The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 13, 2008-2010 Tom Batiuk 9781606354698

The characters of the Funky cartoon universe deal with the challenges of middle age

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.

Tom Batiuk is a graduate of Kent State University. His celebrated Funky Winkerbean comic strip concluded its 50-year run on December 31, 2022. Its spinoff, Crankshaft, is still carried in hundreds of newspapers throughout the United States. Batiuk was a finalist in the editorial cartooning category of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize awards for the singular series of daily comic strips that chronicled the death of longtime character Lisa Moore, which were collected in the Lisa's Legacy Trilogy. His Funky Winkerbean series and Roses in December were finalists for the 2016 Eisner Awards.