Funky Winkerbean: Difference between revisions
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In 1992, Tom Batiuk, the creator of the strip quite deliberately decided to initiate [[Cerebus Syndrome]] (not that it was called that then): He figured that 17 years in high school was long enough. He ran a graduation storyline, and to indicate and hammer in the change of tone, he had the class overachiever commit suicide in the yearbook room after hearing that the position of valedictorian would be chosen by popularity, and after a brief standoff. Then we got Les Moore's valedictorian speech (which is universally considered underwhelming), and then there was a [[Time Skip]]...
And then there was [[Deus Angst Machina|Angst]]: For every good thing that happened to the cast (Funky married to Cindy, [[Loser Gets the Girl|Les married to Lisa]]) there were [[Diabolus Ex Machina|two bad things]] (Funky is a divorced [[The Alcoholic|recovering alcoholic]], [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|Lisa died after a breast cancer relapse]]) and one thing that was [[Cerebus Retcon|revealed to be worse than we thought]] (Lisa's teen pregnancy retconned into date rape, Bull's [[Jerkass]] nature as a result of parental abuse). [[Wring Every Last Drop Out of Him|The nature of Lisa's death]] attracted a significant level of notoriety, as it was made known to the general public by Batiuk a full year in advance.
And then in 2008, [[Creator Breakdown|Batiuk decided]] there needed to be a second [[Time Skip]] to turn things over to the kids of the original cast. Even then, the majority of the storylines have focused more on the adults [[Chew Toy|experiencing even more traumatic events]] and [[Character Derailment|angsting about them]] and less on their children, though a handful of stories have focused on the lives of the teens.
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* [[Age Cut]]: [[Time Skip]] II officially began with a [http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20071021&name=Funky_Winkerbean Sunday strip]. Les began to say "You know your mother would be proud..." while young Summer and he hold hands. The next panel is a much older Summer's hand still holding his. Les finishes with "...of the young woman you've become" as the final panel shows the teenaged Summer and middle aged Les.
* [[The Alcoholic]]: Funky is a recovering one.
* [[Always Someone Better]]: Keisha, Summer's basketball rival whose great talent overshadows her and thus deprives her of her love for athletics. And now Keisha and Summer are step-sisters.
* [[Author Avatar]]: Without a doubt: Les, especially post-[[Time Skip]]. This became blindingly obvious in October 2010 as Les embarked on his book tour (which takes place mainly at Montoni's) and is surrounded by adoring hordes of middle-aged women who worship the ground he walks on - and who are all clearly inferior in some way or another to him.
* [[Call Back]]: Funky's time traveling is real since he's the "old geezer" who told his younger self to save the comic book.
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** This is veering sharply into [[Unreliable Narrator]] territory as of February 2011, with Les reminiscing about his grad-student days to an old schoolmate and blatantly re-casting the gag-strip period of his life as a bleak, existential affair where he and his friend would dream of escaping their small-town life and doing Big Things (complete with visuals ''in no way reminiscent'' of ''[[On the Waterfront]]'''s famous "contender" scene, no less!) Not to mention the visuals reinventing his old dorky young-adult self as looking more like a beat poet.)
* [[Cerebus Syndrome]]: possibly the biggest example, short of the [[Trope Namer]] (and that's debatable).
* [[Chew Toy]]: Lisa never could catch a break.
** Even Batiuk admitted in an interview during the second cancer storyline that he didn't quite understand why she was always getting so much drama.
** Les ''used'' to go through through this, but these days seems to be getting the opposite treatment. Possibly to make up for years of torture, and possibly because Batiuk has started to identify with him more.
* [[Comic Book Time]]: started off this way, then went to real-time progression (or maybe slowed-down time progression) after the first [[Time Skip]], then... well, it's hard to tell now. Both time skips seemed to take the strip from the present day to... still the present day but with everyone being older
** In the original timeline, the characters were ca. 15 years old in 1972, which presupposes a birth year of roughly 1957.
** The first timeshift had them graduate in 1988, implying that they were born in 1970.
** The second timeshift has them at roughly 46 years of age in 2010, giving them a birth date of about 1964.
** And then there are some high school students in ''the current timeline'' (namely Owen, Cody and Alex) who are apparently still juniors... [[Reality Is Out to Lunch|in their '''SIXTH''' year of high school]].
** Compare that to ''[[Crankshaft]]'', which has held the same continuity as the original timeline. ''Crankshaft'' and ''Funky'' are as much as 20 years apart from each other, yet both strips are clearly set in the same present time.
* [[Crapsack World]]: And the characters clearly are aware of it. Hell, Funky even described life as a curse.
** Les appears to be the most aware, and at all times seems to be merely waiting his turn, if only to be with Lisa again.
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* [[Off the Wagon]]: Teased in a 2010 strip, though subverted - while the Saturday strip showed him ordering a drink, the next day's strip showed him simply chatting up the bar tender about his horrible life, then leaving the full glass behind. ''Because that is how depressing this comic is.''
