Previous >>151701615This time we're up to 2003.Last time, Funky went to rehab and AA to deal with his alcoholism and while initially things seemed to be turning around in his marriage, 9/11 happened. Cindy's reporting on it made her realize that New York was where she wanted to be and so she signed a new contract without telling Funky who was pissed when he found out. At that point, they were officially separated and all that was left was to work things out with the lawers... except that Cindy's side was demanding partial ownership of Montoni's. Things continued going swimmingly for both Winkerbean men when Wally was shipped off to Afghanistan and soon after, his helicopter was hit by a Stinger and he was listed as MIA.Les and Lisa decided that they wanted a kid but things didn't go smoothly as Darin's father Frankie returned, the stress of which caused Lisa to go into labor. The Moores' daughter, Summer, was thus born premature and while things were touch and go they turned out fine. Lisa had also graduated from law school and started working at a women's organization.In less depressing events, the Eliminator returned to challenge Crazy Harry where it was revealed that "he" was actually a woman named Donna. This led to Crazy and Donna dating and, after a mishap with the engagement ring, marrying by the end of 2002. Dinkle, now getting older and having more responsibilities, decided he needed an assistant band director, a position that was filled by recen college graduate Kara Milstrom.
Weird-ass story. I guess Batiuk was watching a lot of Battlebots or something. Also, rare Cliff appearance.
This is the last time we'll see Ayers's art for a while and when he comes back, aside from a one-off week, the art style will have changed a lot.
John Byrne starts his run as guest penciller which will last until the middle of June.
And this will also start, or continue, one of the most reviled pairings as people don't, or did't, really like John at all.
I'm siding with Rachel and Sadie.Also RIP John's Ponytail, 1995-2003. The snark crowd had various names for John based on his hair. Ponytail John was called HAH John (Horse's Ass Head), this John is called DCH John (Dead Cat Head). His final form after the timeskip will be DSH John (Dead Skunk Head).
Don't worry, this is the last time we'll see or hear of John's mom. Crying next to a birthday cake and Superman plates.
>one date and he's buying an engagement ringFuck off you twat.
Get fucked, John. Her real man is back.
Now it's time for the long story of Wally's escape and return. This and a later story really feels like Batiuk just wanted to do an adveture strip style story and used Wally (and 9/11) as an excuse to do it.Also, the first appearance of Khan aka Kahn (because the spelling flips back and forth constantly).
Wally will eventually reunite with this girl and her family.This girl is not Rana though; Rana is her sister. This girl will got blown up with the rest of her family.
>third stripThat is maximum cuckolding but John deserves it because he bought an engagement ring after ONE FUCKING DATE.Anyway, Wally's back and that's it for Byrne's stint though he'll return to pencil the strip's final week.
Given the look of these strips I assume they were drawn prior to Byrne's stint given that they're basically filler.
We're officially in the style that Ayers will more or less use throughout the rest of the strip's run. It'll just get sloppier as he gets older.
I think or assume Lilian is selling the house because her sister Lucy had died or was dying or something? I'm not up on my Crankshaft lore.
You thought a week spent building up this next reunion and Holly's thoughts was going to mean anything? Sorry, you get one Sunday and onepanel of Holly and that's it.
Bump
To anyone who said Cindy was being a cruel bitch, don't worry it wasn't actually her fault it was all the lawyers, they did it. Cindy's a good girl.
This more or less starts the Danny Madison story that will take up the rest of the year.
It's funny because it's Charlie Brown.
I have no idea what's going on with this strip. Seriously, how did this layout pass through multiple people without someone saying to go back and fix it?
Happy Thanksgiving
>>151734918Didn't realize I was looking at the wrong dates. Whatever. Happy anniversary then.
>>151734322>>151734330WOW. I knew you said they patch it quick, but I didn't think it'd be TWO STRIPS.
>>151734439>Crankshaft still in cartoon art mode next to Dick Tracy lookin ass characters.
>>151734815IIRC one day a bunch of strips decided to do a Peanuts joke in tribute to Schulz.
>>151733851>>151733894This was running parallel with the storyline in Crankshaft that weekBull felt guilty over his grandfather being the reason Crankshaft never had a baseball career, so he purposely messed up so that Crankshaft team would win the bowling tournament
>>151734439Her sister was having Alzheimer's and Lilian was having trouble dealing with the problems that came up because of that (what with the care and all), and decided they both needed to move into a nursing homeAlso Lois Flagston from Hi and Lois is the realtor; you can see her cameo next to Crankshaft in the first comic, and her name is on the sign in the third comic. IIRC I think you see it more obviously in the Crankshaft part of the story.
