The strip debuted in more than 70 papers on March 27, 1972, and has grown to about 400. The first strip introduced the high school-age characters, including Funky (“I’m just an average kid”) and Les (“I really want to be far out like Roland”) and issues important to teens, including meeting a girl, getting a date and dealing with acne.

To Batiuk, delving back into the high school years with the gay prom issue underscores the generational changes and contemporary challenges his characters faced once he decided to let them begin aging along with Batiuk and the rest of us.

“I had crossed the threshold and I had grown up and the characters wanted to grow up too, it seemed like,” Batiuk said in an interview in his cozy and bright studio jammed with books and mementos.

“Funky Winkerbean” might have a lower profile in mainstream culture than, say, “Doonesbury,” possibly because “Funky” was a gag cartoon in the early years when society was highly politicized in the Vietnam era and has become more issue-oriented since the 1990s, said industry watcher Robert Thompson of Syracuse University.

Batiuk has taken Funky, Les and companions up the gym climbing rope in terror, through the ordeal of teen bullying, that first dating kiss and even Lisa’s struggle with cancer. One paper pulled the strip during the cancer story line and complained that it wasn’t funny.

Himself a cancer survivor, Batiuk said Lisa’s cancer, while traumatic for a funny-page audience resistant to change, opened new opportunities for him.

“After that story, I realized that I could go forward,” he said. “It sort of opened the door or me.”

Such issues may depress some readers and turn away younger ones, said Charles Coletta, an instructor in pop culture at Bowling Green State University.

“He’s dealing with alcoholism and people losing limbs and cancer and all at this stuff,” Coletta said. “I don’t think he’s going to be attracting lots of younger readers with this. It’s all sort of, kind of sad a little bit.”

For Batiuk, though, the cartoon’s ups and downs were kind of like growing up and dealing with life.

“It became more nuanced and it became more complicated,” he said.

“And that’s just a lot of fun. The job became more interesting. That’s probably what drives it, gave me a chance to go into these more complicated, more interesting adult areas.”

A strip lasting 40 years is notable but ranks behind the nearly half-century of “Peanuts” or, with some interruptions, the century-plus of the “Katzenjammer Kids,” Thompson said.

The strip is a “very profitable” superstar, said Brendan Burford, comics editor at the strip’s King Features Syndicate, who added that the aging of Funky has sharpened Batiuk’s storytelling.

“He’s been there and he’s traveled that path himself. He’s able to provide perspective from different generations,” Burford said.

Like Baby Boomers facing wrinkles, Social Security and worse, there’s no turning back for Batiuk’s minions.

“That’s a funny thing,” he says, turning the idea over. “Once you’ve taken your characters to a certain point and they’ve experienced certain things, it sort of trivializes that experience if you go back and regress them and go back to a more childish time.”

Aging opens another door for Batiuk: What happens if?

Batiuk wouldn’t criticize end-of-career cartoonists who have passed their strips onto relatives or collaborators, but said he doubted he would do it.

“I haven’t put anything in place like that, but I don’t have an ending in mind,” he said. Still, he allowed, “Occasionally you think about it.”

Batiuk hinted at a possible handling of the story lines.

“When it comes time to finish Funky, I don’t think anything’s going to be solved, I don’t think anything’s going to really be resolved. It’s just going to end.”

Mulling over the idea, Batiuk said it would be hard for someone else to do Funky “because Funky is a very personal idiosyncratic work.”

“My suspicion is when the time comes, Funky will just stop.”

The 40th anniversary was marked by the publication of the start of a multi-volume complete set of the strips. The first volume has years 1972-74 and includes comments from comics chronicler Robert Harvey, who recognized Batiuk’s improving artistry in those early years.

“Batiuk’s drawings become somewhat crisper as he achieved greater assurance in rendering the wrinkles in clothing, for instance,” Harvey said in a foreward.

“And over the years, Batiuk would become better and better at depicting his characters and telling their stories.”

“Mr. Trump, thank you for letting us come to this beautiful hotel and being with so many friends. Thank you for twisting the arms that it takes to bring a fundraiser together,” Romney told the approximately 200 people who paid thousands to attend the event at the Trump International Hotel. “I appreciate your help.”

The Trump event and surrounding controversy overshadowed the Texas primary win that officially handed Romney the nomination, a triumph of endurance for a candidate who came up short four years ago and had to fight hard this year as voters flirted with a carousel of GOP rivals. According to the Associated Press count, Romney surpassed the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination by winning at least 97 delegates in the Texas primary.

The former Massachusetts governor reached the nomination milestone with a steady message of concern about the U.S. economy, a campaign organization that dwarfed those of his GOP foes and a fundraising operation second only to that of Obama, his Democratic general election opponent. He outlasted a half-dozen Republican opponents to clinch the nomination later in the calendar than any recent GOP nominee.

Romney must now fire up conservatives who still doubt him while persuading swing voters that he can do a better job fixing the nation’s struggling economy than Obama. In Obama, he faces a well-funded candidate with a proven campaign team in an election that will be heavily influenced by the economy.

Romney will continue his push to raise money with fundraisers this week in wealthy California enclaves like Hillsborough, near San Francisco, and Beverly Hills. He has at least one major fundraising event every day for the rest of the week, as well as a series of smaller events.

But the focus Tuesday was on Trump, who once led polls of GOP primary voters. He endorsed the former Massachusetts governor just before the February Nevada caucuses, offering his support at a morning endorsement event in ballroom in the hotel that bears his name. In the same room Tuesday night for the fundraiser, Trump introduced Romney. He steered clear of the “birther” issue as he spoke to donors, though just hours earlier he had repeated his doubts about the authenticity of the birth certificate that shows Obama was born in Hawaii.

“A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate,” Trump told CNN of Obama’s birth certificate. Such allegations have been repeatedly proven false. The state of Hawaii recently re-affirmed that Obama was born there.

Trump’s comments, repeated in several media interviews Tuesday, overshadowed Romney’s attempts to focus on failed stimulus projects and federal money given to companies like Solyndra, the green energy company that received millions from the government only to go bankrupt.

Romney hasn’t condemned Trump’s assertions. On Monday night, he told reporters aboard his campaign plane that Trump is entitled to his opinion. Even as Trump-related criticism from Democrats and Republicans intensified in recent days, Romney showed no sign of distancing himself from the polarizing figure.

“I don’t agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in,” Romney said. “But I need to get 50.1 percent or more.”

Trump remains popular among the conservative base and boasts ties to deep-pocketed donors. He has recorded automated phone calls for Romney, hosted a fundraiser with Romney’s wife, Ann, in New York, and pressed the candidate’s case as a television surrogate.

The Obama campaign released a video Tuesday criticizing what it considers Romney’s unwillingness to stand up to Trump and the more extreme elements in his party.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, once a rival for the GOP nomination and now a Romney supporter, suggested that the Trump issue will not derail Romney’s campaign.

“Gov. Romney’s not distracted. The Republican Party’s not distracted,” said Gingrich, who attended the Trump fundraiser. “We believe that this is an American-born job-killing president. Other people may believe that he was born somewhere else and still kills jobs.”

Gingrich was one in a series of rivals who challenged Romney during the prolonged primary fight.