Lisa's story: Fighting breast cancer in the comics

By Patrick Fitzgibbons

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Falling during a touch football game in 1999 marked the opening chapter in Lisa Moore's 8-year struggle with breast cancer, which will soon end as so many other such battles do -- with loss.

While more than 225,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with some form of breast cancer each year and 46,000 die from the disease, Lisa's case has been unique.

Lisa is a character in a 35-year-old comic strip "Funky Winkerbean" and her struggle with the disease has been watched daily by readers of over 400 newspapers around the world.

This summer, following a second bout of cancer, Lisa decided to stop treatments and earlier this month, she and her husband, Les, installed a hospital bed in their home and called a hospice for help with the final stages of her disease.

In early October, she will die.

Cartoonist Tom Batiuk said he decided to bring back Lisa's cancer after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006. He had a successful operation in January and is now in the clear.

"When I got my news, I realized I had only scratched the surface and wanted to touch some real emotions," Batiuk, 60, said in an interview from his Ohio home.

Batiuk has been drawing Funky and his gaggle of friends since 1972, when they were in high school. While much of the strip has been funny, he has also dealt with topics including teen pregnancy and suicide, dyslexia and dating abuse.

But his decision to give one of his central characters breast cancer was seen by many as a dangerous decision.

"When I first started the (Lisa) series I got a lot of e-mails and letters about it," he said. "A lot of them started off with a definition of what a comic strip should and should not be."

PREPARING FOR THE WORST

When Lisa's cancer return, he got fewer letters.

"With the recurrence, I get the sense that I have gained a little more trust," he said.

Cancer advocates praise Batiuk's handling of the disease.

"Twenty years ago, your grandmother wouldn't even say the words 'breast health' or 'breast cancer' and now we're saying that it's there and we can discuss it," said Jeanne Rizzo, head of The Breast Cancer Fund which raises money for research.