Comic Book Connections
Batiuk's neighbor, comic book writer Tony Isabella, occasionally appears in the strip as himself. Another comic book creator, superhero artist John Byrne, drew ten weeks of the strip while Batiuk was recovering from foot surgery and has appeared in the strip himself as a character. Batiuk also occasionally parodies covers of classic Silver Age comics to comment on storyline elements in the strip itself.
The character Harry L. Dinkle, the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Band Director," is based on the director of The Ohio State University Marching Band. Professor Dinkle is based on a composite of past and current directors Dr. Paul Droste and Dr. Jon Woods. In addition, a 2006 article from the Cleveland Free Times asserts that Harry L. Dinkle is based on Harry Pfingsten, a retired band director from Avon Lake, Ohio, who was the band director of the junior high school that Tom Batiuk attended. In 1989, Harry L. Dinkle was the first Comic Strip character ever to "march" the Tournament of Roses parade. Dinkles, a brand of shoe designed for marching bands, is named after the character and claims to have been endorsed by Dinkle since 1986.
After the second time skip, Batiuk designed the comic book store around the shop he frequents, Ground Zero Comics and Cards in Strongsville, Ohio. Captain America's shield that is frequently shown in the background is a real mantlepiece in the shop.
Montoni's Pizza is modeled after Luigi's, an Italian restaurant and pizzeria in downtown Akron, Ohio. There is a framed and signed Funky Winkerbean strip hung in the restaurant. The band box frequently shown in the interior of the shop above the entrance is an actual fixture in the restaurant.
Read more about this topic: Funky Winkerbean
Famous quotes containing the words comic, book and/or connections:
“The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“The book borrower of real stature whom we envisage here proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures and by the deaf ear which he turns to all reminders from the everyday world of legality as by his failure to read these books.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“I have no connections here; only gusty collisions,
rootless seedlings forced into bloom, that collapse.
...
I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn,
a wind-up plush dodo, a wax museum of the Movement.
People want to push the buttons and see me glow.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)