Check out Funky Winkerbean this week - great storyline with the Iraq War

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/funky.asp

Wally is Funky's cousin and is married to the asst Band Director Becky (who lost an arm in a car accident that both were involved with). Wally already served a year over in Afghanistan and was recently called back again even though his term of service was almost done. Becky was like 8 months pregnant plus they also have a daughter they adopted from Afghanistan.

Anyhow this week they're focusing on Wally over in Iraq.

Here's today's strip:



If you want to check out the entire week - go to the link above.

I hope Wally survives. It seems like it's a little along the lines of what happen to B.D. in the Doonesbury strip; however, I think Funky reaches a different audience - many of them younger and in school. Hopefully those who read Funky will get an idea of the grim reality in Iraq

I haven't seen it since the late 70s, and it was pretty different then.

Breast Cancer, Intelligent Design and Landmines. The guy is definately a progressive with his strip

I hope Wally's okay. I started following this strip because of the Comics Curmudgeon blog, and now I'm hooked.

I'm thinking they're gonna do something similiar like BD from Doonesbury but what's ironic is that Wally's wife Becky is already an amputee (one of her arms) although from a car accident.

It should be interesting!

for fresh storylines.

The characters are now well in their 20's and taking on life as adults.

It wasn't gradual - just one day Les was actually teaching High School and Funky was running Montoni's

Wasn't Wally presumed missing in Afghanistan for a while?

He dealt with some Post Traumatic stress and then he returned to Afghanistan to help with an anti-Landmine group. There they found an orphaned girl and adopted her.

BTW - they removed Mr. Dinkle's hat

The hat WAS Mr. Dinkle!

Dinkle is going deaf. So the school promoted him to director and made Becky (Wally's wife) the new band director of the school.

They also removed the helmet from that kid who was really good at the video games. Turns out the kid was a she and she ended up marrying Crazy. Cindy Summers actually was married to Funky at one time but they got divorced and she's a network news reporter. Funky turned to the bottle but is in AA now but he has found new love with Holly - the band majorette from the old strips. Les married Lisa (his prom date from the senior year) and she has been battling breast cancer. Recently she relapsed and had to go back for chemo and Lisa (a lawyer) has been sporting a 'britney' (of course not by choice). Les & Lisa have one kid - Summer

There, I summed up the Time Warp entirely - it's a good strip worth supporting since Bartiuk has tackled many progressive causes. He did a great freedom of speech/'pornography' series when the kid who owned Comics Corner was arrested for selling 'pornography' to minors. Becky's mom is a real religious nutjob and was in the store buying some comics to send to Wally when she saw the adult comic books and notice some kids in the store. Lisa represented the store owner and he was found not guilty of the charges. He kept the adult comics, which had some graphic material, behind the counter and covered but I guess for Becky's mom (the religious nut job) it wasn't enough for her. She also protested that the majorette uniforms were too revealing

It's been some time since I've read FW, and I had no idea it was taking on the Iraq war.

I swear I probably still have a strip from the '80s where one of the characters (an ex-teacher, I think) is scraping by with a job at a fast-food joint when someone says to her, "Don't you know that the economy's turned around?" To which she replies something on the order of "Do you think they'll take my word for that down at the Seven-11?"