Stripper's Guide

 For the 1990 survey we lost one more paper, the Daily Register (Red Bank, NJ) in late January became a weekly so we will no longer be able to count this paper. The total papers for this year’s survey is 269 papers.

The end of Bloom County caused a lot of movement in the Top 30. Calvin & Hobbes moves up 5 places from 11 to 6. For Better or For Worse moves from 13 to 10 and Cathy moves from 18 to 15 and joins the 100th club. Cathy replaces Bloom County in the club so our total is still 16 strips that have 100 strips or more.

Sally Forth, Arlo and Janis and Funky Winkerbean entered the Top 30. The three strips that fell out of the Top 30 were Bloom County, Winthrop,  and Gasoline Alley.

Title	Place	Movement	Plus or Minus	Total Papers
Peanuts	1	Same	0	217
Blondie	2	Same	4	212
Garfield	3	Same	5	211
Beetle Bailey	4	Same	-4	187
Calvin & Hobbes	5	Up 6	57	175
Far Side	6	Up 1	19	163
Hagar The Horrible	7	Down 2	5	160
Doonesbury	8	Down 2	1	148
Family Circus	9	Down 1	2	143
For Better or For Worse	10	Up 3	19	129
Wizard of Id	11	Down 1	3	127
Shoe	12	Same	1	116
B.C.	13	Up 2	2	110
Frank and Ernest	13	Up 1	1	110
Cathy	15	Up 3	18	109
Hi and Lois	16	Same	-1	106
Born Loser	17	Same	0	92
Dennis The Menace	18	Up 1	1	88
Andy Capp	19	Up 1	-6	73
Marmaduke	20	Up 1	4	70
Mary Worth	21	Up 1	-4	59
Herman	22	Up 1	-1	58
Mother Goose and Grimm	23	Up 6	13	55
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	24	Down 1	-5	54
Ziggy	25	Same	-1	53
Rex Morgan	26	Same	-1	49
Marvin	27	Same	-2	45
Sally Forth	28	Entering	4	43
Arlo and Janis	29	Entering	5	41
Funky Winkerbean	29	Entering	0	41

 

With many papers replacing Bloom County with many other already popular strips the universal comic section has its biggest movement:

Top 2 – 184 (Up 5)
Top 3 – 163 (Up 7)
Top 4 – 134 (Up 4)
Top 5 – 108 (Up 20)
Top 6 – 84 (Up 22)
Top 7 – 64 (Up 14)
Top 8 – 54 (Up 18)
Top 9 – 43 (Up 15)
Top 10 – 34 (Up 16)
Top 11 – 26 (Up 10)
Top 12 – 21 (Up 9)
Top 13 – 17 (Up 6)
Top 14 – 5 (Up 4)
Top 15 – 5 (Up 5)
Top 16 – 3
Top 17 – 0

Three papers, the Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, NJ), Hattiesburg American (MS) and Tampa Tribune (FL) all have the Top 16 strips but none of them had the 17th strip Born Loser. The Hattiesburg America won this year’s Universal Comic Section prize because it had strips 18,19,20.

Here are the remaining strips that appeared in the Top 300 papers, ranked by newspaper count and increase/decrease:

40 – Winthrop (-2)

39 - