i asked myself why did i feel that way? i had no reason not to be happy, was it some kind of unconscious guilt or memory for the past about former relationships between black women and white men. i did end up lying my head on his chest and saying hell with it, we drank wine and ate cheese and you know what, it was great

These preachy comics which pretend to be “intellectual” and “philosophical” etc, are simply pretentious proof that it’s easier to depress people than to be truly humorous.
I stopped reading FW when I got tired of seeing a bald chick talking to a chick with only one arm– if I want to see a cue-ball and a slot-machine I’ll go to the bar.
Meanwhile there’s a “now-adult” Funky breaking up with his girlfriend for some reason they apparetnly explained in past weeks that I apparently missed (I just got knew that she was a self-indulgent character when it was supposedly “funny” that all these smirking guys were trying to impress her at the gym).
Finally, don’t they know what “Funky” means now? it used to mean “crazy,” but now it means “stinky.”
I guess the shoe just fits.

Finally!

Like me, there is finally there is someone else on this
board who…

writes really big posts.

So, see! See! It’s not just me!!

(BTW Tonya, yer dead on about ‘Bloom County’ IMHO.)

Yes– but Bloom County didn’t hit you over the head with it, and call that “the joke.” They made it PART of the joke of how Binkley didn’t even NOTICE she was black, until he described her to his dad, and how her skin was “like creamy chocolate pudding.” And even then it doesn’t really register with Binkley, though his dad is shocked.
THAT’S funny.
And it wasn’t a one-note story either; like he took her to the movies, and went through an angst-ridden debate about whether he should pay for both, or they should pay separately, and whether it would be insulting to her etc. (She ended up paying for both, after getting tired of waiting for him to make up his mind). In other words, Berke Breathed knew that the main word in comics, is “COMIC.”

There’s a fine line between being funny, and just being PREACHY… just like there’s a fine line between the Atlantic and Pacific ocean (or a small brick wall in China).

I think comic strips get “preachy” as a weak way of compensating for the fact that they’re not witty or creative; i.e. they try to “fake it” by being high, mighty and pretentious.

For example, Bautik thinks that “courageous and brilliant humor,” is having every character cleverly and coyly “smirking sidelong” at the moral point of a tragic sermon. Which is like saying that Osama Bin Laden is a “courageous and brilliant soldier–” i.e. taking underhanded cheap-shots is NOT brilliance OR bravery, but stupidity and cowardice.

Also, they say “brevity is the soul of wit;” so what’s that tell you about a preachy story-arc that covers months, or even years?

Then there’s the strips that make you barf with their syrupy preachiness– “Rose is Rose” is probably the queen of these, since every strip is either about 1) Rose’ kid doing something cute, 2) her CAT doing something cute, 3) her kid talking cute to angels, 4) angels doing something cute to save her family, or 5) her various “cute” personalities, or 6) Rose making a “cute” statement about her mediocre life (e.g. “it’s a cage, but it’s a GILDED cage!” etc).

“Waitress Can I have a larger barf-bag, please? Indutrial-size?”

The trend seems gearing toward SELF-INDULGENCE, i.e. the creators are obsessed with indulging their own delusions of brilliance, by preaching down to their audience “because they need to open their minds” etc– ala Carlos Mencia.

Seriously, now “Funky Winkerbean” is introducing a mixed-race relationship– in 200-fricking-9?

HELLO, “The Jeffersons” was in the SEVENTIES, back when they introduced the “Zebra” concept of Tom Willis and his black wife, and their “Zebra” daughter who married his son Lionel….AFTER Lionel dated Archie’s niece etc. What’s next: a GAY character? Oh my heavens! “Roseanne” was in the 90′s, bub! (And let’s not forget “NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT! SHRINKAGE!”)

There’s a psychological manfestation called “anti-conformism,” i.e. they simply go against the mainstream current in order to say “I don’t go with the flow.” Which is like driving the wrong way on the freeway in order to make the same statement– and probably, some group of idiots will call you “brave” for doing it.

Forgive me if I’m not one of them?

xoxoxo!

As for ‘Funky,’ I think the problem for me isn’t that it’s serious now or unfunny, per se.
I think it’s the “Lou Grant” effect.

Remember when Ed Asner (hoo! there’s a big lefty!) departed from the excellent and hilarious ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’? His character was an over the top grouch that was a perfect balance for Moore’s shiny faced, bushy tailed naive optimism.

Then he went off to his own show and became an uber-serious melodramatic Woodward & Bernstein wannabe. Frankly, I doubt many of the fans that followed ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ closely were the same people watching ‘Lou Grant.’

Funky Winkerbean kind of pulled this same switcheroo. It USED to be funny, but sometime in the last 10 or 20 time jumps it tried to become ‘Arthur Miller: the Comic Strip.”.

I don’t think there’d be that many complaints if it hadn’t changed format like it did.

Batiuk might have been better off to start a separate strip if he wanted to slowly torture his characters to death physically and emotionally, instead of ones that used to make people laugh.

If Calvin and Hobbes had followed this path, Calvin would have climbed a University tower by now and shot 47 people, contracted West Nile Fever, lost 30 feet of intestine in a bar fight stabbing, murdered his parents in an arson for the insurance dough and sold Rosalyn into white slavery.

Hobbes would probably have attacked and eaten Seigfried at the Mirage just to finish the job the other kitty started on Roy.

Is this what America needs?

Why do I get the feeling some of you are nodding your heads ‘yes’?