Thursday, January 04, 2007
Obscurity of the Day: Pluribus
The 1976 bicentennial was such a big deal that a number of strips were created with that event in mind. The early bird, by far, in this race to market the 200th birthday of the country was Pluribus by Bill Rechin. And 'bird' is apt, because the strip's titular star was a bald eagle.
Pluribus started on July 5 1971, giving it a five year (!) lead time on the bicentennial. And though Bill Rechin later on proved he could come up with syndication gold with Crock, this effort didn't fare nearly as well in spite of a good concept and execution. Syndicated by the Artists & Writers Syndicate, a syndicate I know nothing about, the marketing apparently just wasn't there and the strip ran in few papers.
The syndicate even tried to add a Sunday page (a risky and expensive proposition for a small outfit). The earliest Sunday I've found is 9/19/71, but it might have started earlier (anyone?).
The strip lasted until sometime in 1973, but I don't know the exact date (again, sounding like a broken record, anyone?). One has to wonder if Nixon's national disgrace put such a damper on national spirit that a strip trading on patriotism just didn't fit with the times.
The samples shown above are the first four strips in the run, plus a special intro strip that ran on July 3rd.
Labels: Obscurities
http://comicstripfan.com/newspaper/p/pluribus.htm
Allen, can you post "Out of Bounds"? It was another strip from the "Crock" team Rechin and Wilder.
