Stripper's Guide

[Cartoons Magazine, debuting in 1912, was a monthly magazine devoted primarily to reprinting editorial cartoons from U.S. and foreign newspapers. Articles about cartooning and cartoonists often supplemented the discussion of current events.

In November 1913 the magazine began to offer a monthly round-up of news about cartoonists and cartooning, eventually titled "What The Cartoonist Are Doing." There are lots of interesting historical nuggets in these sections, and this Stripper's Guide feature will  reprint one issue's worth each week.]


SOLONS WOULD MUZZLE CARTOONISTS
A bill has been introduced into the Alabama legislature, which, if it becomes a law, will fix a penalty for the publishing of a cartoon of any prominent person. The bill is supposed to be aimed at the Alabama cartoonists who have been picturing the legislators of that state in a rather uncomplimentary light.

Frank M. Spangler, of the Montgomery Advertiser, in an amusing cartoon, pictures the legislature recoiling from the reflection of its own visage in the mirror of public opinion.

"This proposition is simply ridiculous," says the Birmingham News in support of the cartoonists. "It will make the average newspaper reader smile that a sacred class is to be made of officeholders and office- seekers, for they are the bulk of prominent people whom newspapers cartoon.

"A cartoon is a semi-editorial expression, and a powerful method of reaching public opinion, because ridicule and sarcasm are vividly presented to the eye. Both weapons have always been wonderfully effective on the stump, and there is no reason why the press should be deprived of their use. In fact, such a bill is a distinct effort to muzzle the press, and is an infringement of its constitutional powers. It is not probable that any court would sustain such a measure."

MAY REPEAL CARTOON LAW
An obsolete cartoon statute may be repealed by the California legislature, now in session, according to the Sacramento Bee. The "native son" lawmakers, many years ago, decided that it was illegal for cartoons to be printed in newspapers, and accordingly drafted a law prohibiting the publishing of caricatures in the daily prints. The law was observed for several years, but its injustice was so apparent that it became a dead statute, and has not been observed for over a decade. An editor in the legislature, however, objects to the law and is making an effort to have it erased from the statute books.

PROF. KNATSCHKE IN PARIS
Writing in the Cornhill Booklet, Kate Meldram Buss calls attention to "Hansi's" quaint creation, "Prof. Knatschke," the near-sighted pedagogue, who after a two days' visit to Paris writes his impressions of French "Kultur.' Hansi, or Johann Jacob Waltz, to give him his real name, is unpopular enough with the Germans even without this caricature of German achievement. The cartoonist-author, who is now at the front, and who has been decorated by the French government, first offended with his "Mon Village," the description of an Alsatian village, which heaped all sorts of ridicule upon the Germans. For publishing it he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, which, needless to say, he has not served.

"Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Siegfried Knatschke-Koenigsberg," we are informed, "writes of men and morals, of custom and tradition, of tendency and consummation, in deliciously naive ignorance of any one of his subjects, and in utter disregard for the varying fillip of white grape and hop. To all appearances it is Professor Knatschke who is writing the book, not Hansi, and he condescends to publish his Germanically-tilted deductions for the enlightenment of his brothers in Alsace who persist in preferring Gallic foible to Teutonic perfection. He wanders about Paris, finding it, in so short a time as it takes to walk from the Madeleine to the Porte Saint-Martin,  depraved, impolite, and inefficient."
Hansi also includes in this volume, which is published by Floury (Paris), the diary of the professor's daughter on a visit to Alsatian relatives.

BUSHNELL PLEADS GUILTY
Cartoonist E. A. Bushnell admits that he never in his life knitted a sock. He made this confession to the Kokomo Tribune recently in a note, written in answer to the complaint of a reader who objected to the way he pictured a woman knitting socks for soldiers. The letter follows:

"One of your readers has come to the conclusion that I am not much of an expert on knitting because in my cartoon entitled 'Mothers Knitting Socks for Soldiers,' the mother appeared to be finishing the sock at the top instead of at the toe. I plead guilty. I never knitted a sock in my life.

"The cartoonist has a hard row to hoe. He must not only know his own business, but he must know everyone else's business as well. I once drew a picture of a man for the Cincinnati Times-Star, and the editor of the paper subsequently received a letter from a dentist who denounced me as a faker because I had not drawn the man's teeth according to his ideas of the way it should be done. We cartoonists do the best we can, and I think we study life and people more thoroughly than anyone else. Try as hard as we will to be absolutely accurate in all things, we of course must make our share of mistakes, being only human."

SWISS SEIZE BIASED CARTOONS
"Apparently the Swiss censorship does not like pictures," says a dispatch from Berne, printed in the European edition of the New York Herald. "It was on account of a cartoon that it recently ordered the seizure of the Herald," the correspondent continues, "and later it did the same with postcards of Rheims Cathedral as it is since German 'Kultur' took it in hand.

"The censorship also ordered the seizure of a great variety of postcard caricatures of the enemy, which word is here taken to mean Germany.

