With the stroke of his pen, cartoonist Tom Batiuk brought Lisa’s story from the vibrantly colored comics section of the Sunday newspaper to real life. The Ohio born comic artist visited Main Street Books on Friday night to talk about his popular comic Funky Winkerbean and characters from the series.
An intimate crowd of approximately 20 locals sat in the bookstores’ cozy upstairs loft where Batiuk focused on one of his most popular characters, Lisa Moore, who eventually died from breast cancer.
“I like to do what I call comedy with tragic relief,” Batiuk said, “and that particularity applies to Lisa’s story.”
The Akron-born cartoonist said the character of Lisa has taken him to some of the most challenging and rewarding places in his career. Her story started almost 20 years ago as a pregnant teenager, Batiuk said. But at that time, an expecting teenager was not an acceptable social issue for comic strips so he put her on the shelf for ten years.
“Les and Lisa had been dating. They broke up and when he saw her again she was pregnant,” he said. “He wasn’t the father, but in the course of this story he became her best friend, her confidant and even her birthing partner.”
Lisa gave her son up for adoption at birth but had a relationship with him later after they searched for each other once she received her cancer diagnosis.
Lisa’s storyline eventually became so popular, Batiuk said, there were 60,000 requests from fans to the syndicate for print copies of the comic. This was before the Internet when, “there was something called mail,” he quipped.
“This story really opened the door for me and showed me three things,” he said. “One, it showed me that newspaper comics were capable of carrying ideas with substantial weight. And it also showed me that there was an appetite out there for that…And finally it showed me that my characters were going to have to start growing up too.”
In 1999, Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Batiuk said the decision to put Lisa’s character through the rigorous disease was birthed from friends diagnosed with the disease as well as from different awareness groups at the time.
“I created what I called an internal landscape that I used to drawn upon to create this series,” he said. “And once again Lisa opened that door a little wider for me and she helped me take the work to a totally new place.”
Her character went through the chemotherapy, losing her hair, and meeting with hospice – the all too often realities of breast cancer. But, things became more real for Batiuk when he was diagnosed with cancer.
“Things changed and I was diagnosed with cancer and I discovered the unstinting democracy of the disease,” he said. “And I also discovered that there is a huge void between empathizing with something and actually experiencing it personally.”
With cancer a personal reality, Batiuk said he displayed the emotions of anger and fear through the comic page, which in turn helped deepen his work.
In addition to regular comics, the Kent State University graduate said he loves to draw superhero comics and Lisa became a, hero to him when she decided to start living life her way and not necessarily by the terms of the disease.
Batiuk also used the comic to raise awareness of the importance of self breast exams and exams from the doctor for women and men.
“I wanted this in there because it’s really important,” he said. “Because a cancer found early can be a cancer cured and I don’t think there’s any greater message that you can get out to people.”
When it was time for Lisa to die Batiuk said he was unsure of how to display it. He ended up using a ‘white room’ to show death ‘walking up’ to Lisa and taking her away.
“I let people figure a lot of this out for themselves,” he said. “It was just a nice little bit of magical realism that allowed me to sidestep it and still show it on the comic page.”
Lisa’s story was ultimately brought to life through Lisa’s Legacy Race, an annual 5K run and walk. The family-friendly event supports the Lisa’s Legacy’s Fund for cancer research and education. Participants embarked on a 3.1 mile course through University Circle and along University Hospital’s Steidman Cancer Hospital.
Batiuk has a plethora of books out combining the different storylines including Lisa’s story. After the talk he chatted with guests and autographed books.
Main Street Books manager Llalan Fowler enjoyed having Batiuk back for the second year in a row.
“This means a lot to Mansfield to have someone so well known to come visit us,” she said, “especially in this snow storm.”
For more information visit www.funkywinkerbean.com
“One, it showed me that newspaper comics were capable of carrying ideas with substantial weight. And it also showed me that there was an appetite out there for that,” said cartoonist Tom Batiuk.
