Funky Winkerbean/YMMV


 * Critical Research Failure: Lisa is correctly told that radiation cannot cure her Stage IV breast cancer. This is mostly true, as pretty much nothing will kill recurrent breast cancer. She is however not told that radiation and chemotherapy can put the cancer into a temporary remission or that some Stage IV breast cancer patients are able to survive for twenty years or longer. This omission influences Lisa's decision to discontinue treatment. Worse, it takes the better part of a year for her to die, which means that she could have beaten it back: had the cancer been so invasive that chemo or radiation wouldn't have helped, she would have been dead within a few weeks.
 * A 1/24/10 (Sunday) strip had Crazy Harry discussing comic book heroes of past generations and how they were "real heroes" who "weren't deeply disturbed and borderline psychotic" -- a Take That at the Dark Age and Modern Age -- but the retro hero he holds up as an example is Marvel's Speedball. Apparently, Tom Batiuk is unfamiliar with what happened to Speedball in Civil War. Comics Curmudgeon commenters who are familiar thought this blunder hilarious and joked that Speedball/Penance would fit into the miserable Funkyverse perfectly.
 * Arguably, Speedball fits into Harry's rant about the Dark Age perfectly for this very reason, and Batiuk is knowledgeable enough about comics that he may be well aware of his fate (see Shout-Out below for evidence). It's the total failure to see that he's doing the exact same thing to his own comic that makes it hilarious.
 * And then in November 2011 he wrote a strip in which Crazy Harry is asked if he reads the newspaper, and answers, "No, it's too depressing... and the funnies aren't even funny anymore." It's hard to tell whether this too is self-awareness failure or Batiuk using Harry as a Straw Critic.
 * Pretty much everything relating to the storyline with Wally is a slap in the face to anyone who has even a smidgen of knowledge of the military, POWs, and basic procedures for declaring a soldier killed in action (hint: they tend to involve identifying the body and not grabbing random corpses without even the most basic of forensics testing)
 * This may have been inspired by the controversy some years back over the deliberate misidentification of skeletal remains recovered in Southeast Asia. (A forensic scientist claimed that he had positively identified fragmented skeletal remains from a crashed bomber when in reality it was impossible to tell whether the specific remains sent to each family were actually from their loved one, from one of his comrades, or even from an animal.)
 * Apparently everything about Les's book tour as well. In the words of one reader: "I spent nearly 20 years in the book publishing biz, and I don’t even want to START on how much shit Batuik is getting wrong."
 * Les's book is published in a matter of weeks by a small university press. His agent is also his publicist - which, even if it weren't a gross conflict of interest, is highly unlikely as they are completely different professions - and he has a long, passive-aggressive discussion with Cayla and Susan about the proposed cover design (which he apparently has complete control over), even though the book has already been printed and is in stores.
 * So Les is on a plane that gets grounded by a bomb threat . According to Les, the plane (with all the passengers and luggage still on board) sat at the gate for a couple hours after which they were given seats on a later flight--instead of being immediately removed from the plane and undergoing intense scrutiny by the TSA, as one might expect in the circumstances. Oh, and apparently there's no trouble getting an entire planeload of people seats on a later flight, though it's only a few days before Christmas
 * Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy
 * Dude, Not Funny: Susan and Les joking about her suicide attempt as she invites him to dinner. As adults. And as colleagues. Oh, Squick doesn't even begin to describe the wrong.
 * Fridge Horror: The first strip of 2011 sees Les passionately kissing the ghost of his now thirteen-years deceased spouse in full view of his girlfriend and former suicidal student turned romantically obsessed adult. As if to confirm to both characters that yes, Les would much rather hallucinate about his One True Love than spend any time caring about them. Several readers pointed out that this moment is not just another sign of Les' unwillingness to let go: it's an indication of full blown mental illness.
 * Memetic Mutation: "Cancer cancer?"
 * Snark Bait: The "Lisa Dies" plotline, as well as drawing the attention of The Comics Curmudgeon, also inspired a now-inactive Funky-centric snarking blog, Stuck Funky, which itself spawned Son of Stuck Funky, which continues the previous blog's work. Tom Batiuk got both blogs suspended from Wordpress via a cease and desist, but the sequel blog immediately grabbed another domain and started up again. And then there's the monthly "FunkyWatch" on ComicsAlliance.com which intentionally selects the preceding month's "finest examples of crushing despair" for both said comic and Crankshaft.
 * They Just Didn't Care: The sheer amount of things wrong with Wally's return.
 * True Art Is Angsty: According to Batiuk anyway. He really takes it personally.
 * Unfortunate Implications: The late December 2010 arc, involving Les being warned not to board a plane by a mysterious voice claiming to be The implication from the arc's denouement seems to be that   was willing to let dozens of people die a horrible death had Les actually followed  advice and not boarded the plane. Dude, Not Funny!