Anyone else find themselves inexplicably drawn to this comic strip to see what latest calamity, or big issue, the gang will have to face, and yet hate themselves for being addicted?
The whole Funky is a drunk loser with marital problems is as riveting as a car crash. i try to turn away, but just can’t!
Incidentally, why does Wally call Funky his uncle? How’d this happen? Does Funky have a brother or sister?
YES!!! Oh good lord. And it’s not in my paper, so I have to read it on the website, and it’s TWO WEEKS BEHIND! ARGH!
Ah well, I suppose I could be addicted to WORSE things…
I used to read Funky Winkerbean, and even if the papers around here carried it (I haven’t found it), I think I would have given up on it. The cartoonist’s stabs at social significance seem a little forced, as if he had this big wheel in his office with “Breast Cancer,” “International Terrorism,” “Drug Use” and other Big Issues on it, and he spins it every now and then to see what he’s going to draw about. Couldn’t he stick with Cindy’s troubles in the mall?
Didja know that there is a musical about Funky Winkerbean? I’ve never seen the comic strip, but I was one of the stars of “Funky Winkerbean’s Homecoming” in junior high. In a truly ironic casting decision, I played “the most popular girl in school” who gets to turn Funky down for the big dance.
Song highlights include:
“Why oh why can’t I be popular” and “I want a hunk.”
The musical gave me no desire to ever, ever, ever encounter more of Funky’s genius.
[toothless grandpa]
Why, I remember when Funky Winkerbean was a funny comic strip!
[/toothless grandpa]
Do you have any idea how funny this is? I am wildly jealous; I wish I was in a Funky Winkerbean musical. I am adding something to my list of things to do before I die list.
Anyway–Funky Winkerbean is still around?
“Look kids! Funky Winkerbean! And the Noid!”
you left out the teenage pregnancy series.
I also read online, thought he DID hit the kid for a minute, or at least he’d get busted for DWI
My bookmarks have an embarrassingly large comics folder.
yes, funky has become quite the serious comic strip.
alzarian, a few years back the writers had funky and his gang grow up. they put les in as a teacher at the high school and gave funky a nephew that was a freshman, along with cindy’s little sister. there by keeping the high school thing going. i figure funky must have much older siblings to have a kid around funky’s age. when funky’s nephew was in his senior year (two years ago) he and his prom date (becky) got into a serious drunk driving accident. that storyline was the first time i EVER got physically ill over a comic strip. people in work thought i was going to pass out when i realized what happened to becky. talk about my worst nightmare in black and white!!!
so yeah, i’ve been following the story line. it has taken quite the public service message route.
Call the home, gramps. You’re hallucinating. “Funky Winkerbean” was NEVER funny.
Jeeze, I thought they had finally put that strip out of its misery. So, they went with relevance as lifesaving device, huh? Bet it sucks as bad as it did in the Seventies.
“Crankshaft”, though, had its moments.
I missed what happened to Becky. But yeah, I read every day.
I did miss Sunday and today, but I will look at todays tomorrow before I read the on for tomorrow.
I swear, there are just too many damn coincidences in this world.
While I’d certainly heard of Funky Winkerbean before today, I honestly hadn’t seen it in forever and hadn’t given it any thought. Then today in Theater Tech, we had to hang out in the band room for an improptu study hall, and the band director had lots of cartoons on the wall relating to high school bands… and I finally got a close look at one of the strips on his bulletin board, and it was Funky Winkerbean.
And now there’s this thread…
theme from Twilight Zone plays
My newspaper only runs the Sunday strips. (WTF?) So people in our area can read a small snippet of a plot that makes no sense whatsoever. Occasionally, I just see someone staggering around, taking a swig of a bottle and fall over. Also, most comic strips have to make sure that the Sunday strips are not essential to the plot, since a paper might not carry the Sunday strip. We get this phenomenon in reverse, so it’s even more esoteric.
Oh my. I just went and read a month’s worth of the strip. This is not the mildy amusing comic I remember. I had to check to make sure I wasn’t mistakenly reading a Chick tract. Any minute now a stranger will step out of the shadows and Funky will be praying for forgiveness. Ouch…
And I know I’ll be checking back to see what happens next. :rolleyes:
Funky Winkerbean’s well on its way to joining the ranks of Mark Trail, Rex Morgan, and Mary Worth - comic strips that are wholly melodramatic, soap operas in stasis!
The strip took a major gamble several years ago when the writers decided to take the kids out of high school and project where they’d be as grownups. Whee! What fun! Les as a teacher! Funky as pizza boy! Oh, the hilarity!
But to me, it was never all that wonderful. I don’t look at is as I would rubberneck at a fender-bender; I usually skip it entirely nowadays.
Falcon – Bayarea.com has Funky up to date. You have to register, but it’s free. Also, you can make your own daily comic page featuring whatever comics you like but don’t get in your local paper. My personal page features train-wreck Funky and his brother-strip Crankshaft as well as the immortal Frank and Earnest and ::looks swiftly from side to side and drops her voice in shame:: Cathy.
I remember that fateful day when they grew up. 'twas a cold July afternoon in '83. All right, I don’t remeber it that clearly.
They were graduating from high school one day. The next day I see “Four Years Later” emblazened across the top. Good thing I read it then or I would have been thoroughly confused.
Funky is interesting. I thought the murder mystery was interesting but could have been pulled off better. I like the cancer arc. This whole drinking thing sucks. He’s playing the cliche drunk and they’re solving it in a cliche way. That doesn’t make it that convincing.
Now, I don’t want to hijack this, but I have to say that if you want a good story line with funny and realistic characters, check out For Better or For Worse
Resurrecting a VERY old zombie, extracted from the search function: The artist, Tom Batiuk, is ending the strip effective December 31st.
Go Comics is down or I would head there and read the FW comments section.