"The latest move of the censorship has been the seizure of the Matin for having pictorially pilloried the kaiser as the head of a sort of Ali Baba band. The seizure was unproductive, however, the paper having sold well before the authorities got under way."

BRADLEY OF THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
The Scoop, official publication of the Chicago Press Club, recently published an appreciation of L. D. Bradley, of the Chicago Daily News, in which it pays high tribute to the genius of the man who has attained national renown as a cartoonist since the beginning of the war.

"Luther D. Bradley has been doing newspaper cartoon work continuously for near upon twenty-five years, and doing it well," says the Scoop. "But while he was recognized as a man of ideas and a master draughtsman in his own way, his public was local until Europe exploded in war. That stupendous outbreak gave him a new key, and he sprang into national prominence at a single stroke. He was moved not so much to indignation as to sorrow, to profound sympathy for whole peoples desolated and left helpless; and to a sense of failure in a civilization so laboriously built up, so suddenly disrupted.

"He was able to see the core of things, and show it to others. The war was not a month old when his first great cartoon, 'Education for the Heathen,' startled the country to attention. The certainty that sweeping sacrifice of virile men will leave to future generations a fatherhood of weaklings, brought out another one showing Europe sending out her strong men to kill each other, and assuring them that those left behind would take their places in continuing the race. It was a thing of sharp significance — its contrast of perfect manhood on the way to death, with the shriveled old and shrimpish young who were to stay at home.

"Bradley is a man, long experienced but newly famed, a genius who responded when occasion called, and who has come into his own. He is an agreeable personality, mature in thought and feeling, full of human kindness. It was this last that roused him when the guns began to roar.

"Bradley has had a curious career. After a few years of business in Chicago he found himself in Melbourne, Australia, in the course of a trip around the world, in the early eighties. He intended to stay a few days there waiting for the steamer to San Francisco, but he stayed eleven years. Let him tell the rest in his own words:

" 'The delay,' he says, 'was caused by an impulse to send a cartoon to a little local paper. I never had drawn a cartoon or thought of doing so. The editor wrote me that the paper had just died from other causes — so my skirts were clear. But he said he was going to start another, and would use my efforts. Thus I became entangled with Life, a weekly publication. Later I edited the paper, and after a few years went to Melbourne Punch, where during five years I worked at cartooning and editing.

Returning to Chicago in 1893 I drew cartoons for the Journal and afterward for the Inter-Ocean, and then, beginning in 1899, for The Daily News; and am still at it.'

"At a moderate estimate, he has in his time drawn at least six thousand cartoons. The fact is its own comment upon his fecund originality and his gift of industry."

A GENUINE TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN
W. A. Rogers, of the New York Herald, tells a story which expresses one of the most sincere and homely tributes which could be paid to Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Rogers was traveling in the South twenty years ago and met a niece of Robert Toombs, powerful leader in the South. Miss Toombs was then just out of school.

"Do you know what we used to do to all the pictures of Yankee generals that we found in the history books?" she asked Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers did not know and admitted it.

"We took a pencil and scratched up their faces," said Miss Toombs, with pretty ferocity.
Mr. Rogers shuddered.

"But there is one picture that I never could bring myself to mar," said the girl. "It is the picture of Abraham Lincoln. I never could make up my mind to touch that."

BUSHNELL'S GOOD LUCK
Dreams don't come true every day, and fairy godmothers remain pretty well in the background. But the unusual has happened to E. A. Bushnell, cartoonist of the Central Press Association, of Cleveland. Bushnell awoke one morning last month to find himself the beneficiary under the will of an unknown admirer. A letter from the editor of the Rockville (Ill.) Star informed him that a Mrs. Ann Hibbard of that city had remembered him handsomely in her will.

"She was very much interested in your cartoons," wrote the editor, "and often spoke of them when she was in the office, and she was seldom downtown but that she paid us a visit."

Bushnell will devote the money to the completion of his studies. He has been studying at the Cleveland Art Academy and at the Kokoon Art Club. "I feel very proud of this," he writes, "not from the financial standpoint, but from the sentiment that prompted the legacy. I never met or heard of Mrs. Hibbard, and you can imagine my surprise on learning of her generosity. She couldn't have left her money to a more ambitious person."

Bushnell's success has been due entirely to his own efforts. He began life as a cowboy, and with only a natural aptitude for drawing, entered the cartoon field some twenty years ago. His first cartoon appeared in a Cleveland newspaper, and showed Mark Hanna as "the power behind the throne" standing behind McKinley's chair.

THE PASSING SHOW
Under the above title, the St. Joseph News-Press has printed a selection of the best cartoons of the year by W. Hanny, of its staff. In the introduction to the book the editors of the News-Press say:

"In 'The Passing Show' the News-Press cartoonist, Mr. W. Hanny, is really giving a pictorial review of the year. The cartoonist's pencil records the political and historical events, not losing sight, however, of the homely every-day problems that are part of the life of nearly every family.