I like to think that Danny was actually getting back at Lisa.>You failed so watch me die, bitch.
>>151733999it's not that batiuk's style is the greatest thing of all, but when I've been seeing it for weeks and it suddenly changes to THAT, all I can think is... MY EYES!
Watching an execution... Merry Christmas!Also, Lisa's kind of proving right her co-worker who basically said she didn't have the guts or mental fortitude to be working there.
>>151733999>>151735167meant Ayers's style. also, what the hell is coinkydink?
>>151735167I think it doesn't help that Byrne's glory days are long behind him. He's still a good storyteller, still good at getting the basic acting down, but stuff like his faces look bad. He needs a good inker and Tom Batiuk is no Terry Austin.
>>151735193it's just a cutesy way to say coincidence. my aunt says it a lot
>>151734556I think it's more like she lashed out (because she took stuff before they got the lawyers involved) and then came to her senses that week and realized she was going too far
That's it for this year, next time will cover 2004. Crazy Harry becomes a father while Funky begins dating Holly. Les and Lisa become homeowers and Wally and Becky start their lives together. Becky also makes a major career change when Kara's sudden acceptance of a job offer leaves the position of Assistant Band Director open.
>>151735250>Becky also makes a major career change when Kara's sudden acceptance of a job offer leaves the position of Assistant Band Director openYES! BEST GIRL GETS BEST POSITION!
>>151734902Knowing what I know about how the Funky Sundays were usually cut up in some papers, I wonder how this would have run in the papers that ignored the top half of the comics? Like would it have just been center, then bottom two panels?
>>151733781ritalin vendo?
Honestly not a fan of the new art style, everyone looks weirdly realistic and slightly off. Hoping I just get used to it
>>151733664Web-wonk?
>>151734719>BRAAAPsensible chuckle
>>151735599It honestly felt to me like the comic was finally finding its stride, and then that happened. It doesn't look terrible or anything, but it's definitely not better either.one step forward, two steps back
>>151735656Wonk basically means the same as like a geek or enthusiast or the way we might say someone is an autist about something. Except really in that meaning it's mainly reserved for things relaed to politics i.e. calling someone a policy wonk because they're more into the details and nitty gritty of policy than broad generalities.
>>151735841Agreed, over the last few years the art was getting better, while still staying true to the style of the earlier strips
>>151736029Huh, never heard that one before
>>151734019I don't like this artist change at all
>>151734183Becky's faaaaaaace
>>151733781I would've thought Mr. K would be paranoid of robots.
>>151733781straight out of act I
>>151735153Remember when the comic was bad puns and the characters looking directly at the reader?
>>151737967What's funnier than a rape and cancer survivor having to watch a man get executed on Christmas? I mean it is funny just in an unintentional way.
This is the segment of the Modern Masters: John Byrne interview where they briefly talk about Byrne's time on Funky. The second page does go into spoilers for a 2005 storyline, but it's also the page where Byrne talks about the process for doing the guest-stint and shows Byrne's pencils against Batiuk's inks
>>151738325
>>151734358Les looks high af in that last panel
>>151733781Seeing Cliff just made me realize that a few years earlier, that job in the comic would have been filled by the goat with a sniper rifle.
>>151734154Isn't it more like three or four dates? Sure, the first one was a complete disaster but they've went to multiple double features and out to dinner. Crazy Harry and Donna got married after what seemed like less dating than that.
>>151734019>one of the most reviled pairings as people don't, or did't, really like John at allHearty kek, before I opened the image I thought you were referring to Byrne and Batiuk.
Is Batiuk a simp?
>>151734902>>151734902It feels like this was originally scripted to be a full week sequence but got crammed into a Sunday and Monday combo instead.
>>151734731>wordswordswordsThose last two strips are fucking diabolical. More speech bubble than art.
>>151739396Every time I see a panel like the one in the fifth strip I keep thinking of the Mandrake parody from MAD
>>151734300>Becky's arm is Wally's Twin Towers>>151734902This new Ayers style with all the heavy lidded eyes and down-turned BU mouths definitely has something of the Doonesbury about it.
>>151734251I actually appreciate the occasional change in genre. Helps prevent the monotony from creeping in from among the band turkeys >>151734300Also lol
>>151734358I know this is probably a dumb question but I’ve always wondered: what is this solid blob of hair style supposed to relate to in real life? It’s common enough that I feel like it has to correlate to something, but all I think about when I see it is a sort of tiny afro
>>151734385John Darling is back! I wonder if this is an actual strip or a fake?
>>151739894Hard to see it as anything other than Les still using hair cream decades after it went out of fashion for kids his age and continuing it into adulthood. He's a Dapper Dan man, gawddamnnit!
