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[TheRedSnifit]

"This month, Batiuk took to the page to chronicle a few things that, if you weren't familiar with how this strip actually worked, would seem to be a few of life's happier moments: There's a marriage for Wally and Rachel, a trip out west for Les to work on the movie based on his most successful book [...] If, however you are familiar with how this strip works, then you'll know that this is all pretty much just setup for misery, hatred, and the actual wrath of God Himself. In other words, it's business as usual in Westview."
http://comicsalliance.com/funkywatch-junes-most-depressing-funky-winkerbean-and-crankshaft-strips/

. . . does anybody else remember this was a comic? No? Did you know it's still running? Well, it is!

For those not in the know, Funky Winkerbean is a light-hearted gag strip, revolving around the titular Funky and his zany high school. Fun and whimsical, the strip is known for its exaggerated and cartoonish humor, turning it into a fairly popular strip that hung on the walls of many a teacher (fun fact: the character Harry Dinkle has a brand of marching band shoes named after him).

Or that's what it was. In 1992, this gag strip ran a graduation storyline that culminated in the class overachiever committing suicide, followed by a time skip that essentially rebooted the strip with all the characters as adults. This marked the beginning of one of the, if not the, most infamously depressing comic strips around, chronicling the pure, abjact misery that defines the lives of everybody unfortunate enough to live in Westview. Typical plots involve: Cancer, hearing loss, cancer, CTE, cancer, car crashes, and cancer. Funky himself almost never actually appears anymore, getting usurped by Lisa (until she died of cancer) and Les Moore, who may be the most hated man in the dailies since Anthony.

Anyways, happy anniversary! Should you desire to read this strip for some reason, the prime source is Son of Stuck Funky, where we gather about and snark about the strip every day. Funky makes regular appearances on The Comics Curmudgeon as well.

 

[sphagnum]

I prefer to forget about Doonesbury.

 

[Nerdkiller]

 

[Boem]

What in the world. I feel like a whole new world is opening before me.

I'm not sure that that's a good thing.

 

[Matsukaze]

Came here for this.

 

[jph139]

Thanks to the Comics Curmudgeon I'm intimately familiar with the serialized nonsense of the Funkyverse.

It's no Mary Worth but it's up there.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

 

[The Awesomest]

...whoa. I'd only known about this strip from seeing those dumb panels on the walls of every band room ever. I had no idea it went off the rails like that.

 

[jstripes]

I never saw it in any of the papers up here, I only saw it in papers on trips to the states, so I'm pretty sure I've only seen it post-time skip. I never knew about its high school years.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

...whoa. I'd only known about this strip from seeing those dumb panels on the walls of every band room ever. I had no idea it went off the rails like that.

I only followed it sporadically for a while, so until 2009 or so thought it was still a goofy, if down to earth, gag strip.

It's only one when you actively follow it that you realize just how far into the gutter it fell.

 

[120v]

i could never tell what the hell it was about. but i haven't opened the funnies section since grade school or something

crazy it's nearly half a century old. would've figured it started in the 80s or so

 

[TheRedSnifit]

i could never tell what the hell it was about. but i haven't opened the funnies section since grade school or something

crazy it's nearly half a century old. would've figured it started in the 80s or so

It's about "a black hole of bleakness and depression and cancer from which no joy or laughter can escape." Oh, and some fake comic the author made up in grade school or something. There's no coherent story beyond that.

Haha, it's funny because this PTSD-afflicted veteran almost cracked from the pressure of being the chew toy of a sadistic god!