Relationships move to the front of the stage in this eleventh volume of The Complete Funky Winkerbean as the lighthearted dalliances of the past segue to the more mature partnerships of the adult world.  Marriages are tested as Funky and Cindy’s relationship begins to break apart, and Becky and Wally are separated by the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, Lisa and Les begin a family and go house hunting, while Crazy Harry meets an unlikely soulmate from his high school video gaming days.

In this eighth volume, Funky Winkerbean continues to move forward in real time, tackling issues of relevance and substance with characters whose lives are increasingly fateful and destined. Funky has placed Batiuk at the forefront of a new genre in comic art history as the strip pursues stories ahead of their time: guns in schools and teen suicide. The humor in Funky continues to grow as it evolves from sitcom gags to a deeper and more engaging behavioral style of humor.

Funky Winkerbean, a newspaper staple since 1972, is one of the few comic strips that allows its characters to grow and age. With this ninth volume of the collected Funky Winkerbean, containing strips from 1996 through 1998, time continues to pass and events take place that will forever alter the lives of the core characters, even as new characters take the stage with stories to tell.

Since its debut on March 27, 1972, Funky Winkerbean has chronicled the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. This volume, which presents the strip’s first three years, introduces the strip’s title character, Funky, and his friends Crazy Harry Klinghorn, Bull Bushka, Livinia Swenson, Les Moore, Holly Budd, and Roland Mathews. Prin- cipal Burch, counselor Fred Fairgood, and band director Harry L. Dinkle also make their first appearances.

Since its debut on March 27, 1972, Funky Winkerbean has chronicled the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. This second volume, which presents strips from 1975, 1976, and 1977, sees the comic strip rounding into the form that will carry it into its middle years. With gentle humor and not-so-gentle puns, Les, Funky, Crazy Harry, and the gang comment on life’s little absurdities.

By the 1980s Batiuk’s talent for character- and story-driven work comes into its own. Harry L. Dinkle, the World’s Greatest Band Director and Funky’s first breakout character, is still marching along happily. He makes the first of two visits to the Tournament of Roses Parade, and his ego grows even larger. Harry proves a good match for the sitcom style of writing into which Batiuk’s work on Funky is developing, and Crazy Harry thrives as the repository for the more outré ideas and situations. Whether it is living in his locker and playing frozen pizzas on his stereo, battling the Eliminator at Space Invaders, announcing that he is an air guitar player, or inviting Carl Sagan and ET to the Star Trek Convention that he and the school computer would host, Crazy becomes Funky Winkerbean’s natural-born outlier. Meanwhile, Les Moore continues his angst-filled journey as the leader of the school’s out crowd. He’s still at his machine-gun-fortified hall monitor’s post, trying to avoid getting beaten up by Bull Bushka, and generally dealing with school life as best he can.

The latest chapter in The Complete Funky Winkerbean saga sees the sons and daughters of the original Funky gang starting to make their mark on the world by playing in basketball championships, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and being deployed to war zones. Along the way there are graduations, weddings, and anniversaries—including the 40th anniversary of Funky Winkerbean. In an introduction to the strips, Tom Batiuk shares fresh insights about what was transpiring behind the scenes when the work in this volume was being created.

In this latest volume, Tom Batiuk continues to explore the roots of comic books and newspaper comic strips and provides unique insight into the evolution of his own creative process. Beginning five years after the strip’s most recent time-jump, the Funky gang are now in their late forties and raising teenagers of their own. Batiuk continues the Starbuck Jones storyline from the previous volume, as Holly searches for the final five issues of the comic book to send to Cory in Afghanistan. Elsewhere, there is a memorable class reunion, the character of Mason Jarr is introduced, and the cast decamps to Hollywood as Lisa’s Story is about to be adapted into a movie.

In this penultimate volume of The Complete Funky Winkerbean, creator Tom Batiuk gives unique insight into his creative process and explains why he made the difficult decision to end the strip after 50 years. But even with the strip’s conclusion in sight, Batiuk still takes risks, including introducing dramatic new storylines.

These essays range from clinical perspectives in psychosis and creativity to critical readings of Joyce and Shakespeare to recent applications of brain research to traditional psychoanalytic notions of the human subject. The richness and variety in this collection bear witness to the continuing impact of psychoanalysis on literary and cultural studies.