Thursday, January 30, 2020
Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The Three Hundred for 1979 -- The Rankings
This year newspapers.com lost ten papers that I had been tracking – some might have gone out of business, others merged, yet others were alive and well but unavailable to the website at this time. Here are the papers that were counted last year but are lost for this year’s count:
Courier-Gazette (McKinney, TX), Eagle (Bryan, TX), Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO), Globe-Gazette (Mason City, IA), Mercury (Pottstown, PA), Plano Daily Star Courier (TX), Province (Vancouver, Canada), Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, TX), Vancouver Sun (Canada), Vernon Daily Record (TX).
This makes it a little complex to compare our first two years. Let’s take Beetle Bailey for instance. Last year it ran in 169 papers. This year the count was 171, apparently a modest gain of two papers. However, of the ten papers we lost this year, four of them ran Beetle Bailey. So if we were to assume that those papers kept bublishing and stuck with the strip, the actual gain was six. Of course there’s no guarantee they did that.
So what I did was to show for the top thirty features how many spots they lost due to those ten papers being unavailable, shown as a separate figure. That way you can take it into account with the net gain/loss figure.
Here’s an example of how to do so:
Born Loser shows a net loss of three papers this year. You can see also that it lost five papers through their loss from the statistics. Therefore the real gain/loss figure is actually somewhere between a net gain of two (if none of those papers had actually cancelled it or gone out of business) and a loss of three (if ALL of those papers really did go out of business or cancelled the strip).
Here are the rest of the rankings. If you want detailed statistics, including which newspapers ran ech strip, email Allan (strippersguide@gmail.com) and he'll send you a PDF of the long version of the list.
Courier-Gazette (McKinney, TX), Eagle (Bryan, TX), Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO), Globe-Gazette (Mason City, IA), Mercury (Pottstown, PA), Plano Daily Star Courier (TX), Province (Vancouver, Canada), Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, TX), Vancouver Sun (Canada), Vernon Daily Record (TX).
This makes it a little complex to compare our first two years. Let’s take Beetle Bailey for instance. Last year it ran in 169 papers. This year the count was 171, apparently a modest gain of two papers. However, of the ten papers we lost this year, four of them ran Beetle Bailey. So if we were to assume that those papers kept bublishing and stuck with the strip, the actual gain was six. Of course there’s no guarantee they did that.
So what I did was to show for the top thirty features how many spots they lost due to those ten papers being unavailable, shown as a separate figure. That way you can take it into account with the net gain/loss figure.
Here’s an example of how to do so:
Born Loser shows a net loss of three papers this year. You can see also that it lost five papers through their loss from the statistics. Therefore the real gain/loss figure is actually somewhere between a net gain of two (if none of those papers had actually cancelled it or gone out of business) and a loss of three (if ALL of those papers really did go out of business or cancelled the strip).
| Title | Rank | Rank Change from Previous Year | Spots Lost Due to 10 Missing Papers | Net Gain/Loss from Last Year | Total Number of Papers |
| Peanuts | 1 | Same | -5 | 2 | 191 |
| Blondie | 1 | Plus 1 | -4 | 4 | 191 |
| Beetle Bailey | 3 | Same | -4 | 6 | 171 |
| Doonesbury | 4 | Plus 1 | -2 | 8 | 97 |
| Andy Capp | 5 | Minus 1 | -2 | 2 | 95 |
| Frank and Ernest | 6 | Plus 1 | -4 | 7 | 89 |
| B.C. | 7 | Plus 1 | -3 | 6 | 88 |
| Dennis the Menace | 7 | Plus 4 | -1 | 9 | 88 |
| Wizard of Id | 7 | Plus 1 | -2 | 5 | 88 |
| Hagar the Horrible | 10 | Plus 4 | -2 | 12 | 86 |
| Born Loser | 11 | Minus 5 | -5 | -3 | 82 |
| Barney Google and Snuffy Smith | 12 | Minus 1 | -3 | 1 | 79 |
| Mary Worth | 13 | Minus 1 | 0 | 0 | 78 |
| Hi and Lois | 14 | Minus 1 | -4 | 0 | 75 |
| Family Circus | 15 | Plus 2 | -2 | 8 | 69 |
| Nancy | 16 | Minus 1 | -2 | -4 | 66 |
| Berry's World | 17 | Plus 4 | -3 | 3 | 60 |
| Alley Oop | 18 | Minus 2 | -4 | -2 | 57 |
| Archie | 18 | Plus 2 | -1 | -3 | 57 |
| Rex Morgan | 18 | Same | -2 | -3 | 57 |
| Bugs Bunny | 21 | Plus 1 | -2 | -2 | 55 |
| Amazing Spiderman | 22 | Plus 5 | -2 | 6 | 54 |
| Dick Tracy | 22 | Plus 1 | -1 | 0 | 54 |
| Steve Canyon | 22 | Minus 4 | -2 | -6 | 54 |
| Eek and Meek | 25 | Plus 3 | -3 | 3 | 49 |
| Priscilla's Pop | 26 | Minus 3 | -3 | -4 | 48 |
| Shoe | 26 | Plus 1 | -2 | 3 | 48 |
| Short Ribs | 28 | Minus 5 | -4 | -4 | 47 |
| Winnie the Pooh | 29 | Rookie | 46 | ||
| Tiger | 30 | Plus 1 | -1 | 2 | 45 |
| Winthrop | 30 | Minus 7 | -4 | -6 | 45 |
Here are the rest of the rankings. If you want detailed statistics, including which newspapers ran ech strip, email Allan (strippersguide@gmail.com) and he'll send you a PDF of the long version of the list.