"Mr. Hanny has found favor with the magazines and newspapers. Over one-third of the cartoons used in 'The Passing Show' have been reproduced in the Literary Digest, Cartoons Magazine, Review of Reviews, Los Angeles Times, Harper's Weekly, London Sketch, and others."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Will Owen, the London cartoonist, has been giving humorous lectures illustrated with some of his cartoons on lantern slides on behalf of the Belgian Relief Fund.

THE TEST
Mr. Harding, cartoonist of the Brooklyn Eagle, proves to be as good a poet as he is an artist, and in a recent issue of the Eagle, woos the muse to the following effect:

When chatting with a native of any warring state
 Be careful to say nothing that possibly would grate
Upon his tender feelings, or give his nerves a wrench:
For instance, do not say "Bon jour," or try to air your French
When greeting any person who is obviously German;
Try not to sing "God save the King" to Heinrich, Hans or Herman.
Oh! read not the Staats Zeitung to any British chap,
Nor dine a Herr Professor if your butler be a Jap.
Detain Teutonic callers a moment at the door
While you make sure there are no scraps of paper on the floor.
Beg not the Russian cellist to play "Die Wacht am Rhein,"
And stop to think before you drink to Joffre in a stein!
Don't offer English sparrows the lengthy Wienerwurst,
Or try with English Breakfast tea to slake the dachshund's thirst.
A little tact when visiting may oft prevent a fuss —
Don't say, "I'm fond of pretzels," if your host should be a Russ,
Nor pelt the "little German band" with Belgian paving blocks,
And by no chance hail sons of France with three resounding "Hochs!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the day of hurry up. Headlines of stories only are read by busy men. The cartoon feature tells a story, impresses it upon the reader's mind more vividly and with a more lasting effect than a half column of the written newspaper story. — Governor George H. Hodges of Kansas.

"LOST— A CARTOONIST"
Citizens of Virginia, Minn., are afraid they have lost H. Hume, a cartoonist who dwelt in their peaceful village until recently. Says the Virginia Enterprise:

"Grave fears that they have been stung assail erstwhile patrons of H. Hume, cartoonist, who recently made arrangements to make cartoons of a number of 'prominent Virginians' at $10 a cartoon and no change back.

"Hume was an artist of real merit and he had no trouble in persuading two of the most reputable newspapers on the range that he had a proposition of merit and getting agreements with them to print the art stuff. One of them is located at Hibbing. It printed a want ad apropos of the matter in hand which began 'Lost — one perfectly good cartoonist.' It wants Hume's address.

"Hume had little trouble in interesting a number of local businessmen who are always willing to cheerfully contribute their share of local newspaper enterprises in his cartoons. He showed them the cartoons after they had been finished, everybody pleased, some few delighted and several paid their bills on the spot.

"Hume left Virginia recently. Hard on the heels of his departure came a deputy sheriff from Crookston, Minn. He was equipped with a warrant to take Hume back to Crookston to settle a board bill of $248, but he missed his quarry. Mr. Hume left no forwarding address at the local hotel where he was a guest so the deputy sheriff was compelled to 'sadly turn away.' "

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Decorah (Iowa) Republican pays this tribute to J. N. Darling (Ding), of the Des Moines Register and Leader:

"According to Webster's dictionary the word 'ding' means: 'To throw violently; dash; fling; drive; to excel; to get the better of; to beat.' That describes 'Ding,' the cartoonist of the Register and Leader. 'Ding' has all the attributes stated when it comes to driving home ideas with his pen."

TO DEPORT SERVIAN CARTOONIST
B. P. Bakrock, formerly editor of a Servian paper at Anaconda, Montana, is to be deported as soon as conditions in Europe quiet down, according to the Standard of that city. Mr. Bakrock is alleged to have libeled a countryman in a cartoon he drew for the National Idea last summer, and the Federal authorities decided that he is an undesirable citizen.

While in jail at Anaconda, Mr. Bakrock drew a number of cartoons for his fellow prisoners, and when released on bonds, presented the sheriff with an original drawing. The cartoon shows Servia battling the giant Austria, while the world applauds the pluck of the small nation which has been mixed up in three wars within two years' time.

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Old Doc Yak Cartoon Promo from The Voice of ODD

 
"Old Doc Yak," Sidney Smith's comic character in the Chicago Tribune, is to make his debut in the movies. It is a real flesh-and-blood "Doc" who appears as the curtain is drawn, cleverly made up in whiskers and papier-mache horns. The thespian presently fades out of the picture to be replaced by the real "Doc" of pen and ink. "Doc," by the way, was a performer in the recent minstrel show given by the Chicago Automobile Club.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christy Walsh, of Los Angeles, believes that there is more money to be made in drawing up briefs and wills than drawing cartoons. He has abandoned the brush and pencil for the calfskin. Mr. Walsh recently passed the California state bar examination and plans to hang out his shingle soon. His ability with the pen may help while away the hours while waiting for clients.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. and Mrs. Russell Henderson are entertaining a "young cartoonist" who arrived at their home recently.

Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing

Here's another card from Rube's Foolish Questions series, issued by Samson Bros. as Series #213.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

With such a plethora of obscure features down at the bottom end of Jeffrey Lindenblatt's 1977 newspaper comics index, I had lots of research topics on which to follow up. Among them is a feature that ran for over forty years and in the process spawned two syndicates. If that seems like a feature that wouldn't be obscure, think again.

Jerry Langell came up with a pretty good idea for a feature in 1948. He'd ask readers to come up with ideas for new inventions, pay them $2 for those he used, and have a cartoonist illustrate them. The creative work was all done for him, and the heart of the gimmick was that he'd alert newspapers when one of their reader's ideas is used so that they can hype it with an article -- newspapers love that sort of "local person cashes in on reading our paper" stuff.

To me this seems like a pretty brilliant idea, but Langell couldn't seem to sell it to one of the big syndicates. Or maybe he thought it was such a flash of brilliance that he didn't want to share the forthcoming treasure with anyone. At any rate, Langell created a new company called Editors Syndicate (which conveniently is a very similar name to a few other reputable firms), and proceeded to market his little one-column panel baby, Idea Payoff. He did attract a modest number of high-profile clients, like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which was on hand for the panel's debut on April 5 1948, but the feature really didn't end up taking the world by storm.

Although the art on Idea Payoff was never signed, Langell was willing to give credit, at least in the E&P listings. Lou Darvas was primarily a sports cartoonist who once got a cup of coffee in the strip world with the short-lived feature Haff Nelson. Darvas was credited through 1963, after which no artist was credited. Since the art style never changes, I'm guessing that Darvas may have stayed on but preferred anonimity on this side-job.

For some reason Langell decided in August 1957 to create a new syndication company name for Idea Payoff. Editors Syndicate was dumped, and Allied Feature Syndicate was born. In another unexplained change, the next year he started offering his feature under two different names -- the original, and Here's An Idea. The panel was identical save for the name. In the early 1960s, Langell began to take on additional features, making him a bona fide syndicate with a list of half a dozen or so offerings.

In yet another mysterious change, in 1968 Langell changed the name Idea Payoff to Idea Chaser, while still offering it as well under the alternate title Here's An Idea. Then in 1971 the Here's An Idea title was officially dropped for the E&P listings, but it can still be found in subscribing papers much later.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the mid-1970s the panel was being recycled, because the art was now looking seriously out of step with the times. However, Langell was still able to attract clients. The last paper I can find using the feature is the Indianapolis News, which ran it sporadically as late as 1985. The feature was last offered in E&P in 1989.

Labels: Obscurities

After going through 300 daily papers we have our finger on the pulse of the daily comic strip back in January 1978. First, of the many papers most only had one page of comics plus a few running on the op-ed pages (most popularly, Doonesbury, Dunagin's People, Small Society and Berry’s World). Quite a few papers also ran a few features in the their classified sections (most popular being panels like They’ll Do It Every Time).

There were a total of 220 different strips and panels that ran in the 300 papers. The popularity of these features ranged from 35 that ran in only a single paper (a few were locally produced) to three strips that ran in over 150 papers.

First let’s give the crown to the most popular single panel feature running in 1978. It came down to three contenders. Coming in third was Berry’s World with 60 papers, second was Family Circus with 63 papers and the winner was Dennis the Menace with 80 papers.

Three fairly new strips (debuting in the 1970s) did very well. Hagar the Horrible (1973) had at this time 76 papers putting it in 16th place overall. Frank and Ernest (1972) had 86 papers putting it in 7th place and Doonesbury (1970) had 91 papers putting it in 5th place. Other strips debuting in the 1970’s had a slower start but grew greatly in popularity later. For example, Cathy (1976) only had 19 papers at this time.

A second notable race is for the most popular story strip running in 1978. Before I get to the result one thing has to made clear: if we counted Sunday sections, Prince Valiant would have been either number one or two on this list. The top 6 daily story strips at this time are as follows: coming in at number 6 is a new entry, The Amazing Spider-Man which had 50 papers putting it in 27th place. That’s a pretty phenomenal start. In fifth place is Dick Tracy with 55 papers; this was Chester Gould’s last year on the strip before passing it over to Max Collins and Rick Fletcher placing this strip in 23rd place. It will be interesting when we look back at the 40’s and 50’s to see how much higher this strip will rank. Third and fourth place is a tie between Steve Canyon, the highest rated adventure strip, and Rex Morgan MD, both with 62 papers. Edging out those two with 63 papers is the adventure/comedy strip Alley Oop, which is also the third highest circulation for the NEA syndicate. Number one with 80 papers is the soap opera strip Mary Worth.

