If you frequent your newspaper’s comic page, you probably already know about the impending death of longtime Funky Winkerbean character Lisa Moore, and of cartoonist Tom Batiuk’s recent public announcement that there would in fact be no miracle cure to save her. (Lisa, whose tenure in the strip dates back almost to its creation, developed breast cancer in 1999 but was initially shown to have survived the illness. However, in the past year Batiuk began a storyline called “The Other Shoe,” in which the disease returned with a vengeance, and was this time inoperable. Lisa is now on her deathbed, and the strip in which she finally shrugs off this mortal coil – actually drawn almost a year ago, along with most of this storyline – is expected to run within a few weeks, if not days, of this article going up.)

Despite the usual clucking from some quarters about such heavy-handed material ill-fitting the “funny pages,” this turn of events has been generally met with praise by comic-strip fans (including WotG’s own Sean C.) — if for no other reason, then for Batiuk’s gutsy decision to “stick to his guns” and not give Lisa an unrealistic last-minute reprieve. Other, more casual readers remain, insofar as I can determine, surprised that any cartoonist would kill off one of his longest-tenured characters, especially in this fashion. These readers may or may not be aware that, even in the traditionally conservative (in the dictionary sense) and status quo-maintaining world of the newspaper comic strip, character death is no new thing. In fact, you may be surprised to learn just how far back it really goes…

Lisa Moore is hardly the first sympathetic mainstream comic-strip character to die at the hands of her creator. She isn’t even the first to die at the hands of this particular author! In 1991, John Darling, a strip about a fictional TV talk show that Batiuk spun off from Funky Winkerbean in 1979, ended its unremarkable eleven-year run in a most remarkable fashion. Following a dispute with John Darling’s syndicator over ownership of the character, Batiuk decided on a downright shocking ending to the comedy strip, one in which the titular vainglorious host was literally shot to death, in full view of the readers, by an unseen assailant. (Years later in Funky, Batiuk would revisit this murder and resolve the mystery of who killed Darling.) Well, it’s one way to end a series you don’t want the syndicate taking over, that’s for sure.

Elsewhere on the modern comics page, Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) has killed off no fewer than four characters of “recurring” status or greater: Dick Davenport, orinthologist and husband of congresswoman Lacey Davenport, who suffered a heart attack in 1986; Andy Lippincott, one of the first openly gay characters in any mainstream comic, who (in a lengthy series of strips not dissimilar to, but markedly less sentimental than, Lisa’s story in Funky) succumbed to AIDS in 1990; the aforementioned Lacey Davenport herself, of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease, in 1998; and Phil Slackmeyer, Mark’s arch-conservative father, who passed away off-camera in 2002. “Real time” dramedy strips such as For Better or For Worse and Gasoline Alley have seen their share of passings over the years simply by virtue of having Father Time involved in the creative process; in particular, the latter strip has now outlived all but one of its original core group of four characters (the now-centenarian Walt Wallet). And, of course, crime-drama strips like Dick Tracy have always been able to play the “let’s kill off a sympathetic character for the sake of drama” card, with such deaths often coming by violent means.

But for the first recorded instance of true mortality on the comics page, you have to go all the way back to April 30, 1929. On that date, in newspapers across the country, readers of the popular comic soap-opera The Gumps were shocked to learn of the passing of Mary Gold, a major character in that strip. This had a profound effect on the relatively innocent readers of the time, with many fans reacting as if a real person had died; indeed, cartoonist Sydney Smith continued to receive memorial wreaths for Mary for many years on the anniversary of her death.

The funny thing here is that The Gumps had started as a gag-oriented strip that gradually evolved into something more like a serial drama. This creates a parallel with Funky Winkerbean, which has certainly come a long way from its ’70s origins as a laugh-a-day high school sitcom.

So there is actually a longer history of this sort of thing than most people realize. And what’s truly amazing about it is the emotions that even those who claim not to care about comic strips display when it happens. These people, who exist only as so much ink on newsprint, are probably more a part of our lives than many of us would be willing to admit. In some cases, we grew up with them; others are more recent acquaintances, but no less familiar for that. Whether we meet them daily at the breakfast table or just casually glance at them when we get the chance on a coffee break, they have somehow, often in spite of everything, become a part of our lives. And because of that, people still sometimes react to a character’s death as if it were happening to a real person, particularly when (as is the case with Lisa) we actually follow them as they progress through the final stages of life.

When Lisa Moore finally passes away a few short strips from now, she will join a surprisingly large number of comics characters in the Great Beyond. There is, quite honestly, nothing new or particularly innovative about Batiuk’s storytelling here (despite it being told rather well, as far as newspaper strips go), but a death of this magnitude on the comics page is still a rare enough event to merit notice by the mainstream media – and it has gotten people talking about comic strips again, which is never a bad thing (unless it’s a witch hunt). It just shouldn’t be confused with being a “first” for this genre (as some misinformed readers seem to believe), because it’s really anything but.

Me? Well, unlike Sean C., I do like Funky Winkerbean and generally always have, though I do agree that it’s been entirely too preachy and downbeat lately – even allowing for the seriousness of the current subject matter. I definitely see why some comics fans have turned on Funky because of stories like this one totally dominating whatever humor remained in what is still officially classified as an “ensemble comedy.” Still, you can’t help but respect Batiuk for having the cojones to kick over a few tables every now and then in his storylines, and do things most newspaper editors, in their endless quest to keep as many easily-offended subscribers as possible from cancelling, would turn ghost-white at the mere prospect of. And I’m not just talking about Lisa’s cancer story here; in past years Funky has tackled topics ranging from teen suicide to school violence to child abuse to alcolholism to the Iraq War. I guess it just goes to prove how much of a difference it makes when you have full creative control over your strip and its characters…