Posted by Sean C on Jul 20th, 2007
I was perusing news over the net when this article caught my eye: ‘Funky Winkerbean’ Character to Die
Tom Batuik, the creator of the occasionally overly preachy newspaper strip Funky Winkerbean, has decided not to cave into pressure from his fans and “save” the Lisa character, who is dealing with terminal breast cancer. I for one applaud him for that decision. If you’ll allow me to rant a tad, fans of popular comics do seem to take a vested interest in the comic to the point where they feel entitled to some creative control. We’ve seen it on the web with Dominic Deegan and other strips, and it’s good to see a creator assert himself and stick to his story. The fans don’t control the direction of the strip, otherwise we’d have a constant stauts quo; boring, cookie-cutter characters; and crummy joke after crummy joke.
So bravo to Batuik for sticking to his guns. I was quite surprised that he had already completed the story arc, which ends in October, way back last year. That’s one hell of a buffer. I’d refuse to redo all that work, too. While that could be the primary motivator here, I’m still glad that the demographics don’t rule all in regards to the funny pages. There’s still some hope for real creativity and storytelling; there’s not a total “Garfielding” yet.
That doesn’t mean I like Funky Winkerbean, but I do respect its creator.
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