Stripper's Guide

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:

Here are the rest of the rankings:

 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.

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

 The biggest change in 1983 happened on the first day of the year, when Doonesbury went on its 22-month hiatus. With over 100 papers running the strip, it would leave a big hole for comic editors to fill. The big winner to fill that void was Bloom County, which gained 29 papers from 1982 to 1983. Overall, though, the biggest gainer for the third year in a row is that juggernaut Garfield, which gained 52 more papers. In the last three years that’s a history-making gain of 122 papers. 

Interestingly, Hotel America, which was Universal Press' suggested replacement for Doonesbury during Trudeau's vacation, was picked up by not a single paper in The 300. 

Otherwise, the continuing thread is that a lot of papers were picking up strips that had already been running for years. Three newer strips gained a bunch of papers: For Better or For Worse, Shoe and The Far Side. Here are the biggest winners, and the number of papers they added:

Garfield – 52
Bloom County - 29
For Better or For Worse - 15
Shoe – 13
Cathy - 13
Hagar the Horrible – 11
Family Circus – 11
Hi and Lois – 11
Ziggy – 11
Far Side - 10
Peanuts     - 8
Wizard of Id – 6
Frank and Ernest – 6
Born Loser – 6     
Marmaduke - 5

The big losers this year were all newer strips, including the big rookie from last year The Muppets, which lost 46 papers. The only classic strip that had a big loss was Archie with 7 papers. The strip that started the new boom of adventure strips had it first big drop -- The Amazing Spider-Man lost 6 papers. Here are the top losers and the number of papers each lost:

Muppets - 46
Archie – 7
Star Wars – 7
Amazing Spider-Man – 6
Goosemyer – 6
Le Grand Chef – 6
Winnie the Pooh – 5

The adventure strips this year continued their downward trend, but the losses were generally not as great as in previous years. We even had some strips gaining papers, like Brenda Starr and The Phantom. Here are the adventures strips, with their number of papers, and their gain or loss for the year:

Star Wars – 6 (-7)
Amazing Spider-Man – 45 (-6)
World’s Greatest Superheroes – 1 (-4)
Steve Canyon – 30 (-3)
Buz Sawyer – 29 (-3)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 19 (-3)
Captain Easy – 28 (-2)
Rip Kirby – 12 (-2)
Joe Palooka – 8 (-2)
Flash Gordon – 4 (-2)
Star Trek – 3 (-2)
Alley Oop – 44 (-1)
Buck Rogers – 2 (-1)
Lone Ranger – 4 (-1)
Latigo – 18 (-1)
Kerry Drake – 13 (-1)
Mark Trail – 22 (0)
Popeye – 2 (0)
Brick Bradford – 1 (0)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Secret Agent Corrigan – 1 (0)
Mandrake the Magician – 2 (0)
Dick Tracy – 44 (1)
Sergeant Preston – 1 (New)
Little Orphan Annie – 13 (1)
Phantom – 27 (2)
Brenda Starr – 12 (3)

New adventure strip The Legend of Bruce Lee did not get any papers in The 300. One paper did pick it up when it debuted in May but dropped it by November. The Incredible Hulk, which had 4 papers last year, ended in September 1982. Three of the four papers did run it to the end. Star Wars, Star Trek, Buck Rogers and World’s Greatest Superheroes all continued to lose many papers. Latigo seems to have a kept most of its papers since its debut in 1979, starting with 22 papers and only dropping to 18 papers. The strip would end in May 1983. 

Based on this data I would say that after The Amazing Spiderman, Latigo would be the second most successful new adventure strip for the period of 1977-1985 if we are thinking in terms of long-term client retention. Star Wars had the biggest start, but it did not keep the readers even after the first year.
The total adventure strip spots for 1982 was 392 down from 429,  8.8 percent down this year.

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 2 comments

 1982 was a year that favored non-rookie strips when papers were looking to add features. However, there were a few successful debuts in the calendar year of 1982 and two of them are still being syndicated in American papers. The big winner with 39 papers was Tom Armstrong’s Marvin, syndicated by Field Enterprises. Coming in second was the Australian import Snake Tales, with 26 papers. This strip was syndicated by NEA and filled a space left when another of the syndicate’s strip was cancelled; in this case it was the end of Short Ribs. Coming in third was another long-term success from Field; Sally Forth debuted  with 21 papers.

Here is the breakdown:

Marvin – 39 – Field Enterprises
Snake Tales – 26 – NEA
Sally Forth – 21 – Field Enterprises
Great John L – 19 - NEA
Conrad – 16 – Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate
Geech – 14 – Universal Press Syndicate
Arnold – 4 – Field Enterprises

The rest of the new strips - Dusty Chaps (3), Evermores (2), Full Disclosure (2), The Gazebo (1)*, Gramps (1), Kaleb (1), Ribbons (1), Sergeant Preston (1), Sorehead** (1), Teenie (1), Tom and Jerry (1)

Bringing us up to date on strips that began between in 1977-1982, here’s how the most successful of those debuts were doing by January 1983:

Garfield – 142
Shoe – 86
For Better or For Worse – 66
Amazing Spider-Man – 45
Bloom Country – 44
Marvin – 39

* sort of a promo strip; it only lasted a month

** actually ran (sporadically) for 15 years starting in 1969, but this is the first time it came within the sights of The 300

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 3 comments

Here's a Peanuts postcard from Hallmark, this one featuring a pop art interpretation of Snoopy in his Joe Cool persona. This card is coded 603-3 on the reverse.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 1 comments