Previous >>151843961This time will cover 2013.Last time, Darin and Jessica moved back to Westview and Jessica, who'd gotten into documentary filmmaking since graduation, decided to enlist Jinx to help her make one about her father. Crazy Harry, though, lost his job when the Westview post office was shuttered, seemingly forced into an early retirement until John offered him a job at the Komix Korner. But in better news, Wally's relationship with Rachel seemed to be going well and she helped him to get a service dog named Buddy who helped Wally make great strides in managing his PTSD.Les returned from another book tour to find that Summer had torn her ACL during a game. With surgery and Bull's help rehabbing, she was able to make it back in time for the start of the season but the basketball team started out poorly. Bull was inspired to recruit former teacher and coach Ann Fairgood as an assistant and with her help, things turned around culminating in the team winning the state championship. Bull also helped to compile highlights which helped get Summer and Keisha scholarships to Kent State after they had graduated. There was also some controversy prior to graduation when Roberta Blackburn threw a hissy fit over a gay couple wanting to attend the prom, but Nate and her husband essentially shutting her down put an end to that. In the summer, Les and Summer also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, a trip they won in a raffle to save the local sports teams.Les's relationship with Cayla was rocky for a little bit, especially when Susan took the opportunity to kiss ihm and declare that she loved him. But a student saw the kis and circulated it around and with the ensuing controversy, Susan decided to resign and leave Westview. With that, Les finally proposed to Cayla and the two of them were married the next year.
The fun starts righ away with Fred suffering a debilitating stroke! Merry Christmas!
Also, Ann was merely settling and giving up her dreams to marry Fred for some reason. I'm glad this was established in Act I instead of a bunch of strips about her being addicted to donuts and cheesecake and shit.
This will be Fred's lot for the rest of the strip: sitting around and croaking out barely intelligible words while seeming otherwise mentally functional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw2FcLdFoiI
Remember that random joke strip from way back in probably the early or mid-'70s where Fred claimed the coach kidnapped his daughter and then said daughter was never mentioned again? Yeah, Batiuk is pulling way back to make that goofy strip a source of more drama.
Happy times
>last stripIt's funny because Fred had a stroke.
I have no idea what Supreme Court decision this would be referring to. The only overturning one I can really think of in the general timeframe was Citizens United but that was 2010 so it seems way late to be doing a strip about that.
>>151872750Batiuk had to make Fred and Ann’s marriage unhappy as to not take away from Les and Lisa’s, the one true marriage in the Funkyverse
Two weeks dedicaed to the most obviously interesting shit ever: Pete fantasizing and the Lord of the Late.
Remember Alex from all the way at the very start of Act III? Well this is her debuting as part of Owen and Cody's class. Like I said before, I get the distinct impression that she was intended to be an adult and then Batiuk decided he wanted to give add a female ousider to this group and just repurposed her.Anyway like her two friends she'll graduate in 2016, get one came the next year and that'll be it.
This is basically just pulling from Chien's bullying story almost word for word. Except this just kind of ends here and while Alex is fine, she's no Chien.
Batiukism Alert: Nordic, which seems to be a way to describe someone who's being kind of glass half-empty or who always assumes that anything good will be ruined by something bad happening. What this has to do with being Nordic I have no earthly idea.
Frankie's back with his cartoonishly villainous behavior. This storyline, which technically stared a week or two earlier when we first saw him watching TV, is going to be probably the longest uninterrupted storyline in the series running all the way until the end of June. So buckle up.
How would Darin and Jessica get a house? With what money? Neither seems to have an actual job that we see unless you count Jessica's non-existant documentary and Darin doing occasional web development for a small local pizzeria.
Bio-Dad, the long awaited Bio-Dome sequel.
Wait, who's her father again?
A rather momentous week. First, Fred's strokey utterance lead to the "fans" calling Pam and Jeff Murdoch "Pm and Jfff". We also have another retcon thrown into Lisa's pregnancy: that it happened around the apartment where Fred and Ann were staying, that their neighbors were Pam and Jeff, and that the Murdochs were the ones who helped Lisa out.Also another retcon. Jan Darling's original maiden name was Murdoch. When doing Crankshaft, Batiuk reused the name for Ed's son-in-law. When doing this story, he realized he'd used the name twice and decided to tie it together by making Jessica's mother the sister of Ed's son-in-law. Thus, Darin and Jessica's son is the Chosen One as in his blood courses Funky Winkerbean, John Darling and Crankshaft.
