By: Erin Moore for Body1Creator of the popular ‘Funky Winkerbean’ comic strip Tom Batiuk will end the emotional storyline of Lisa Moore Thursday. His character Lisa has been battling breast cancer since 1999; readers have seen the wife and mother through chemotherapy, radiation, mastectomy, remission – and now recurrence and the loss of her struggle.
Batiuk says he is proud of the truth in the telling of this story. Serious topics such as this one are rare in comic strips, but have been a theme in Batiuk’s strip, which has dealt with teen pregnancy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Batiuk’s own diagnosis and subsequent treatment for prostate cancer in 2003 prompted him to further explore real issues in his comic strip. A 60-year-old former teacher, he has been writing and sketching the controversial ‘Funky Winkerbean’ since 1972.
Read more about breast cancer and prostate cancer.
