Stripper's Guide

March 6 1910 -- Herriman pens a philosophical sports strip, in which he makes the case that victory in battle is and has always been fleeting. No matter how mighty the warrior, Father Time is always the ultimate victor. 

The less heady point of the strip is that Battling Nelson, for several years the holder of the lightweight boxing title, has now been beaten repeatedly by Ad Wolgast and his best years are definitely at an end. Nelson will continue fighting for another seven years before finally retiring, but never again as a serious contender. Wolgast will be lightweight champ for two years before going down the same well-worn path as Nelson, fighting far past his prime.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Ray Doherty Syndicate, 391 Rolph Street, San Francisco, California. W. T. Doherty, Editor.

Syndicates editorials, industrial and general news, cartoons, features to company publications throughout the nation. Material must be condensed, colorful, authoritative and accurate (sources of facts, dates, etc., should accompany manuscripts), and written with popular appeal. 

Doherty, Ray.

Horse-rating gadget. [Dial] Cardboard work. © Raymond Henry Doherty; 21May54; IP2403.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

 For the year 1987 we lost one paper, the Dayton Journal Herald, that printed its last edition in 1986. 10 other papers have missing information, so for this survey we are covering 274 papers. 

In the Top 30 we have one new strip; Funky Winkerbean knocked out Berry’s World, mainly because the latter lost a whopping eleven papers. The biggest movers in the Top 30 were Far Side which moved up 6 spots from 19 to 13, passing Dennis the Menace to become the 2nd most popular panel feature. Bloom County moved up 5 spots to enter the Top 10 in 8th place. The 100 Paper Club added three new members: Bloom County, Far Side and For Better or For Worse; that makes the total now 15. Also, with Garfield adding 5 more papers this year it has become the 3rd strip to have 200 or more papers. 

Here is the Top 30:
 

The popularity of the universal comic section continues to grow. Here is the breakdown:

Top 2 Strips – 175 (Up 4)
Top 3 Strips – 150 (Up 7)
Top 4 Strips – 124 (Up 3)
Top 5 Strips – 83 (Up 5)
Top 6 Strips – 57 (Up 6)
Top 7 Strips – 37 (Up 6)
Top 8 Strips – 29 (Up 9)
Top 9 Strips – 21 (Up 10)
Top 10 Strips – 14 (Up 5)
Top 11 Strips – 11 (Up 5)
Top 12 Strips – 8 (Up 7)
Top 13 Strips – 5 (Up 4)
Top 14 Strips – 0 (Same)

The five papers that had the Top 13 strips were the Dayton Daily News (OH), Hartford Courant (CT), Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), St. Louis Post Dispatch (MO) and Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). All these papers did not run the 14th strip, Frank and Ernest. Tie breaker time for determining the closest to a universal comics page:  

* The Hartford Courant did not have the #15 strip, For Better or For Worse, but did have #16
* All remaining papers had strip 16 but none had strip 17 which was another NEA strip The Born Loser
* The Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) did not have strip 18 Dennis the Menace
* The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) did not have strip 20 Mary Worth
* The St. Louis Post Dispatch (MO) did not have strip 22 Barney Google and Snuffy Smith

The winner of the Universal comic section for 1986 is the Dayton Daily News if we add the remaining 7 strips they used from the Top 30. The paper had 26 out of the Top 30 strips out of a total of 40 daily strips that ran on their comics page.

Here are the rankings of remaining strips that appeared in the Top 300 papers, in order by number of papers in which they appeared:

39 – Alley Oop (-1), Eek and Meek (-1)

38 – Mother Goose and Grimm (+1)

37 – Heathcliff (-4)

34 – Berry’s World (-11), Bugs Bunny (0), Calvin and Hobbes (+20)

33 – Lockhorns (+1)

32 – Amazing Spider-Man (0), U.S. Acres (R)

31 – Judge Parker (+1), Nancy (-3)

30 – Arlo and Janis (+2), Dick Tracy (-2)

28 – Tiger (0)

25 – Phantom (+1)