Another crown to bestow is for most successful syndicate. This can be determined by counting up the total number of papers that run their combined feature output; in other words, how many 'slots' did their features take up in total for the 300 papers. Here are the top ten, which accounts for all the major syndicates. The second number shows the average papers per feature for the syndicate. You can look at it as a gauge of the syndicate's sales ability, the quality of their features or perhaps as an indication of how many papers had to take a feature for the syndicate to continue offering it :

Syndicate	Total ‘Slots’	Avg Slots per Feature
King Features	1154	22.1
Field Enterprises	947	27.8
NEA	766	45.0
United Feature	442	19.2
Chicago Tribune	325	14.1
Universal Press	257	17.1
Register & Tribune	160	17.7
McNaught	114	14.2
Los Angeles Times	67	5.1
Washington Star	35	17.5

The Washington Star Syndicate, the least successful of the major syndicates, would disappear very soon, selling off their last remaining assets to Universal in early 1979. Also, although King Features shows an apparently commanding lead in slots, if we consider that United Feature and NEA are both run through the same parent company by this time, the combination of the two actually hold the crown with 1208 points. Also, NEA's average for slots is a huge outlier because they offered their features under a blanket service (one price gets you everything offered by the syndicate) -- at smaller papers, if they have all those features available the tendency is to run most if not all of them.


The top three strips overall are interesting in that they all came very close to being cancelled by their syndicates early on for having low sales. Coming in at number 3 with 169 papers is a strip that only became successful after the creator had his star inducted into the army, Beetle Bailey. Coming in at number 2 with 191 papers is a strip that had to change from a flapper strip to a family sitcom to become successful, Blondie. The number one strip started as a kind of filler strip but grew in popularity over the years to become the most successful comic strip of all time, Peanuts at this time had 194 papers. That’s almost 2/3 of the newspapers surveyed!

Here is the complete list, ranking the features from most to least papers. If you would like the giant whopper version of this in which each feature is listed with the specific papers in which I found it, send an email to Allan (strippersguide@gmail.com) with subject line "1978 Paper Trends List" and he'll send you a PDF:

