Monday, March 11, 2013

 

Obscurity of the Day: Full House





Here's a fine strip, suited perfectly to today's newspaper comics market. Full House is a feature about a couple of twenty-somethings who, due to economic necessity, move in with the husband's retired parents. Ripped from the headlines, as the saying goes. Now you may say that the strip Dustin already has a similar niche covered, and you're right. However, I think it only fair that we give some points to Full House for beating Dustin to market by, oh, a quarter-century or so. It debuted on May 21 1984.

Full House was the first and only strip on which Ralston Jones took solo credit. This fine cartoonist also had a long career working behind the scenes as a gag writer for major humor strips, and did the art on Mr. Abernathy for most of its run. Unfortunately, Jones seems to have been ahead of his time with the concept of kids moving back in with their parents. The Field Enterprises daily and Sunday strip started out with a small client list, and when that list adamantly refused to grow, either Jones or the syndicate threw in the towel. The strip ended sometime in 1985 (exact date unknown).


Labels:


# posted by Allan Holtz @ 8:00 AM
Comments:
I don't know when the Sunday started, but the last one was 1 September 1985, and the final daily was 3 August 1985.
# posted by Anonymous Mark Johnson : 3/11/2013 8:48 AM
 
Thanks Mark! So that I can properly update my listing for the strip, what is your source for those end dates?

Thanks, Allan
# posted by Blogger Allan Holtz : 3/11/2013 12:26 PM
 
The artwork looks like a better version of "Mr. Abernathy" without, you know, all the sexual harassment.
# posted by Blogger Peteykins : 3/11/2013 7:44 PM
 
For the dates, I consulted The Field proof files of Full House, though I haven't seen it any later than June 1985 in a newspaper.(Orange County Register). A picture of Jones can be seen at:



http://blog.dailyink.com/2012/12/05/ask-the-archivist-mr-abernathy/
# posted by Anonymous Mark Johnson : 3/18/2013 9:08 AM
 
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