Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The Three Hundred for 1983 -- Overall Results

Between 1982 to 1983 we see the beginning of what was happening to papers in many cities; the loss of second or third papers in larger cities. In the case of The 300, Des Moines, Minneapolis and Tampa. What often happened is that the remaining paper either took part or all of the axed paper’s comics,  and  then over time drops the less popular strips. For example, in the survey we have two Philadelphia papers; I was always surprised that neither the Inquirer nor the Daily News had Peanuts on their comics pages. What I did not realize was that Philadelphia had at this time a third daily paper, the Bulletin. In 1982 the Bulletin went out of business and many of their strips moved to the Inquirer or the News. In this case Peanuts went to the Inquirer.

Because a few papers on newspapers.com were missing information for December 1982-January 1983 this year’s survey paper total is down to 281.

 As mentioned in the previous article about the gainer and losers, the big difference between 1982 and 1983 is that Doonesbury has taken its 22-month hiatus and will not be in the next two surveys. Many papers took the opportunity to add strips like Bloom County and Garfield. 

This is the first year that no rookie strip would hit the Top 30. This year we saw four strips crack the Top 30: Cathy, Ziggy, Bloom County and Tank McNamara. The strips that fell out, led of course by Doonesbury, were The Muppets, Archie and Priscilla’s Pop. Priscilla's Pop, by the way, will be cancelled this year, despite having quite a healthy number of papers. 

Here is the top 30:

Title	Place	Rank Change	+/- Papers	Total Papers
Peanuts	1	Same	+8	210
Blondie	2	Same	+4	196
Beetle Bailey	3	Same	+2	179
Garfield	4	Up 6	+52	142
Hagar the Horrible	5	Same	+11	130
Wizard of Id	6	Same	+6	110
Family Circus	7	Up 2	+11	102
B.C.	8	Same	+1	98
Andy Capp	9	Down 2	-4	97
Frank and Ernest	10	Same	+6	96
Hi and Lois	11	Up 1	+11	94
Born Loser	12	Up 1	+6	88
Shoe	13	Up 3	+13	86
Dennis the Menace	14	Same	-1	80
Mary Worth	15	Same	-3	72
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	16	Up 2	-1	68
For Better or For Worse	17	Up 4	+15	66
Marmaduke	18	Up 3	+5	56
Rex Morgan	19	Same	-2	53
Herman	20	Up 4	+2	52
Winthrop	21	Up 4	+1	50
Nancy	22	Down 2	-4	48
Cathy	23	Entering	+13	46
Ziggy	23	Entering	+11	46
Amazing Spider-Man	25	Down 4	-6	45
Alley Oop	26	Up 1	-1	44
Bloom County	26	Entering	+29	44
Dick Tracy	26	Up 2	+1	44
Tank McNamara	26	Entering	+3	44
Eek and Meek	30	Down 4	-3	43
Gasoline Alley	30	Down 2	0	43

 

Here are the rest of the rankings:

 

# of Papers	Title (+/- Papers)
42	Heathcliff (0)
41	Funky Winkerbean (+1)
40	Berry's World (+1)
39	Marvin (new), Priscilla’s Pop (-4)
38	Bugs Bunny (0)
36	Archie (-7)
35	Tiger (+1)
32	Judge Parker (-4)
31	Tumbleweeds (-4)
30	Steve Canyon (-3)
29	Buz Sawyer (-3)
28	Captain Easy (-2)
27	Phantom (+2)
26	Snake Tales (new)
25	Broom Hilda (+3)
24	Apartment 3-G (0), Lockhorns (+2), Muppets (-46)
23	Kit ‘N’ Carlyle (+1), Our Boarding House (-4)
22	Mark Trail (0), Redeye (0)
21	Crock (-2), Far Side (+10), Sally Forth (new)
19	Great John L (new), Hazel (+3), Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (-3)
18	Dunagin’s People (+2), Latigo (-1)
17	Levy’s Law (-1), Small Society (+3), They’ll Do It Every Time (-4)
16	Conrad (new), Donald Duck (0), Grin and Bear It (+2)
15	Fred Basset (-1), Goosemyer (-6)
14	Geech (new), Heart of Juliet Jones (+1), Kudzu (-3), Momma (-1)
13	Kerry Drake (-1), Little Orphan Annie (+1), Ryatts (-2)
12	Brenda Starr (+3), Duffy (0), Mr. Tweedy (-1), Motley’s Crew (+1), Rip Kirby (-2)
11	Gil Thorp (-1)
10	Agatha Crumm (-1), John Darling (-1), Miss Peach (0)
9	Animal Crackers (+2), Better Half (-3), Love Is (+1), Ripley’s Believe It or Not (+2)
8	Dondi (-1), Joe Palooka (-2), Pavlov (0), Winnie the Pooh (-5)
7	Catfish (-1), Drabble (0), Flintstones (+1), Girls (+2), Henry (-2), Hocus-Focus (+1), Moose Miller (0), There Oughta Be A Law (0), Willy ‘N’ Ethel (0), Wright Angles (+4)
6	Dallas (-5), Ferd’nand (-1), Ponytail (+2), Star Wars (-7), Winnie Winkle (-1)
5	Citizen Smith (0), Graffiti (-4), Guindon (-1), Lolly (-1), Nubbin (-1), Sam and Silo (-2), Scoops (+1)
4	A Little Leary, Arnold, Belvedere, Ben Swift, Big George, Boner’s Ark, Bringing Up Father, Dr. Smock, Eb and Flo, Flash Gordon, Gordo, It’s Just A Game, Johnny Wonder, Laff-A-Day, Lone Ranger, Outcasts, Rafferty, Scamp, Smith Family, Sporting Life, Trim’s Arena, Trudy, Wee Pals
3	Amy, Charlie, Downstown, Dusty Chaps, Health Capsules, Le Grand Chef, Moon Mullins, The Neighborhood, Quincy, Rivets, Smithereens, Star Trek, Travels With Farley, Vidiots
2	Ben Wicks, Buck Rogers, Carmichael, Evermores, Full Disclosure, Good News Bad News, Inside Woody Allen, Laugh Time, Mandrake the Magician, Mickey Mouse, Mr. Abernathy, Playing Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Popeye, Simpkins, Strictly Business, Sugar, Word-A-Day
1	According to Guinness, Benji, Brick Bradford, Brother Juniper, Ching Chow, Dr. Kildare, Eggheads, Gazebo, Gramps, Graves Inc., Gumdrop, Hello Carol, Hermie, Hubert, Kaleb, Laffbreak, Mark Trail’s Outdoor Tips, Miles to Go, Modesty Blaise, Murphy's Law, Mutt and Jeff, Our Fascinating Earth, Ribbons, Salt Chuck, Secret Agent Corrigan, Selling Short, Sergeant Preston, Sidelines, Sorehead, Superheroes, Teenie, This Funny World, Today’s World, Tom and Jerry, Wordplay

 As always, if you would like the long form of The 300, a list of each paper that used each strip, send Allan Holtz an email with your request. He will send you a Word document with the data.