One of the more interesting stories of the past year or so in comics has been that of Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean.  Of course, a few weeks back I discussed the story where longtime character Lisa Moore succumbed to breast cancer (and how it was hardly the first time a mainstream newspaper strip killed off a major sympathetic character in that manner), but even this development was merely one step in a larger process in the continuing evolution of what was once the preeminent gag-a-day high school sitcom in the “funny papers.”

Change was in the wind for almost a year in the strip.  The prominence of Lisa’s story has all but overshadowed other happenings in the last year, including one that in any other time would have been Funky’s primary focus: The retirement of Harry L. Dinkle, perhaps Batiuk’s most famous character, as Westview High’s band director.  One of the inviolable rules of the strip, and one of the few whimsical running gags that survived its 1992 transition from pure comedy to dramedy, was that Dinkle, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest band director,” was never seen out of his full dress uniform (including a cap that always prevented the reader from seeing his eyes), much like how Doonesbury’s B.D. was never depicted not wearing a helmet of some kind for over 34 years.  Last November, however, Dinkle announced he was stepping down, and Batiuk underscored the permanence of this decision by showing him taking off his cap, thus giving veteran readers their first-ever look at his entire face.  A purely symbolic gesture, to be sure, but in the world of Funky quite the earth-shaking moment.

There was more besides.  Children, including Les and Lisa’s daughter Summer, began to factor more prominently in the storyline.  Westview High began the process of moving into a new building, as the now run-down school which had been the center of the strip’s world for 35 years was slated for demolition.  Readers were beginning to suspect Batiuk was building up to something big, even above and beyond allowing Lisa to die.

Finally, on October 21, they were proven right, as Funky suddenly - in mid-sentence, even! - jumped ahead ten years in time.

This change, albeit jarring, is nonetheless permanent.  The original core characters from the old sitcom days - Funky, Les, Crazy Harry, Holly, and Cindy - are all now middle-aged.  (Les, in particular, now sports a goatee, a receding hairline, and a prominent waistline - possibly the most severe character redesign of all.)  Those that were children before the time-skip, including Summer, are now attending Westview High themselves, carrying on the family tradition in some cases and in others carving out their own niche for themselves; Summer, for example, is now a standout for the girls’ basketball team, in stark contrast to her decidedly unathletic father’s high school career.  There are new characters and new developments aplenty, and it’s somewhat jarring to be thrown in on the deep end and try to piece together what happened during the “lost” decade.

And one of the most intriguing mysteries has been that of Becky and Wally Winkerbean, a second-generation husband-wife team.  Both started as high schoolers after the original 1992 time-skip, and through a series of storylines (including a famous 1996 sequence in which Becky lost her left arm in a car accident, and an even more infamous 2005 storyline that saw Wally nearly blown up by a land mine in Afghanistan) had evolved into the strip’s “second couple,” behind Les and Lisa.  Just before this latest development, Becky had just been appointed Westview’s new band director, replacing the legendary Harry L. Dinkle, and Wally was still serving in Iraq.

Now, following the time skip,  this week’s series of strips shows an older Becky dealing with family life, including two children (Wally Jr. and adopted Afghani daughter Rana) - not always easy for any woman, let alone one with a missing arm.  This is somewhat normal stuff… but if you go to the main funkywinkerbean.com page and mouse over the Flash cast pictures, you will find some rather interesting information regarding Becky.

I don’t want to give away any surprises just yet, because the strip will feature a big reveal either tomorrow or Saturday (as I write this).  However, you will notice two noteworthy things on the main cast page:  One, that Becky’s capsule bio mentions someone unexpected as being her husband (again, I won’t say who), and that two, Wally is nowhere to be found.

Obviously, something’s going on here, but Batiuk is being (uncharacteristically, as of late) tight-lipped about what it could be.  All he’s said on the subject has been a somewhat cryptic line in his blog about how “what you think happened [with Wally] may not be what you think happened.”  Another major character death, perhaps?  Or just a divorce?  He isn’t saying, but the strip will reveal his intentions in short order regardless.

I know Funky isn’t to everyone’s taste, and I know that a lot of people actively dislike it for its (of late) overwhelmingly depressing tone in the wake of the Lisa story.  Still, you can’t help but respect its creator for having the guts to shake up the status quo, and not shying away from telling the difficult stories.  In some respects, Batiuk is not unlike Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes), a champion of the author’s rights to override the demands of a syndicate for the sake of full control over the characters and situations he (or she) created in the first place.  There may not be much money to be made in having one of your main characters die of breast cancer, or in suddenly warping ten full years into the future for no readily apparent reason, or even in having a supposedly major character simply vanish without an immediate explanation as to why, and any syndicator would have pitched a fit over these intentions.  But Batiuk has stuck to his guns and continued to churn out his strip, his way.  If nothing else, you have to salute him for that.