Trivia / Funky Winkerbean

• Falsely Advertised Accuracy: In 2020, Batiuk had an arc involving a wildfire that broke out in LA. Despite Batiuk proudly posting on his blog photos of a trip he took to Los Angeles specifically to 'research' the story, he got almost every geographic detail totally wrong. The fire (as described) stretched from Point Dume to at least Bronson Canyon — which would wipe out Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Westwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood, and possibly Los Feliz. It would be a Hurricane Katrina-level disaster (or worse) that would leave hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, homeless. He also has characters escape the fire by driving "north along the coast" from West Hollywood (which makes no geographical sense whatsoever), and has people who are practically in the middle of the blaze completely unaware of it. In reality, the massive amount of smoke this sort of fire would spew out would be visible for miles around, and would immediately (and very noticeably) affect the air quality over a very wide area of LA county.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Not the comic itself but "FunkyWatch," a regular column hosted by comicsalliance.com dedicated to relentlessly mocking the comic's mordant outlook. The writer, Chris Sims, was accused of harassing women online in 2015 and the column came to an abrupt end shortly thereafter.
• Torch the Franchise and Run: A spin-off of the comic called John Darling ran for about twelve years. Batiuk and his syndicate came into conflict over the rights so Batiuk killed off the title character and ended the strip, leaving the syndicate with a worthless property. Years later, Batiuk revisited the story in Funky Winkerbean to solve the murder. Later still, introduced Darling's daughter, Jessica, as part of the Funky cast.