Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk has used his own experiences with prostate cancer to write cancer in to one of his characters' storylines. Lisa Moore, who was introduced to the more than thirty-year-old strip in the 1980's as a teen mother, has been battling breast cancer for more than seven years. In the strip's latest installment, her cancer has returned and is worsening.

Batiuk, who had surgery for prostate cancer last summer, realized that when he first introduced cancer in his strip he didn't have the depth of empathy that he has had this last time. He used Presidential candidate John Edwards' wife Elizabeth Edwards, her courage, and her refusal to let the cancer defeat her, as his model.

He said the strip was very hard to write, but he considers it his best work. I haven't followed the funnies for years, but this is the first instance that I can recall in which cancer has been portrayed as an ongoing storyline. It seems that breast cancer receives the most press these days (which, I believe, leads to more awareness of cancer in general), and I do wonder why he didn't address prostate cancer. But I can understand wanting to focus on one of the strip's main characters, and also, wanting to distance himself a bit from his own experience.

Has anybody been following this strip?