The November 9th strip showing Becky married to John the comics shop owner seems to have raised a lot of concern among Funky’s readers. A lot of you are jumping (actually, running screaming and leaping) to the conclusion that Becky’s first husband, Wally, died in Iraq. In fact many visitors to the Funky web site have been jumping to that conclusion for a couple of weeks now when Wally didn’t show up in the cast picture that fronts the site. (A quick aside here to note that they were also concerned that Wally Jr. was missing as well. Wally Jr.’s omission can be explained with a term of art known as a big dumb mistake. I simply forgot to include him in the cast picture.) The explanation for Wally Sr.’s not being there is due to something else… it’s called writing.
As things move forward, I plan to reveal many of the backstories regarding what happened to the various characters in the strip during the ten years that were just jumped. All of this material will be presented, in good time, as the stories unfold. If a mystery writer revealed who did it on the first page, there wouldn’t be much reason to finish the rest of the book, now would there? Specifically regarding Becky and Wally, I’m not saying he died, that they were divorced or that he’s missing out there somewhere. For the moment, I’m not saying anything at all… almost. I wasn’t going to bring this up, and was going to leave it for those who really scrutinize every line of the strip to find on their own as a reward for their faithful and eternal vigilance, but your excitement is forcing me to be a bit of a spoiler here. There was a clue. A tiny clue, but a clue none the less. In the October 11 strip as a matter of fact. So, if you simply really have to know something, anything, right now, check it out online or at the library. Please don’t ask me to post it on the web site… I mean, you’ve got to do a little work here. Otherwise, you can simply kick back, relax, and let the saga unfold tomorrow, and tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. It’s called writing.