>>151734556>8-7Yup this is the first image I ever saw of Funky winkerbean. it was in filename thread, I think the file name was a reference to a song lyric.
>>151734589This is sweet actually
>>151740098>it was in filename thread, I think the file name was a reference to a song lyric.Fucking Hell. I remember that from the Funky storytime about a decade ago. What scares me is that I can't remember if I was the one who did that or I had the idea and found someone had already beaten me to it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqGKZ3fzN1M
>>151739894I would imagine just your typical old school boring nerd type hair.
Why is the candy b& anyway, does Dinkle put some illegal substance in it?
>>151735153I liked this story
>>151739610It fits the weary and resigned tone of the strip though. And you will beg for it once you have to stare at an endless sea of smug Les faces.
>>151739916Not sure if it’s my age or total lack of /fa/ knowledge showing but hair cream is something I’ve never picked up on. Looked at some 70s pictures online and this could totally account for the way his hair is drawn. It’s so odd to think of the things that used to be considered the height of fashion.
>>151734815>2003I'm gonna believe it's Ultimate Peanuts, like Ultimate Marvel and they exist in the Funkyverse
>>151741103>edgeslop Peanuts written by Mark Millar>Snoopy does not fight the Red Baron but is a luftwaffe pilot
>>151741164You never read Weapon Brown?
>>151734380so batiuk does know his chinese cartoons huh
>>151734104Jesus>>151734154I feel for john. not because he was wronged, but because he's such a fuck up. doesn't even have his wonder woman collection to go back crying to anymore.
>>151734330>>151734974this fucking comic man. I was actually looking forward to a bit of drama I would enjoy, in wally trying to make up for his mistakes and becky forgiving him but NO, one sunday strip and that's it.
>>151734613at least dinkle was left relatively unchanged by the new art.
>>151734104>set John's mom up as being an overbearing cunt>hint that she really does care about him but is bad at expressing it>never show her againWhat a very Batiuk thing to do. Like what >>151742706 says about the Wally/Becky situation it's like he sets up stories that could be interesting and provide exactly that brand of soap opera melodrama he seems to love, only to toss them aside.
>>151742795Dinkle is eternal
>>151734556wouldn't Cindy be making more money as a reporter than Funky anyway
Winky Beanerfunk
>>151743656Maybe right now they're making about the same but she certainly isn't after the timeskip.
>>151741164No no, Bendis would be the one writing Ultimate Peanuts, because he used to live in Ohio and Westview takes place in OhioI don't know which comic strip Millar would Ultimatize, though
>>151744933>Kick the football Charlie Brown!>You want me to kick it?>Yes!>The football?>You want me to kick the football?>I won't pull it away this time!>You won't?>I won't.>You better not.>I won't!>AAUGH>You said you wouldn't!>But I did.
>>151743018He basically seems to like the immediate shock of the moment and then moves on.
>>151744933>>151745788>He basically seems to like the immediate shock of the moment and then moves on.Wait... doesn't Millar sometimes do that?
Today is 2004
>>151746905I like montoni.
>He's like a big brother to her.Get it? Because he actually IS her brother!
Now you'd think that Crazy having a hot motorcycle riding wife who shares his interests and is kind of weird herself would make for some nice or interesting stories. You'd be right but you'd also be reading a different comic. It's really kind of criminal that all that's ever done with Donna is her being Generic Wife.
I'm not quite sure but this may be one of Matt's last appearances. I know for sure that he stops showing up prior to this class's graduation in 2007 and I believe that it's said at one point that the Scapegoats are back to being losers because he graduated which would mean he's probably a year ahead of the others. But I'm not sure when exactly that is.Also I don't know if it's the coloring but theinking on the Sundays right now looks really sloppy.
If nothing else, the art style change is an upgrade for Chien.
This is where Holly starts actually being a major character.
This seems like the kind of story that should have actually showed up in Act I, like it's supposed to be a callback but the thing it's calling back to isn't anything that actually happened.
Oh, okay, another Matt appearace.
As shown, Kara leaves to go be Big Walnut Tech's aka the Phatom Zone's band director. She'll actually make one more small appearance next year but outside of that, this is it for her time as a character.
I think one of the reason so many characters from the '98 freshman class get shortshrifted so much is because Batiuk really stopped caring about the high school setting as he got older, yet felt that it was too integral to just get rid of completely. So he keeps bringing in classes of high schoolers that he has no interest in actually writing about.This will get really bad after the timeskip when virtually everyone but Summer and Cory gets treated as being fairly unimportant and then in the last decade or so where Les spends more time in Hollywood or doing book signings than actually teaching.
