in so many words that newspaper comic strips aren’t allowed to be anything but funny all the time. There was no discussion of quality involved. And of course, “good” is entirely subjective.
I’ve already explained (twice) how a strip has to compress a wide variety of experiences into a relatively small space…I’m not going to do it again. If you don’t get this, there’s nothing more I can do.
I imagine “people” have widely varying reactions to the strip. As noted earlier, if vast numbers of “people” were regarding it with the negativity on display here, the strip would be dropped like hotcakes from newspapers across the country. I don’t see any indication that this is happening.
My point remains: Batiuk has the right to do whatever he sees fit with his strip…just as an artist in any other medium has. There will always be critics…and there will always be healthy debate among them as to how valid their criticisms are.
And there will always be “people” who don’t care to follow an artist where he or she wants to go. No harm, no foul…but no harm or foul in talking about it, either.
Well, yeah, and congratulations and all, but that this was going to become “I’m My Own Geezer” was pretty well telegraphed about the time coma-hallucination-Funky wobbled his way out of the wreck.
Did we get a resolution on that? My vague recollection of the timeline is that he pulled out the comic - which his buddy proceeded to ruin the condition of by reading it with his bare hands, not that Funky had kept it properly bagged and boarded for storage or anything - went to a bar, resisted drinking, then got in the accident. My thought is that perhaps he didn’t act quite right and ruined the timeline somehow. (If he’s lucky, maybe his younger self bought and kept safe something more profitable.)
I’m one of the many who stopped reading Funky a few years ago. Batiuk beat cancer! Then he made Lisa’s cancer recur, have her doctor screw up, and let her die after (briefly) meeting the child she gave up. Who had not been treated well by his adoptive family. Rather than see how Les dealt with the loss, he skipped ahead–to show all the characters looking much older than their ages.
I was blissfully unaware of the latest developments until this thread. Concerning Wally: Doesn’t Batiuk know that, with DNA testing, there are no more “unknown soldiers”? (I’ll join the chorus recommending he leave the vet stuff to Doonesbury.) He seems to go out of his way to torture his characters. If that’s where his mind is, he’s certainly free to express himself. I’ve mostly stopped buying newspapers–but his strip will get no clicks from me at the Houston Chronicle site.
But I will start checking up on Comics Curmudgeon again. That’s what smart “people” do–even though we’re past the glory days of the Settlepocalypse.
Funny, I always thought I was “smart” enough to figure out whether I enjoyed a comic strip on my own, without someone else telling me whether I should like it or not.
Sorry for being so out of step with everyone on this new paradigm.
Must be pretty bad - the strip for the 20th has him grouching at his friend for asking how he’s doing. I think Funky is morphing into Crankshaft; he even looks it in this strip.
I realize it’s more than one person saying these things, but there’s been a fairly consistent collective point of view as to what’s wrong with this strip.
On the one hand, it’s pilloried for not being more “realistic” (no high school drama department would put on only that one play…no one person or group of persons could have that many bad things happen to them, etc., etc.).
And on the other hand, when a character who’s physically hurting after being seriously banged up in an accident fails to make a saintly, grateful response when a friend asks, somewhat lamely, “How are you doing?” (when it’s clear he’s not doing very well) – then that’s wrong, too…perhaps a little too “real,” eh?
Eh, I bitch at all the doom - at least that part is funny. It’s like reading Dilbert, but transplanted into a small town. It’s just weird to see “that band strip” after it’s morphed into one of the other soap strips like Brenda Starr. Except I think the latter doesn’t take itself as seriously.
Ces probably HAS commented on the Funkiness at one point or another (although more likely in Medium Large than Sally Forth), but yeah…that was Shortpacked that was linked. And it’s not the only time Willis has taken shots at Batiuk. There’s a strip called Funky Cancercancer that I don’t have time to look for right now but will in about 15 minutes unless someone else gets to it first.
It’s actually easy, now that he’s got tagging - there’s only 3 strips in the Funky Cancercancer tag (Funky Cancercancer, Funky Creepycreepy, and Robin’s crack). The character tags, and certain theme tags are obviously way more common, and would take longer to find a particular strip, of course.
It’s like reading Dilbert, but transplanted into a small town. It’s just weird to see “that band strip” after it’s morphed into one of the other soap strips like Brenda Starr. Except I think the latter doesn’t take itself as seriously.