24 – Geech (+1), Tumbleweeds (-3)

22 – Apartment 3-G (0), Kit N Carlyle (+1)

21 – Gummi Bears (R)

20 – Archie (-2), Steve Canyon (-1)

19 – Broom Hilda (-1)

18 – Mark Trail (-2)

17 – Captain Easy (-1), Luann (+2), Snake Tales (-7),

16 – Buz Sawyer (-6), Crock (-1), Snafu (R)

14 – On The Fastrack (-6), Redeye (-2), Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (0)

13 – Fred Basset (0), Hazel (-1), That’s Jake (-1)

12 – Gil Thorp (0), Kuduz (+1), Neighborhood (+5), They’ll Do It Every Time (-5)

11 – Francie (R), Momma (0)

10 – Adam (0), Donald Duck (-2), Drabble (0), Little Orphan Annie (+1), Mr. Tweedy (+1), Rose is Rose (+3)

9 – Brenda Starr (-1), Motley’s Crew (-2), Mr. Boffo (R), Pop’s Place (R), Small Society (-3), Willy N Ethel (+2)

8 – Animal Crackers (0), Grin and Bear It (-1), Hartland (-3), Heart of Juliet Jones (+2), Love Is (-1), Mr. Men and Little Miss (-1), Out of Bounds (R), Ryatts (-1), Sherman on the Mount (R)

7 – Graffiti (+4), In The Bleachers (+6), Robotman (-4)

6 – Better Half (-1), Elwood (0), John Darling (-2), Middletons (R), Pavlov (+1), Perky & Beanz (0), Zippy (+4)

5 – Agatha Crumm (-2), Bizarro (+1), Boomers Song (R), Catfish (-1), Flintstones (0), Henry (-1), Hocus-Focus (0), Laff-A-Day (+1), Moose Miller (+1), Rip Kirby (-4)

4 – Arnold, Boner’s Ark, Charlie, Duffy, Flash Gordon, Girls, Miss Peach, Outcasts, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Smith Family, Trudy, Winnie Winkle

3 – A Little Leary, Amy, Belvedere, Ben Wicks, Caldwell, Cobwebs, Inside Out, Our Fascinating Earth, Ponytail, Quigmans, Scamp, Sniglets, Sylvia

2 – Bringing Up Father, Captain Vincible, Dollars and Nonsense, Eb & Flo, Ferd’nand, Goblin, Lug Nuts, Mickey Mouse, Moon Mullins, Off the Leash, Orbit, Popeye, Sam & Silo, Winnie the Pooh

1 – Betty Boop and Felix, Brick Bradford, Brother Juniper, Cheeverwood, Ching Chow, Clout Street, Ellie, Eyebeam, Furtree High, Good News Bad News, Gumdrop, Guindon, Health Capsules, Kaleb, King Tot, Laffbreak, Local Item, Mark Trail’s Outdoor Tips, Modesty Blaise, Mr. Abernathy, Nubbin, Playing Better Golf with Jack Nicklaus, Pot-Shots, Rivets, Salt Chuck, Sidelines, Stan Smith’s Tennis Class, Strahle’s Bailiwick, Vidiots, Word-A-Day

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

The biggest gainer for 1986-87 was the also the biggest gainer in 1985-86 and that was The Far Side by Gary Larson, which gained 30 papers this year, and with last year’s gain of 35 that makes an impressive total of 65 papers in the past two years. Coming in second is a strip that gained 20 papers, Bloom County, which continues its fast growth in popularity. Tied for second and in its second year, Calvin and Hobbes, which is showing how popular this strip was from its inception in 1985. For Better and For Worse and Cathy continue their healthy annual growth with 13 and 7 more papers this year.

