History ComicStrip / FunkyWinkerbean

And then in 2008, Batiuk decided there needed to be a second TimeSkip to gloss over the aftermath of Lisa's death (he's never been good with handling emotional aftermaths, preferring to present the shock of a sudden bad situation and then skipping past the 'actually dealing with it' phase). As well, it was announced that Batiuk would turn the storylines over to the kids of the original cast. Except that didn't actually happen: the majority of the storylines continued to focus more on the adults experiencing even more traumatic events and angsting about them and less on their children, though a handful of stories have focused on the lives of the teens. Since then the strip has gradually become LighterAndSofter, with more optimistic (or at least not ludicrously pessimistic) storylines and strips being structured around [[HurricaneOfPuns wordplay]]: Les Moore has become a successful writer, Pete Roberts (er, [[SuddenNameChange Reynolds]]) has become a successful comic writer, Darin Fairgood has become a successful comic writer, Harry Dinkle has become a successful writer... well, [[MostWritersAreWriters you get]] [[WishFulfillment the idea]]. Unfortunately, this has resulted in nearly all characters who aren't middle-aged men in the writing industry being put OutOfFocus.

** Les on his Kilimanjaro adventure and annoying everyone by making "Livingston, I presume" jokes and unforgivably bad puns. In his defense needs some kind of stress-release considering he's climbing a mountain in a foreign country with only a few months of preparation from his ex-bully-turned-high school coach.

* PromIsForStraightKids: A spring 2012 storyline featured a gay couple wanting to attend prom together. Said couple then vanish without a trace for the rest of the arc, not even getting names. When "Prom Committee Member" Roberta Blackburn finds out, she launches a demonstration to force the school officials' hand and stop the couple from attending. However, Summer Moore decides that a bunch of students will skip class as a show of support, even though Batiuck makes it clear the majority of students just want to skip class, period. The principal who holds an assembly to point out that there's no discrimination based on sexual-orientation in the school handbook. Even though as Roberta was just a volunteer, he could have easily dismissed her instead of lecturing his students on a viewpoint they never put forth. Roberta is only stopped, however, by her milksop husband unexpectedly chewing her out in public, causing her to crumple like a damp dishrag.

** Batton Thomas, an occasionally-appearing character introduced in 2019, is a very explicit and deliberate Author Avatar. He's Batiuk's age. He looks like Batiuk. His first name is similar to Batiuk's last name, and vice versa. He's the creator of the [[ShowWithinAShow (fictional)]] newspaper comic strip ''Three O'Clock High'', which was Batiuk's [[MythologyGag original name for his strip]] before the syndicate rejected it. His appearances are seasoned with CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation, and he tends to wax nostalgic about things that Batiuk loves from his childhood (mainly [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age comic books]]).

** A 1/24/10 (Sunday) strip had Crazy Harry discussing comic book heroes of past generations and how they were "real heroes" who "[[NinetiesAntiHero weren't deeply disturbed and borderline psychotic]]". This shout out was problematic because the retro hero he held up as an example was Marvel's Speedball, who went DarkerAndEdgier in ''ComicBook/{{Civil War|2006}}'' a few years prior. [[http://joshreads.com/?p=5408#comments Comics Curmudgeon commenters]] thought this hilarious and joked that Speedball/Penance would fit into the miserable Funkyverse ''perfectly''. Arguably, it fits into Harry's rant about UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks perfectly; Batiuk is knowledgeable enough about comics that he may be well aware of his fate. It's the [[{{Hypocrite}} total failure to see that he's doing the exact same thing to his own comic]] that makes it hilarious.

** 2016 had a zany arc about Pete and Darin sneaking onto a cargo ship to steal some pens, which, this being ''Funky Winkerbean'', ends with [[CruelTwistEnding Darin getting shot to death]]. Fortunately, it turns out to be a dream.
** In 2021, Crazy Harry discovered that his wife's old Eliminator helmet let him travel back in time to the original setting of the strip. When he "returned", Donna explained that the plastic fumes caused all kinds of hallucinations. [[OrWasItADream Then they threw it away, and a cat climbed into it and disappeard...]]

* ArtEvolution: Batiuk's drawings have gotten less cartoony and more realistic to coincide with the strip's shift in tone.

** The gap in time between the spin-off strip ''Crankshaft'' (which ''didn't'' make any Time Skips) and ''Funky'' is particularly prone to continuity snafus wherever a crossover is attempted. Sometimes the time gap between strips is apparent (usually when the aging, vegetative husk of Ed Crankshaft is seen in ''Funky Winkerbean''), but often it isn't (usually whenever one of the Crankshaft supporting characters makes an appearance).

The strip spawned two [[SpinOff Spin-Offs]] set in the same universe: ''ComicStrip/JohnDarling'' (ran from 1979 to 1990) and ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'' (started 1987, ongoing as of January 2023).