Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1988 -- 1987's Rookie Features

The most popular rookie strip starting in 1987 continues a pattern we had in previous years -- a strip from the NEA package replacing another NEA strip that was cancelled. The last time this happened was in 1985 when Arlo and Janis replaced Levy’s Law. This time we had the Grizzwells replacing Snake Tales. The Grizzwells debuts with 22 papers which is an increase of 5 more papers than Snake Tales had in 1986.

Coming in second is What A Guy with 14 papers. This is by Bill Hoest, who now offers his third comic strip, along with Agatha Crumm and The Lockhorns. This is case of the previous success of the artist being rewarded with editorial trust and approval.

The rest of the rookies of 1987 did not make much of an impact on the daily newspapers, at least early on. The best only ran in 6 papers. The trend continues to be that editors are being very conservative in changing their features, mainly adding strips that have been successful in other newspapers. Here is the breakdown of the rest of the rookies.

Crankshaft – 6
Gamin & Patches – 6
Love Handles – 4
Tales of Hans Christian Anderson – 4
Briefcase – 3
Single Slices – 3
Guinness Factfile, Iota, Sadie (aka Clyde), Wild Life (local feature), Yecch Is (local feature)– 1

Top Strips that began between 1977-1987

Garfield (1978) – 206
Far Side (1979) – 139
Bloom County (1980) – 127
Shoe (1977) – 117
For Better or For Worse (1979) – 104

Top Strips that began in the 1980’s

Bloom County (1980) – 127
Calvin and Hobbes (1985) – 82
Marvin (1982) – 48
Mother Goose and Grimm (1984) – 40
Sally Forth (1982) – 36