Here are the biggest gainers:

Far Side - 30
Bloom County – 20
Calvin and Hobbes - 20
For Better or For Worse – 13
Cathy – 7
Marmaduke – 6
In The Bleachers - 6
Garfield – 5
Beetle Bailey - 5
Shoe – 5
Sally Forth – 5
Neighborhood - 5

The strip that lost the most papers was Berry’s World with 11, most likely losing most of those spots to The Far Side. Here are the biggest losers from 1986 to 1987:

Berry’s World – 11
Orbit – 8
Snake Tales – 7
Buz Sawyer – 6
On The Fastrack - 6
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – 5
They’ll Do It Every Time – 5
Duffy – 5

As expected the adventure strips continue their slow demise. Three rare plus signs on display this time though:

Alley Oop – 39 (-1)
Amazing Spider-Man – 32 (0)
Dick Tracy – 30 (-2)
Phantom – 25 (+1)
Steve Canyon – 20 (-1)
Mark Trail – 18 (-2)
Captain Easy – 17 (-1)
Buz Sawyer – 16 (-6)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 14 (0)
Little Orphan Annie – 10 (+1)
Brenda Starr – 9 (-1)
Rip Kirby – 5 (-4)
Flash Gordon – 4 (+1)
Popeye – 2 (0)
Brick Bradford – 1 (0)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Secret Agent Corrigan – 0 (-1)
Mandrake the Magician – 0
Tim Tyler’s Luck - 0

The total slots for adventures strips is down 16 from last year; that is a 6.1% drop.

Soaps did not have much of a drop this year:

Mary Worth – 66 (-2)
Rex Morgan – 50 (-3)
Judge Parker – 31 (+1)
Apartment 3-G – 22 (0)
Gil Thorp – 12 (0)
Heart of Juliet Jones – 8 (+2)
Winnie Winkle – 4 (0)
Dondi – (-5)  -- strip ended

The Soaps dropped 7 from last year which is a 3.5% dip but most of that was because the end of the strip Dondi.

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

The rookie winner starting during 1986 is a clear victory for marketing. The hottest strip for the past eight years was Garfield by Jim Davis from United Feature Syndicate. So how do you get another United Feature rookie strip to be number 1? You offer another strip by Jim Davis. That strip was US Acres which debuted in 32 papers. But is that a real victory? Yes and no. Given the number of papers that picked up the strip, then it seems to be a clear victoty, but if you take into account that 26 of the 32 papers were already running Garfield then no. Why is that? The reason is that when the strip is compared side by side every day to the better strip Garfield people lose interest and so will the editors. So, a better success would have been to offer a Jim Davis strip to papers that did not have Garfield available to them. If the strip's introduction had gone this way, it might have lasted longer than three years.

The strip that came in second was a spin-off from a popular Saturday morning cartoon show. That strip was Gummi Bears, which debuted with 21 papers. This was a Disney strip syndicated by King Features. At this time it was the most widely syndicated Disney strip but as with US Acres it died out in its third year.

 The rest of the rookie strips for 1986 are as follows:

Snafu (NEA) – 16

Francie (United Features) – 11

Mr. Boffo (Tribune) – 9

Pop’s Place (King Features)– 9

Out of Bounds (News American) – 8

Sherman on The Mount (Los Angeles Syndicate) – 8

Middletons (News American) – 6

Boomers' Song (Tribune) – 5

Cobwebs (Asterisk) – 3

Sniglets (McNaught) – 3

Goblin (Asterisk) – 2

Lug Nuts (Washington Post Writers Group) – 2

Ellie (self-syndicated) – 1

Kaleb (local) – 1

King Tot (Davy Associates) – 1

Local Item (Universal) – 1

Strahle’s Bailiwick (self-syndicated) – 1

Strips that began between 1977-1986 – Tops in Popularity

Garfield (1978) – 202

Bloom County (1980) – 118

Shoe (1977) – 113

Far Side (1979) – 106

For Better or For Worse (1979) – 101

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Walt Munson produced a lot of postcards in the so-called "linen period" of postcards. This I think I can be safe in saying was his most popular card design of all, as they are very easy to find. I guess card buyers liked the ever so slightly naughty design, sure to get a chuckle from the receiver. 

This card was produced by Tichnor Brothers of Boston, and is designated #124. Although postally unused and undated, I would hazard a guess that the card first appeared in the late 1930s.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments