A number of the themes that first appeared on the Chronicle- Telegram’s Teen-Age page later showed up in Funky. My very first cartoon dealing with a high school band appeared in Rapping Around, and several other ideas would later find themselves directly converted into Funky strips.
As things progressed, I found that I really enjoyed the challenges of working on a humor panel and, even more important, working on something that was all mine. As a result, all plans of going back to Marvel comics were shelved and replaced by a new one. Since I was starting to get favorable responses to the panel from people other than my mom, I began considering it for national syndication. It so happened that a national newspaper syndicate, the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), was located practically in my backyard, in Cleveland. Over the holidays I gathered the best of my panels and set off to see what sort of reception they’d get in the wider world.
*From the introduction to The Complete Funky Winkerbean Vol. One