Title	Number of Papers	Syndicate	Debut Year
Peanuts	194	United	1950
Blondie	191	King	1930
Beetle Bailey	169	King	1950
Andy Capp	95	Field	1963
Doonesbury	91	Universal	1970
Born Loser	90	NEA	1965
Frank and Ernest	86	NEA	1972
Wizard of Id	85	Field	1964
B.C.	85	Field	1958
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	81	King	1919
Dennis the Menace	80	Field	1951
Mary Worth	80	Field	1934
Hi and Lois	79	King	1954
Hagar the Horrible	76	King	1973
Nancy	72	United	1938
Alley Oop	63	NEA	1933
Family Circus	63	Register & Tribune	1960
Rex Morgan MD	62	Field	1948
Steve Canyon	62	Field	1947
Archie	61	King	1946
Berry's World	60	NEA	1963
Bugs Bunny	59	NEA	1943
Dick Tracy	55	Tribune	1931
Priscilla's Pop	55	NEA	1946
Short Ribs	55	NEA	1958
Winthrop	55	NEA	1956
Amazing Spider-Man	50	Register & Tribune	1977
Eek and Meek	49	NEA	1965
Shoe	47	Tribune	1977
Our Boarding House	45	NEA	1921
Tiger	44	King	1965
Buz Sawyer	42	King	1943
Captain Easy	42	NEA	1924
Gasoline Alley	41	Tribune	1918
Marmaduke	41	United	1954
Funky Winkerbean	38	Field	1972
Funny Business	38	NEA	1966
Judge Parker	38	Field	1952
Best Seller Showcase	37	Universal	1977
Side Glances	37	NEA	1928
They'll Do It Every Time	37	King	1929
Heathcliff	36	McNaught	1973
Tumbleweeds	36	United	1965
Tank McNamara	35	Universal	1974
Redeye	33	King	1967
Apartment 3-G	28	Field	1961
Small Society	28	Washington Star/King	1966
Broom Hilda	27	Tribune	1970
Donald Duck	27	King	1938
Grin and Bear It	26	Field	1932
Herman	26	Universal	1974
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad	25	Field	1936
Asterix & Obelix	24	Field	1977
Dunagin's People	24	Field	1969
Mark Trail	24	Field	1946
Heart of Juliet Jones	23	King	1953
Phantom	23	King	1936
Better Half	21	Register & Tribune	1956
Kerry Drake	21	Field	1943
Crock	20	Field	1975
Hazel	20	King	1969
Cathy	19	Universal	1976
Lockhorns	19	King	1968
Miss Peach	19	Field	1957
Graffiti	18	McNaught
Jackson Twins	18	McNaught	1950
Ripley's Believe It or Not	17	King	1918
Jeff Hawke	16	United	1977
Love Is	16	Los Angeles	1970
Zoonies	16	NEA	1977
Dondi	15	Tribune	1955
Fred Basset	15	Field	1965
Laff-A-Day	15	King	1936
Momma	15	Field	1970
Rip Kirby	15	King	1946
Ryatts	14	Field	1954
Sam and Silo	14	King	1977
Henry	14	King	1934
Mr. Tweedy	14	Los Angeles	1954
Ziggy	14	Universal	1971
Inside of Woody Allen	14	King	1976
Flintstones	13	McNaught	1961
Rick O'Shay	13	Tribune	1958
Agatha Crumm	12	King	1977
Brenda Starr	12	Tribune	1940
Charmers	12	Field	1975
Ferd'nand	12	United	1947
Gil Thorp	12	Tribune	1958
Girls	12	Field	1952
Joe Palooka	12	McNaught	1930
Modesty Blaise	12	Los Angeles	1976
Moose Miller	12	King	1965
Winnie Winkle	11	Tribune	1920
Mutt and Jeff	11	McNaught	1907
Sporting Life	11	Tribune	1977
Animal Crackers	10	Tribune	1968
Catfish	10	Tribune	1973
Motley's Crew	10	Tribune	1976
Nubbin	10	King	1958
Ponytail	10	King	1960
Trudy	10	King	1963
Casey	9	Tribune	1977
Little Orphan Annie	9	Tribune	1924
There Outta Be A Law	9	United	1944
Gordo	8	United	1941
Moon Mullins	8	Tribune	1923
Quincy	8	King	1970
Stanley	7	Universal	1977
Mickey Mouse	7	King	1930
Rooftop O' Toole	7	United	1976
Scamp	7	King	1955
Smith Family	7	Washington Star	1950
Wee Pals	7	King/United	1965
Wright Angles	7	NEA	1976
Wordsmith	6	Universal	1975
Captain's Gig	6	Field	1977
Don Q	6	New York Times	1975
Eb and Flo	6	United	1967
Emmy Lou	6	United	1944
Howard the Duck	6	Register & Tribune	1977
Lolly	6	Tribune	1955
Off the Record	6	Register & Tribune	1934
On Stage	6	Tribune	1957
Star Hawks	6	NEA	1977
According to Guinness	5	Universal	1975
A Little Leary	5	LA Times
Amy	5	Register & Tribune	1961
Bringing Up Father	5	King	1913
Citizen Smith	5	Register & Tribune	1967
Doodley's World	5	King	1972
Flash Gordon	5	King	1951
Flop Family	5	King	1943
Hubert	5	King	1945
Men and Woman	5	Field	1976
Mr. Abernathy	5	King	1957
Outcasts	5	Toronto Star
Rivets	5	Field	1953
Belvedere	4	Field	1962
Boner's Ark	4	King	1968
Brother Juniper	4	Field	1957
Carmichael	4	Los Angeles	1958
Dr. Kildare	4	King	1962
Dropouts	4	United	1968
Friends and Romans	4	United	1975
Frontiers of Science	4	Los Angeles	1962
Gumdrops	4	United	1977
Henny Youngman	4	Field	1977
Kelly	4	Universal	1972
Laugh Time	4	King	1968
Pixies	4	United	1966
Strictly Business	4	Field	1941
This Funny World	4	McNaught	1945
Time Out	4	Field	1936
Treadwells (aka The Neighbors)	4	Chicago Tribune	1939
Woody's World	4	United	1963
Ms. Augusta	3	Universal	1975
Basil	3	Universal	1974
Ben Wicks	3	LA Times
Big George	3	Field	1960
Boomer	4	United	1972
Channel Chuckles	3	Register and Tribune	1954
Dr. Smock	3	United	1974
Freedy	3	Field	1955
Health Capsules	3	United	1961
Kisses	3	Self-syndicated	1974
Lansky's Look	3	Universal	1974
Little Woman	3	King	1953
P.T. Bimbo	3	NEA	1975
Simpkins	3	Tribune	1971
Soft Focus	3	King	1976
Trim's Arena	3	Universal	1973
Wordplay	3	King	1973
Alex in Wonderland	3	Copley	1976
Big Ben Bolt	2	King	1950
Bi-Focals	2	McNaught	1977
Ching Chow	2	Tribune	1927
Clyde & Homer/Homer's Groaners (activity strip)	2	LA Times
Luther	2	Los Angeles	1969
Mandrake the Magician	2	King	1934
Norbert	2	United	1964
Pot Shots	2	Tribune	1975
Queenie	2	King	1966
Secret Agent Corrigan	2	King	1934
Smart Chart	2	Los Angeles	1970
Stan Smith's Tennis Class	2	King
As You Were	1	Pioneer	1971
Aw, Heck	1	Tampa Times	1976
Beautiful	1	Allied	1977
Benchwarmer's Sports Trivia	1	Copley
Brick Bradford	1	King	1933
Broadsides	1	LA Times	1975
Collector's Corner	1	United
Dewey's Den	1	Elwood Call-Leader	1977
Foster Fenwick	1	Chronicle	1968
Figments	1	Manson	1971
Hocus-Focus (activity panel)	1
Idea Chaser	1	Allied	1948
Lars and June	1	Self-syndicated	1977
Laughs From Europe	1	Register and Tribune	1958
Mark Trail's Outdoor Tips	1	Field
Missing Links	1	Canada-Wide
Now Society	1	Chronicle	1973
Pet Set	1	Self-syndicated	1973
Playing Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus	1	King
Pookas	1	LA Times	1977
Popeye	1	King	1919
Rocket Shots (sports instruction)	1	United
Rudy	1	Copley	1977
Selling Short	1	Universal
Strike Three	1	Chapel Hill Tarheel
Tarzan	1	United	1929
Teaching Pro (sports instruction)	1	LA Times
The Byrds	1	Toronto Star
Thoughts of Man	1	Tribune	1972
Today's World	1	King	1971
Toppix	1	Tribune`	1975
Travels With Farley	1	Chronicle	1975
Winnie Witch & The Giant Potato	1	Canada-Wide
You're Getting Closer	1	King	1976

