Avid newspaper readers have seen Tom Batiuk's work for nearly a half century. He is the creator of the wildly popular and sometimes controversial Funky Winkerbean, and he also created Crankshaft, a spinoff of the former.

Tom and Check Your Brain's Tony Mazur talked about the history of Funky Winkerbean, how it went from a "gag-a-day" strip in the beginning to a narrative-based story arc years later that touched on serious subjects such as cancer, death, suicide, and gay rights. They also pondered who would play characters like Funky, Les Moore, and Ed Crankshaft in live action movies, and about the comics section of today.

Follow Tony on his various social media platforms:

Twitter - @TonyMazur

Instagram - @tmaze25

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at [email protected].