Think of how many characters just disappear unceremoniusly. Then realize that Batiuk decided that Wicked Wanda, a character who hadn't appeared in close to 30 years at this point, needed closure.
>>151747686>Wicked Wanda...who?
>>151747713Roland's arch-nemesis.
>>151747425Maybe my eyes glazed over a comic or two or I have awful memory but did Holly ever interact with Funky in Act 1?
Becky takes over Kara's position and by the time of the timeskip she'll take over as band director for Dinkle too. It makes me wonder if this was always the plan Batiuk had when he introduced Kara or not.Also even when he retires Dinkle will go nowhere. In fact, Becky will eventually just kind of turn into his sidekick despite the fact he's retired.
>>151747753They might have interacted one singular time. In fact that strip might be a callback to it but I honestly can't remember. But if it is, then it was never anything more than that.
Becky leaves Montoni's Home for Young Women. The girl replacing her in these strips might be Mindy but I'm not sure. If she does, Batiuk/Ayers changed her hairstyle up by the next time she appeared but I'm not sure if this is what she looked like in Crankshaft either.
Things are going good for Wally right now but it's just luring you into a false sense of security. There will be some ups and downs before it all goes to shit because this is 2000s Funky.
The birth of Crazy Harry's daughter, Maddie Klinghorn. She'll be one of the so-called Funky Kids who are ostensibly intended to be the focus of Act III. That will be grossly overstating her relevance to anything.
I'm taking a break for a few minutes.
>>151747812It is Mindy. This also is happening in Crankshaft that week, I think, with Mindy telling her mom about her getting the job at Montoni's.
Sorry about that, I'm back ow.
>>151748195Looking at it, so it is. I guess they did change her hairstyle then. And color. Can't be some geek's girl if she's not a Batiuke Blonde.
The debut of Les's house which he'll stay in throughout the rest of the house and eventually christen Taj-Moore Hall.
He must have been kind of short on ideas this year considering how many of these Sophomoric Sightings weeks he's done.
That does it for this year. Next time will cover 2005.It's a double Winkerbean wedding as both Funky and Wally get married, but not without hiccups when Funky falls off the wagon and Wally and Becky decide to take their honeymoon in Afghanistan. Roberta also falls back into her old ways when John runs afoul of obscenity laws for selling hentai.
>>151747758>Also even when he retires Dinkle will go nowhere.he is too powerful to be swept away like so many others.
>>151746928NONE OF THESE ARE PUNCHLINES
>>151748750>Funky falls off the wagonYESluv me Drunky Drinkerbean>inb4 it only lasts about a week and ends with him calling that bitch Wade
>>151747713She was in the 70s comicshttps://desuarchive.org/co/thread/151280504/#q151280636https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/151280504/#q151282230
>>151744933>>151745141
>>151748672They didn't run reruns in these years right? I assume these were done to give them lead time in the case of delays, like vacations, recovery time, and so on.
>>151747642I think the 1992 class was the best of the high school classes because there was a lot going on with them in their high school years (and for some, after that) and with more tweaking could be even better.1998 class is a better than I remembered, in spite of their flaws and could have a good dynamic going on that never fully got tapped into because some characters get sidelined a little during the high school era, others get sidelined after the end of their high school years, and others only get some kind of development late in the run.2007 timeskip class gets by on Summer and Cory's stories but has a lot of missed opportunities.The idea of Cody and Owen being What If Les and Funky Were Zoomers is an interesting idea but doesn't really go much and they seem more passive compared to 70s Les and Funky.The rest are very heavily underdeveloped.
>>151747686>>151747703Note: Wanda disappeared from the strip a decade before Cindy showed up.
>>151748521Funky's hairline keeps sliding on back
>72-77: Early Years>78-83: Silver Age>84-87: Golden Age>88-96: Diamond Age>97-2001: Ayo tf is happening, man?>2002-hopefully not the rest of the comic: Sykesstare.jpg
>>151748750>Wally and Becky decide to take their honeymoon in Afghanistanlmao. surely nothing could go wrong!
>>151745141I did not like reading this.
>>151745141>Funky, come quick! There was an explosion at the post office!>The post office?>Yeah, an explosion!>An explosion?>At the post office!>An explosion at the post office?>Lisa's there!>At the post office? With the explosion?>I don't know of she's alright!>Explosions are pretty bad.>Hey Funkman, hey Les. Pretty radical huh?>What's radical, Harry?>That explosion.>The one at the post office? Lisa was there.>In the explosion? Oh no, is she alright?>I don't know!>Les doesn't know, Crazy. He's going to find out.>Going where? The post office?>Yes, the post office.>You don't want to go there! It just got blown up!>Oy, what a couple of schmendricks!>Yo, wassup foo's?>Hey Derek. Hey Holly.