Labels: Paper Trends

A comic strip’s life begins of course with the writer and artist creating a comic strip itself. Their next step is to send samples of their comic strip project to a syndicate. The syndicate then decides to either accept or pass on it. If they do accept the strip, it may spend time being honed and tested, but then it goes to the sales department to create a press packet to be sent to newspapers around the country. These sales packets are either sent out by mail, or are handed out in person by salespeople to newspaper features editors. If enough of those editors sign up, the strip begins its syndicated life. The following list shows which new comic strips sold the best in the calendar year of 1977 (and are therefore running on the first week of 1978).

The number one strip of the year is rare thing in 1977 -- a story strip. The last successful story strip up to this time was Apartment 3-G which debuted back in 1961. What makes this even rarer is that this was an adventure strip. The youngest adventure strip at this time was Steve Canyon, which debuted way back in 1947. Out of the 300 papers, 50 picked up this strip, which puts it at number 29 on the most popular list for 1978. That strip was The Amazing Spider-man. The surprising success of this strip is probably the main reason that the revival of the adventure strip came about and would last for the next eight years.

Coming in second with 47 papers is Shoe by Jeff MacNelly. Coming in third is Best Seller Showcase with 37 papers. This strip would come and go before the end of 1978, which makes it a classic example of editors loving the idea of the strip but losing faith very quickly. The next two strips were imports; one from France and the second from England. Asterix & Obelix got 24 papers and Jeff Hawke got 16 papers.

Here are the top ten:

Title	Papers	Rank
Amazing Spider-Man	50	29
Shoe	47	31
Best Seller Showcase	37	39
Asterix & Obelix	24	53
Jeff Hawke	16	68
Zoonies	16	68
Sam and Silo	14	76
Agatha Crumm	12	84
The Sporting Life	11	93
Casey	09	102
Stanley	07	108

Labels: Paper Trends

Back in the 1990s one of my earliest research projects was for Editor and Publisher. I indexed the Sunday and daily comics in the top one hundred circulation newspapers in the country. We did this for about four years.

A few months ago I contacted Allan about doing this again but suggested I start from the 1930s and go up to today to see the changes in comic strip circulation in the top newspapers over the years. He did not have the information on newspaper circulation and there was no online source available for the Editor & Publisher yearbooks, which had this data.

When I started doing research on comic strips back in the early 1990s the only source that was available to me was what was available in my local libraries on microfilm. That really did not help me even though I lived at the time in Queens which is part of New York City; most local libraries only carried The New York Times. In order to find out about The New York Daily News, for example, I would have to go to Manhattan to the big library with the famous lions in order to do the research. Old microfilms were at a place called the Annex which was not the greatest area to go to anyway.

The library had many New York papers and many out of town papers on microfilm, like the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times etc. Today we are very lucky to have available various online services that archive many newspapers.

I decided that I would research 300 different daily papers from big cities to small cities and determine an actual count of which strips are available in how many papers. First question: why 300 papers particularly? At this time not nearly every newspaper is available, so of course I take what I can get. I am a subscriber to newspapers.com service, and they can just barely supply me with 300 daily papers in the year I chose to start. Also, statistically speaking, it is really not necessary to check every newspaper. A representative sample is almost as good.

Here is the list of cities in the 50 states that we are taking the information from:

