Funky Winkerbean, a newspaper staple since 1972, is one of the few comic strips that allows its characters to grow and age. As time passes and characters evolve, new and loyal readers alike are reminded that not only does Funky have a future, but the strip has a rich past. What remains a constant is Batiuk’s signature narrative-driven humor. This tenth volume, spanning from 1999 through 2001, embraces the strip’s past while casting an eye to a bright future.

Funky Winkerbean, a newspaper staple since 1972, is one of the few comic strips that allows its characters to grow and age. As time passes and characters evolve, new and loyal readers alike are reminded that not only does Funky have a future, but the strip has a rich past. What remains a constant is Batiuk’s signature narrative-driven humor. This twelfth volume, spanning from 2005 through 2007, embraces the strip’s past while casting an eye to a bright future.

This latest installment of The Complete Funky Winkerbean presents the comic strips from 2008, 2009, and 2010 and ushers the original Funky characters into middle age. In true Funky fashion, the characters have to grapple with very serious issues: nearly fatal car crashes, a war abroad, and a tanking economy at home. These years also mark the first appearance of Cayla, and her arrival on the scene is where cartoonist Tom Batiuk’s new time-jump era begins to coalesce and take on its unique identity.

In this third volume, award-winning cartoonist Tom Batiuk continues to chronicle the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. Funky Winkerbean fans are introduced to a host of new characters, including black cheerleader Junebug Jones; Melinda Budd, Holly Budd’s ambitious stage mother; Jerome the drum major; Nancy the school librarian; Ron the tennis pro; Irma, Rita Righton’s tennis partner; Channel One reporters Brenda Harpy and Minnie Cameron; talk show host John Darling; news anchor Charlie Lord; Phil the Forecaster; and program director Reed Roberts. Batiuk also features a troupe of inanimate forms achieving sentience, such as talking trees, clouds, school desks,video games, and a talking tennis ball machine that goes on to play at Wimbledon.

By this point in its evolution, Funky Winkerbean is resonating with its readers and its popularity is growing. Crankshaft, the irascible bus driver, and Betty, Westview High School’s secretary, are introduced. Crankshaft quickly became a fan favorite, with many readers responding to the trauma-inducing, surly old curmudgeon. Not since the introduction of band director Harry L. Dinkle had a new character received such a positive response. Betty soldiers on at Westview until Batiuk finally sends her off to the cartoon character’s retirement home.

In this sixth volume, we see the changes in tone that now characterize Funky Winkerbean. The story arcs increasingly intertwine to mark the shift from the simple sitcom mode to a more complex narrative with subplots. At this point in its evolution, Funky Winkerbean is resonating with readers and its popularity is growing. Ed Crankshaft, the irascible and curmudgeonly school bus driver, has become a fan favorite—so much so that cartoonist Tom Batiuk spins off Crankshaft into his own comic strip. Westview High School band director Harry L. Dinkle, the World’s Greatest Band Director, takes the band to New York City for a gig at Carnegie Hall, and drum majorette Holly Budd performs her acclaimed flaming baton trick with catastrophic results for the hallowed hall.

In this seventh volume, we see the changes in tone that now characterize Funky Winkerbean. Funky becomes more of a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner. In 1992 Tom Batiuk did something even more radical: he rebooted and restructured the strip, establishing that the characters had graduated from high school. From then on the series progresses in real time.

Relationships move to the front of the stage in this eleventh volume of The Complete Funky Winkerbean as the lighthearted dalliances of the past segue to the more mature partnerships of the adult world.  Marriages are tested as Funky and Cindy’s relationship begins to break apart, and Becky and Wally are separated by the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, Lisa and Les begin a family and go house hunting, while Crazy Harry meets an unlikely soulmate from his high school video gaming days.

In this eighth volume, Funky Winkerbean continues to move forward in real time, tackling issues of relevance and substance with characters whose lives are increasingly fateful and destined. Funky has placed Batiuk at the forefront of a new genre in comic art history as the strip pursues stories ahead of their time: guns in schools and teen suicide. The humor in Funky continues to grow as it evolves from sitcom gags to a deeper and more engaging behavioral style of humor.

Funky Winkerbean, a newspaper staple since 1972, is one of the few comic strips that allows its characters to grow and age. With this ninth volume of the collected Funky Winkerbean, containing strips from 1996 through 1998, time continues to pass and events take place that will forever alter the lives of the core characters, even as new characters take the stage with stories to tell.