Obscurity of the Day: The Potts

An obscurity only in the U.S., The Potts was an Australian import that was created there in 1919 by Stan Cross. Under Cross' regime in Smith's Weekly the strip featured political humor and low comedy. Cross left the paper and the strip in 1939 and it was taken over by Jim Russell who would steer the strip single-handed for an incredible sixty years. Russell gradually toned it down into a more traditional domestic comedy, but introduced a new character, Uncle Dick, who injected some of the earlier raucous flavor that older fans loved.

In 1957 Arthur Lafave decided to give the strip a go in the U.S. market and the daily first appeared in a short list of papers on June 3 1957 through his Lafave Newspaper Features. Despite the small client list and the not inconsiderable work of translating the 'Aussie-isms' for an American audience, Lafave took it up a notch by additionally offering the Sunday page starting September 29 of that year. Like most foreign strips, The Potts did not find a particularly enthusiastic audience here. In 1961 Lafave tried stirring the pot by renaming the U.S. version Uncle Dick but it didn't help. The strip was last offered here by Lafave in 1962 as the syndicate ittself was winding down after the death of its founder.

The strip was offered once again to the U.S. market by Creators Syndicate in 1999-2003 but I have yet to find a single paper that ran the strip.

I've searched the web to find out if The Potts has survived Jim Russell's death in 2001 with no luck. Was the strip handed over to someone new? Was Creators syndicating reprints or new material? Has anyone seen The Potts running in the U.S. from Creators?