Monday, July 26, 2021
News of Yore 1984: New Strip Dick and Jane Announced
Newspaper Readers Watching 'Dick and Jane' Run
(from Editor and Publisher, March 24 1984)
"Dick and Jane," a comic featuring the characters many American schoolchildren learned to read with, was introduced by the Register and Tribune Syndicate (RTS) earlier this month.
Charter newspapers for Chuck Roth's new strip include the Philadelphia Inquirer, Orlando Sentinel, Dallas Times Herald, Detroit News and Baltimore Evening Sun.
One Sunday episode reads, "See Dick eating a vanilla ice cream cone," "See Jane eating a chocolate ice cream cone," "See Sally eating a strawberry ice cream cone," then the dog Spot zooms by and swipes the ice cream from each of the three cones. The last panel states, "See Spot eating a Neapolitan ice cream cone."
"Even though the comic strip may be classified as adult-level humor, I have tried never to lose sight of the pure, simplistic approach," said Roth. "Actually, as the strip progressed, I felt like one of the kids! I guess emotionally there's still a child somewhere in all of us."
RTS president Dennis R. Allen found Roth after a more than seven-year search for the right "Dick and Jane" cartoonist.
Roth is president and founder of the California-based Roth International. The design company works with over 200 firms worldwide under licensing contracts to apply Roth designs to products in more than 100 categories. Prior to that, he headed the Roth Greeting Card Company.
The cartoonist traces his artistic beginnings back to the third grade in Toronto, where he entered the Ontario Safety League poster contest and won second prize over thousands of other entrants. Roth later completed the art course at Central Technical School in Toronto, and, after moving to the U.S., attended the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles.
Thanks to John Lund for sending the article. John, your email address is not working, my emails are bouncing back.
Labels: News of Yore
: 7/26/2021 8:41 AM I myself was once taught with the aid of Dick and Jane,and their baby sister Sally. Though the adventures on offer were so imperceptible as to border on Zen, all these years later, are still vividly recalled. Don't believe "Dick and Jane" were a copyrighted trade mark as you can't control common forenames. The once familiar early readers were discontinued as their teaching method (Sight-Say) was abandoned in favor of more pop-fashionable theories (phonics). The short-lived Dick and Jane strip came along years after their schoolastic inspirations vanished from kiddies' sight.
Denny Allen missed the mark many times in the last yearsof the R&T, and if memory serves, this was one of the titles that was often thrown back at him as an example of his poor judgement.
: 7/26/2021 12:16 PM : 7/27/2021 8:09 AM 