* [[Out of Focus]]: Funky himself hasn't been the strip's central character in a long time; see Secondary Character Title, below.
* [[Parent with New Paramour]]: [[Time Skip]] II has had two instances of this:
**
** Les then started dating colleague Cayla, the mother of Summer's bitter rival Keisha. They married a few years later, making Summer and Keisha step-sisters.
* [[Punny Name]]: The vast majority of the strip's original cast. Les Moore, Holly Budd, Crazy Harry, Tony Montoni, Candice Cane, Fred Fairgood, John Darling, Ed Crankshaft, "Bull" Buska, Harry Dinkle, Jack Stropp<ref>That would now be the late Jack Stropp, since he recently passed away from... wait for it... {{spoiler|prostate cancer}}.</ref>...
* [[Put on a Bus]]: Most of the high school students from the first time skip, despite the second time skip ostensibly being to pass the torch to the younger generation (That generation seemingly consisting solely of Summer Moore).
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** Wally in a very believable series of strips was given an assistance dog to help him with his PTSD. With the dogs support, he has become mentally and emotionally stable to take care of himself and start dating again.
* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: Lisa's death. The author made it clear almost a year before the plot line resolved that it was going to end with her death, so [[Wring Every Last Drop Out of Him|enduring a year of Lisa not knowing, getting a few false hopes, and then wasting away in hospice]], was excruciating.
* [[Shout-Out]]: In real life, Batiuk is a huge fan of comics and has a few friends in the comic book industry, such as his neighbor Tony Isabella and [[John Byrne]], who once drew ''
** From time to time, Batiuk will devote an entire Sunday strip to a replica of a Silver Age [[DC Comics]] cover, usually with a single panel tying it into whatever is going on with the characters' lives. Sometimes he parodies it by inserting his own characters into the cover, but other times the only appearance of Funky cast members is in the tie-in panel.
** Les and Lisa got married wearing Batman and Robin costumes.
** One of Les' former students (during the post-[[Time Skip]] I era), Pete, went on to become a writer for [[Marvel Comics]] after the second [[Time Skip]].
** Current ''[[Dick Tracy]]'' artist Joe Staton drew a cover of [http://skyfutonsockfun.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/1311101.gif the fictitious comic book "Starbucks Jones"] for ''Funky'' -- [http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2013/03/24 which wound up in ''Dick Tracy'' as well]. Staton and ''Tracy'' writer Mike Curtis have [http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=55896 publicly mentioned] that [[Crossover|a crossover between both strips]] will occur in Feburary of 2015.
* [[Smug Smiler]]: Les Moore is the prime offender. Bonus points if his smirks are accompanied with an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]].
* [[Spin-Off]]: Two in ''John Darling'' and ''[[Crankshaft]]''.
* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Lisa, although it's probably safe to assume this is just a figment of Les's imagination. Same with Le Chat Bleu, a talking cat who speaks to Les in a depressive and negative tone.<ref>Though, knowing Funky Cancercancer, the guide Lisa
* [[Stranger in a Familiar Land]] / [[You Can't Go Home Again]]: Funky's reaction when he discovers he's back in 1980 and it's just as bewildering and strange as 2010.
* [[Straw Critic]]: The parents who don't like the drama class performing the play ''Wit'' because "School plays are for fun and relaxation, not [[True Art Is Angsty|art]]."
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* [[Time Skip]]: Two of them!
* [[Time Travel]]: Funky travels back in time after crashing his car. [[All Just a Dream|Maybe.]]
* [[The Grim Reaper]]: Appears in a dream sequence as [[The Phantom of the Opera|a man in a suit and tails with a strange white mask on his face]]
** ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' parodied this almost a year later, in what was more of a [[Shout-Out]] than a [[Take That]], as Batiuk's artwork of "Masky" was reused in ''Pearls'' with Batiuk's blessing.
** ''[[My Cage]]'' did a parody of this plotline in late 2009, in which [http://www.seattlepi.com/fun/mycage.asp?date=20091102 Jeff's son portrays Masky McDeath] in a school play based on the (once-) popular newspaper comic
* [[The Un-Reveal]]: What Cindy thought was an American military contractor being swapped in a prisoner exchange turned out to be Funky's cousin, Wally. The dramatic effect was blunted by Wally himself telling the story as a flashback.
* [[Very Special Episode]]: After 16-plus years of following the tried-and-true gag-a-day format, Batiuk began a recurring story arc to address teen pregnancy. Lisa Crawford, a mousy outcast of a student who was butt ugly, had somehow caught the eye of all-star wide receiver Frankie Miller ... only for the relationship to go straight downhill after the two get drunk at a party and have sex. Frankie reveals his true colors and beats up Lisa after learning she got pregnant; her parents at home are zero help, leaving Lisa to turn to her only friend left ... the even worse outcast named Les Moore. Ultimately, Lisa gives birth to a baby boy and gives him up for adoption (unknown to her, the parents are her high school principal and his wife, Fred and Ann Fairgood, who give baby Darin the stable environment he needs).
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