The Last Week of Tim Tyler's Luck

Tim Tyler's Luck, created in 1928 by Lyman Young, was a popular feature in the 1930s. By the mid-40s papers were dropping it, and by the 60s it was rarely seen. Amazingly, though, it continued in syndication until 1996! According to rumor the strip ran in no U.S. newspapers for at least the last decade of its existence.

I no longer recall where I heard this, but the rumor was that the strip continued for so long for two reasons. First, Lyman Young was Chic Young's brother, and King Features didn't want to offend cash-cow Blondie creator Chic by dumping his brother. Second was that supposedly the strip was still propular in some foreign markets, making it (barely) profitable enough to continue production.

I tend to favor reason #1 over #2 if only because the strip was really pretty bad by the 1980s and I can't imagine any paper, foreign or not, being all that hep to run the thing. Well, judge for yourself with the last week of the strip.

Also notice the sad fact that after being in syndication for almost 70 years, the strip wasn't brought to any sort of conclusion. We end up in mid-story.