This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

Cartoonist Tom Batiuk Talks About 'Lisa's Story' at Kent State

Creator of 'Funky Winkerbean' compiled strips about character's cancer fight into a book

Cartoonist Tom Batiuk, whose long-running comic strips Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft are carried in more than 700 news publications throughout the country, showed a more serious side during a discussion and book signing Thursday at the Library.

With an audience of 43 people in the Read Room, the 1969 Kent State alumnus detailed the origins and inspiration for his book, Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe, published by the Kent State University Press.

Batiuk sought to draw attention to the realities of those who experience breast cancer through the character of Lisa in his Funky Winkerbean comic strip. The series pertaining to those story lines have been compiled in the book, the proceeds from which go toward Lisa's Legacy Fund for cancer research at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center.

Find out what's happening in Kentwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Batiuk said he received advice in a vision that inspired him to launch his 1999 creation of the comic-strip story lines that deal with cancer. He said an angel told him, "In the end, your faith simply has to be greater than your fear."

Controversial at the time, the Funky Winkerbean Lisa series dealt with the gritty and painful elements of stages of cancer, from diagnosis to death.

Find out what's happening in Kentwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"You can't do that on a daily basis. Readers won't take that, and I've got the emails to prove it," Batiuk said.

Batiuk said "everything changed," including the tone, coloring and sentiment of the Funky Winkerbean story lines, when he later was diagnosed with cancer.

"I was diagnosed, and I realized there is a huge void between empathy and personal experience. This time, when I went into that internal landscape, it was more emotionally charged," he said.

When Batiuk opened the discussion to questions from audience members, he was asked what direction the characters in his Funky Winkerbean comic strip, which in March will have been published for 40 years, would take in the future.

"I've already got my up-and-comers started for next year, but it's hard to say where it's going to go," Batiuk said.

Co-sponsored by the Kent State University Press and Kent State University Libraries, the discussion and book signing was part of the Libraries' "Kent Reads" program.

For more information on Batiuk's Funky Winkerbean comic strip, click here.

For more information about Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe, click here.

For more information about Lisa's Legacy Fund at the University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, click  here.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Kent