Alabama: Anniston, Montgomery (2 papers), Selma
Alaska: Sitka
Arizona: Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tuscon (2 papers)
Arkansas: No Papers
California: Escondido, Hanford, Lompoc, Los Angeles, Napa Valley, Petaluma, Roseville, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Pedro, Santa Cruz, Santa Maria, Santa Rosa, Tulare, Ukiah
Colorado: Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Grand Junction
Connecticut: Hartford
Delaware: Wilmington (2 papers)
Florida: Cocoa, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Miami, Orlando, Pensacola (2 papers), St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Tampa (2 papers), West Palm Beach
Georgia: Atlanta
Hawaii: Hilo, Honolulu (2 papers)
Idaho: Burley, Twin Falls
Illinois: Arlington Heights, Carbondale, Chicago, Decatur, De Kalb, Mattoon, Moline, Mount Carmel, Woodstock
Indiana: Bloomington, Columbus, Elwood, Franklin, Greenfield, Indianapolis (2 papers), Jasper, Kokomo, Lafayette, Logansport, Martinsville, Muncie (2 papers), Munster, Noblesville, Richmond, Seymour, South Bend, Streator, Valparaiso, Vincennes
Iowa: Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Des Moines (2 papers), Iowa City, Mason City, Muscatine, Sioux City, Waterloo
Kansas: Garden City, Iola, Manhattan, Ottawa, Salina
Kentucky: Danville, Louisville, Madisonville, Owensboro, Paducah
Louisiana: Alexandria, Crowley, Franklin, Morgan City, Opelousas, Shreveport
Maine: No Papers
Maryland: Annapolis, Baltimore (2 papers), Salisbury
Massachusetts: Boston, Pittsfield
Michigan: Battle Creek, Detroit, Ironwood, Port Huron
Minnesota: Minneapolis (2 papers), St. Cloud
Mississippi: Greenwood, Hattiesburg, McMomb, Yazoo City
Missouri: Chillicothe, Clarksdale, Flat River, Jackson, Lansing, Sedalia, Springfield (2 papers), St. Joseph (2 papers), St. Louis, Winona
Montana: Billing, Butte, Great Falls, Hamilton, Helena, Missoula
Nebraska: Beatrice, Fremont, Lincoln (2 papers)
Nevada: Reno
New Hampshire: No papers
New Jersey: Asbury Park, Bridgewater, Camden, Hackensack, Millville, Morristown, New Brunswick, Passaic, Paterson, Red Bank, Vineland
New Mexico: Albuquerque, Carlsbad, Deming, Santa Fe
New York: Binghamton, Elmira, Glens Falls, Ithaca, New York, Poughkeepsie, Rochester, White Plains
North Carolina: Asheville, Chapel Hill, Rocky Mount
North Dakota: Bismarck
Ohio: Akron, Chillicothe, Cincinnati, Circleville, Corvallis, Coshocton, Dayton (2 papers), Fremont, Lancaster, Mansfield, Marion, Marysville, Newark, Port Clinton, Zaneville
Oklahoma: Oklahoma City
Oregon: Albany, Coos Bay, Salem (2 papers)
Pennsylvania: Allentown, Altoona, Carlisle, Chambersburg, Danville, Doylestown, Gettysburg, Hanover, Huntingdon, Indiana, Kane, Lancaster (2 papers), Latrobe, Lebanon, Monessen, New Castle , Philadelphia (2 papers), Pittsburgh (2 papers), Pottstown, Pottsville (2 papers), Scranton (2 papers), Somerset, Sunbury, Titusville, Tyrone, Wilkes-Barre, York
Rhode Island: No Papers
South Carolina: Aiken, Greenwood, Orangeburg
South Dakota: Lead, Rapid City, Sioux Falls
Tennessee: Clarksville, Jackson, Johnson City, Kingsport, Murfessboro, Nashville
Texas: Austin, Bryan, Del Rio, El Paso, Galveston, Harlingen, Irving, Longview (2 papers), Marshall, McKinney, Odessa, Paris, Plano, Taylor, Tyler, Vernon, Victoria
Utah: Provo, Saint George, Salt Lake City
Vermont: Bennington, Brattleboro, Burlington
Virginia: Newport News, Staunton
Washington: Longview, Spokane (2 papers)
West Virginia: No Papers
Wisconsin: Appleton, Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire, Fond Du Lac, Green Bay, Kenosha, La Crosse, Madison (2 papers), Manitowoc, Marshfield, Neenah, Oshkosh, Racine, Sheboygan, Stevens Point, Wausau, Wisconsin Rapids
Wyoming: Casper

Also, we are taking information from north of the border:

Canada: Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Nanaimo, Ottawa (2 papers), Red Deer, Regina, Saskatoon, Vancouver (2 papers), Victoria, Whitehorse, Windsor


The data that I compiled was based on the daily comics in newspapers that run either five or six daily editions; I did not index Sundays. Why no Sundays? First of all, not all of these papers have a Sunday comic section. Also, microfilmers often omit the Sunday comics, so even though a paper ran them, they are often missing. Microfilmers often care more about flyers from supermarkets than comics! The other reason is that the Sunday comics were often pilfered from the library bound volumes, so they were not there by the time the microfilmer got there. Years ago I went with Bill Blackbeard to pick up bound files of the Sunday comic sections which were held by the New York Public Library. They were bound Sunday sections of the New York Journal-American from the 1930s. All the sections were incomplete. Someone had taken out all the Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant pages!

So why start with 1978? This is a natural cut-off point because many more newspapers are available online before that year. This is because of copyright laws that put material from 1978 forward in a different category. Since I wanted to make sure that enough newspapers would be available from the 1930s until 2019, this was where I wanted to start. Fair warning, though: as we go forward we will not have 300 papers all the time because some papers will not be available online, or they went out of business or merged with another paper (a very common occurrence starting in the 1980s and going forward). So, the information that I compiled was what was running in these 300 daily papers in the first week of 1978. I hope you enjoy the journey. We’ll start tomorrow with a look at the rookie strips of 1977, then we'll discuss chart-toppers in various categories, and finally a complete list of the features with the papers in which they appeared.

Labels: Paper Trends