Funky Winkerbean is an American comic strip by Tom Batiuk. Distributed by North America Syndicate, a division of King Features Syndicate, it appears in more than 400 newspapers worldwide. While Batiuk was a 23-year-old middle school art teacher in Elyria, Ohio, he began drawing cartoons while supervising study hall. In 1970, his characters first appeared as a weekly panel, Rapping Around, on the teenage page of the Elyria Chronicle Telegram. In 1972, Batiuk reworked some of the characters into a daily strip, which he sold to Publishers-Hall Syndicate.