>>151747501She wasn't around long, but she was alright as someone to play off of Dinkle.
>>151747868What does this foul-mouthed mope have to do with Holly? Just make a new character, it's okay for Funky to date someone he didn't know in high school
>>151747812>But if you leave, what will become of the Girls of Montoni pinup calendar?>I'll take the job.>Jailbait it is!Though, in retrospect, I'm surprised the strip has never made that joke if only to gey shot down brutally on panel. Anyway, this'll cause some timeline issues down the road since Mindy is like twelve or so years younger than the main cast.
>>151747993If I remember right, the colorists can never get on the same page with Maddie's hair as a teen so it was forever shifting between blonde and red.
>>151747900Watch out Funky, that kid will steal your heart among other things
>>151748365Surprised Bull got to them and not some parent complaining about the cheerleaders having big tits and even jiggling.
>>151747753The Holly comics back then seemed largely disconnected from the rest of the strip; she mainly just interacted with Dinkle and other band members.
>>151734087You're missing the best part. https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Gambi_(New_Earth)
>>151752826Oh shit, I never caught thatThis makes me wonder what Batiuk's cutoff point for Flash is since he was a big fan of the Silver Age stuff
>>151741212I remember when Jason came here to make us his personal army against Chuck Dixon. I rewarded Jason by showing him all the Clarissa fanart on Paheal which he didn't know existed.
>>151753132I can't imagine he was too bothered, he was here fairly recently in a Clarissa thread to answer some questions. Temporarily edited an old post on his website to prove it. It's cool he still comes here, most creators avoid all association with 4chan like the plague now.
>>151747868Aww, I liked the curlsAlso what the fuck is this new captcha >:(
>>151747045>I *AM* smiling That's Hayao Miyazaki
>>151752662She's supposed to be a redhead since that's what she is in Byrne's character sheet. But both her and Rachel get hit with the same issue.
>>151734154It's not just one date though; there was the first one, which was a disaster but I think she now knows why he was so cheap and awkward.Then there's this date >>151734048This dinner date one >>151734087This date, which follows the Sunday of her saying his birthday was next week >>151734104Not that also implies that he's been walking around for a week before his mom even noticed his changed apoearance.This top strip seems to be suggesting that he's been acting differently for a while.Plus they'd been talking online long enough for Becky to suggest meeting for a date.Crazy Harry and Donna's romance and marriage feels a lot more rushed than John and Becky all things considered.
>>151747910Are you telling me that crazy harry would NOT be into the gore and excess and violence of modern video games?
>>15174782530 years ago when I did resumes for a living in Chapel Hill, I had a UNC grad-to-be I was writing one for whose surname was Sousa and I got up the courage to ask her if she was related. "My grandfather," she replied.
>>151753172Bishop's "Vicious Cycle" on Paheal, featuring an adult Clarissa sexually abusing her 12 year old son still wearing the same dead-eyed expression kinda hit home with Jason and he didn't do another Clarissa strip for a few years after that.
>>151747910There's Byrne's Doom Patrol reboot in the first panel
>>151753441Forgot to say that it was the third issue's cover
>>151746905I think John is reading Green Arrow #137. Has a different ad on the back, though
>>151746881This story was published early January 2004 so he must've been working on this back in 2003, I'd assume. Didn't he say he had like a year buffer or something? So he might've been reacting to early 2003 or before. I note this mainly because 2004 is kind of when the market started to really pick back up again
>>151747812>>151748195>>151748384
>>151748643It’s really baffling to me how a character as prominent as Ann was in the early years manages to obviously not be forgotten yet have virtually no presence anymore
>>151754139It makes sense when you realize that she and Fred were basically stand-ins for Batiuk and his wife until Act II when that role was transitioned to Les and Lisa. In Act III she has at least more prominence than she did in Act II by virtue of the Cathy Batiuk stand-in being gons and there not really being a proper replacement (Cayla, Jessica and Mindy aren't really it) while the Tom stand-in, ignoring Batton Thomas, is split between Les, Darin and Pete. Maybe Crazy Harry too.
>>151748504Here's also another time Bull helped Les out
>>151753259that's impressive. Sousa is a relatively common surname, if you consider global statistics.
>>151747462Kind of wish she didn't look so sad , that marriage really sucked all peppyness . that being said her fumbling the door is something I could see Act 1 Holly doing
>>151747934marrying already! this is like a romcom that skips the entire romance part, a punchline with no set up. can't believe I'm getting blue balled by this shit.
>>151733658could be funkier