So why are Pm and Jfff the key to anything when all he's doing is reiterating what they were already told by Ann?
Yeah Les, you wimp, YOU can't read Lisa's journal so make your daughter read about how her mom was raped instead. Summer really is way better than he is.
Thus ends the saga of Darin & the Funky Gang vs. Bio-Dad. And yet, this still won't be the last we'll see of Frankie as he'll come back a few years down the line for one last hurrah.
This is the first mention, sort of, of Pete working at Mega Comics which is either a different company from Metropolis Comics or another new one. Either way, who in the hell would ever want to read "The Amazing Mister Sponge"? Batiuk's image of superheroes being bad Silver Age concepts will only become more and more apparent.
One of the weird things is the colorist is going to consistently make Rachel blonde for some reason.
Damn kids today don't know about... uh... glass? Also look at Owen, he fucking for sure knows about glass.
I believe this is the last time we see Jim. Considering the real Jim Mateer passed away in 2011 I guess it makes sense that we would stop seeing his fictional counterpart too.
>>151873184Nordic people have a reputation for being negative and miserable, I guess? Best I can come up with
Now obviously there's a lot you could do with Jarod, the anti-social outcast who also happens to be a quarterback. But I think you know what the reality is at this point.
I don't think it's ever said that Owen and Alex are a thing but come on, they're definitely a thing.
The I-Chong returns for one last go.
Start of the Holly searching for Starbucks Jones issues story arc that will run off and on for quite a while. Also, the first mention/appearance of Rocky who will eventually marry Cory.
>>151873879The Superboy strip here was, I believe, the last of the comic tribute strips. Now it's going to be Starbuck Jones covers until eventually shifting to Atomik Komix covers. This also marks the point where Starbuck Jones starts becoming a more prominent thing as well as the first mention of Batom Comics which, in the Funkyverse, is a near mythical and revered Golden Age comic publisher. Because of couse the fake comic compay that Batiuk thought up when he was a kid is.
Thus is born Skyler Fairgood, the Fated Child.
>>151873886the master says: I-chong on yo momma
>second stripThe first real appearance of Al Burch in over 25 years.
For whatever reason, the strips on GoComics are the color versions. Why they all aren't the color versions is beyond me and it'll switch back to black and whites in 2016.Anyway, that wraps up another year. Next time will cover 2014. Holly continues her quest to finish Cory's Starbuck Jones collection, Jessica finally gets around to finishing her John Darling documentary, and Les heads to Hollywood for the first, but certainly not last, time.
That should say the strips for 2014 and 2015 are the color versions.
At least Les can't get more smug and self satisfied than he already is right?
>>151874449
One of the things I should mention is that 2013 really gives off the impression that he was maybe thinking about ending it here or at least that he generally only had a plan up through round this time. There's all the stuff with Summer, her basketball career and then going off to college. Les, the former loser, now has a love triangle which brings back an old character and ends with him remarrying while his attempts to be a successful author now seem to be bearing fruit. Funky gets kind of bitchslapped into having to re-learn some humility and find joy in what he has, Crazy Harry gets a job with the things he likes, Wally deals with his PTSD and moves on into a stable relationship. Everything with Darin and Jessica that winds up tying together all the various parts of the Funkyverse together and ends with Lisa's son now being a father.It's clear there was at least some kind of plan for the first 5 or so years of Act III and there was no plan for what to do afterwards because from 2014 on, it becomes a lot more aimless and listless in a way that clearly wasn't there prior.
>>151873807Week and a half of strips then never heard from again? :D
>>151875501Les than that. It's not even clear who the quarterback is intended to be afterwards. Actually, I think there's another strip where the star quarterback is explicitly someone else. He shows up a little before Owen/Cody/Alex and then not anymore so presumably he's part of the same class.
>>151876283>Les than thatNice Freudian slip lol
>>151873975The Rise of Skylerwalker