| Title | Total Number of Papers |
| Marmaduke | 44 |
| Buz Sawyer | 42 |
| Funky Winkerbean, Gasoline Alley | 40 |
| Tank McNamara | 39 |
| Captain Easy, Our Boarding House, Tumbleweeds | 38 |
| Judge Parker | 37 |
| Heathcliff, They’ll Do It Every Time | 36 |
| Funny Business, Herman, World’s Greatest Superheroes | 34 |
| Redeye | 30 |
| Apartment 3-G, Dunagin’s People | 29 |
| Side Glances, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad | 26 |
| Donald Duck | 25 |
| Grin and Bear It, Mark Trail, Small Society | 24 |
| Broom-Hilda, Crock, Heart of Juliet Jones, Phantom, Ziggy | 23 |
| Cathy | 22 |
| Miss Peach | 21 |
| Kerry Drake, Hazel | 20 |
| Better Half | 18 |
| Graffiti, Incredible Hulk, Lockhorns, Momma, Ryatts | 17 |
| Jackson Twins, Scoops, Zoonies | 16 |
| Agatha Crumm, Rip Kirby | 15 |
| Garfield, Laff-A-Day, Mr. Tweedy, Sam and Silo | 14 |
| Charmers, Flintstones, Fred Basset, Henry, Love Is | 13 |
| Conan the Barbarian, Ripley’s Believe It or Not | 12 |
| Brenda Starr, Dondi, Ferd’nand, Inside Woody Allan, Joe Palooka, Mutt and Jeff, Winnie Winkle | 11 |
| Asterix & Obelix, Encyclopedia Brown, Gil Thorp, The Girls, Moose Miller, Nubbin, Rick O’ Shay | 10 |
| Animal Crackers, Ben Wicks, Motley’s Crew, Sporting Life, Star Hawks | 9 |
| Catfish, Ponytail | 8 |
| A Little Leary, Dr. Smock, Eb and Flo, Gordo, Little Orphan Annie, Mickey Mouse, Moon Mullins, Quincy, There Oughta Be A Law, Wee Pals, Wright Angles | 7 |
| According to Guinness, Little Woman, Lolly, Maestro & Amalita, Smith Family, Trudy | 6 |
| Amy, Boomer, Bringing Up Father, Captain’s Gig, Dr. Kildare, Flash Gordon, Gumdrops, Mr. Abernathy, Off the Record, Pavlov, Rivets, Scamp, Trim’s Arena, Tucker, Woody’s World | 5 |
| Belvedere, Boner’s Ark, Captain & Mandy, Emmy Lou, Flop Family, Frontiers of Science, Health Capsules, Johnny Wonder, Modesty Blaise, On Stage, Rooftop O’Toole, Stanley | 4 |
| Alex in Wonderland, Big George, Billy Bob, Brother Juniper, Carmichael, Casey, Circus of P.T. Bimbo, Don Q, Dropouts, Good News Bad News, Guindon, Kelly, Men and Women, Outcasts, Pixies, Simpkins, Spare Time Spanish, This Funny World | 3 |
| Basil, Citizen Smith, Clyde & Homer/Homer's Groaners, Freddy, Hap Hazard, Hubert, Kisses, Laugh Time, Luther, Mandrake the Magician, Norbert, Our Fascinating Earth, Queenie, Playing Better Golf with Jack Nicklaus, Sportsman’s Digest, Sports Quiz, Treadwells, Word A Day, Wordplay | 2 |
| Another View, As You Were, Benchwarmer’s Sports Trivia, Brick Bradford, Castaways, Ching Chow, Downstown, Elwyn, Fenwick, Figments, F. Stop Fitzgerald, Homemade Brownies, Jeff Hawke, Lansky’s Look, Laughs From Europe, Mark Trail’s Outdoor Tips, Missing Links, Murphy’s Law, Now Society, Pet Set, Popeye, Pot Shots, Quickies, Rocket Shots, Sal A. Mander, Secret Agent Corrigan, Selling Short, Skipping Classes, Smart Chart, Smokey Says, Sorehead, Splitsville, Stan Smith’s Tennis Class, Stoker the Broker, Strictly Business, Strike Three, Tarzan, The Bryds, Today’s World, Toppix, Travels With Farley, You’re Getting Closer | 1 |
Labels: Paper Trends
Comments:
I can reassure you that the two Vancouver dailies are still limping along, waiting for Postmedia to expire. (stay tuned. Don't touch that dial!) And of course they are both running the most worn-out, formulaic and forgettable comics.
# posted by 
: 1/30/2020 4:07 PM
: 1/30/2020 4:07 PM
The two Vancouver papers will return for the 1980 listing. Their was a gap of what available for the first part of 1979.
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# posted by : 1/30/2020 8:13 PM
: 1/30/2020 8:13 PM 