Interviewed: Tom Batiuk on second volume of The Complete Funky Winkerbean

Alan Gardner March 19, 2013 1 minute 1 comment

Comic Book Resources talks to Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk about his strip. The second volume of “The Complete Funky Winkerbean” is now available

I know that you’ve gotten complaints about the dramatic stories, and though I love them, I can see how from a certain point of view, all the elements might sit uneasily with some readers.

Well first of all you always fight this culture that thinks the comics are supposed to be funny. I keep making the argument every chance I get that they were called “the comics” by accident, but people take it as a Webster’s definition in terms of how you’re supposed to handle things. And then of course I really think of it as a plus. People identify so strongly with these characters that when you do something to those characters, they feel it too and that’s a good thing. In some ways more than any other art form comics are better suited to this because they’re in people’s homes every day. Or on their computers every day now. They’re there with them on a daily basis and you build a closer relationship with the characters that somebody creates.

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Daniel Olson

No Tom, it is not that we are are uneasy with the elements in your stories. The problem is the ham handed way you shoehorn in characters to make your point then drop them never to be seen again. The way you seem to go out of your way to make the characters unlovable. The inconsistent artwork sometimes from panel to panel. The fact that there is little to no internal consistently in the strips characters history or behavior or age relationships. Seriously this strip has become a major cluster foul up.

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Interviewed: Tom Batiuk on second volume of The Complete Funky Winkerbean

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Daniel Olson

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