# Does Tom Batiuk hate Lisa?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 31, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775 "2006-03-31T22:34:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/1 "2006-03-31T22:34:38Z")
Okay, I follow Funky Winkerbean and over the years I’ve noticed that Batiuk always seems to pile on the Lisa character. First she was a pregnant teen, then she was nearly killed in an explosion(there may have been other problems in there too, I just didn’t read the strip during those years). She got better and married Les, only to find herself with breast cancer. She went through chemo and surgery, healed, became pregnant again and then nearly lost her baby.
Now she finds out her cancer has spread.
Is Tom just killing her on the installment plan?
Granted other characters have had their problems, but it seems as though he’s decided Lisa is his eternal victim.
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/2 "2006-03-31T23:02:57Z")
“Your cancer has metastasized … have a nice vacation.”
Harsh!
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### Author:  [@Birdmonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Birdmonster)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/3 "2006-03-31T23:10:33Z")
Comics are supposed to be funny, right? With the notable exception of Kathy, of course.
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### Author:  [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/4 "2006-03-31T23:26:40Z")
> [@Birdmonster](#):
>
> Comics are supposed to be funny, right? With the notable exception of Kathy, of course.
. . . and The Family Circus.
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### Author:  [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/5 "2006-03-31T23:49:46Z")
> [@5 time champ](#):
>
> . . . and The Family Circus.
Oh now, come on! Every time little Billy or Jeff walks all over the neighborhood just to get to the garage I just laugh myself silly.
Oh wait…no, I don’t. Never mind.
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### Author:  [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/6 "2006-04-01T01:05:37Z")
Dunno if he hates her, but he certainly has given her a challenging life. I’ve spent years wondering when she’s going to realize she knows her son. It always seems like Tom’s coming really close to letting them find each other and then the story line changes. I’m hoping that it turns out the tests were wrong.
GT
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### Author:  [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2006, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/7 "2006-04-01T03:44:55Z")
Don’t see the point to it myself, unless he just wants to have everyone get together for a funeral. Hell, he’s being pretty damn rough on a few characters right now.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-tom-batiuk-hate-lisa/350775/8 "2006-04-01T03:51:37Z")
Tom Batiuk’s streips are about as bad as they get.
WHen he’s just trying to be funny, he’s anything but (his marching band strips are more painful than anything Bil Keane has done with “Family Circus”), and when he tries to get serious, he’s unbearably trite and his plots are wholly unbelievable.
In the wake of Columbine, he tried to do a few weeks of strips in which Chien (the most conventionallyt pretty, chic Goth girl of all time) exposed all the cruelty of the school’s jocks. For Pete’s sake, Batiuk has spent the past 500 years showing that the athletes at Funky’s high school are inept clods who never win a game… but somehow these 0-12 losers constitute an elite ruling class?
Sorry Tom, not buying it.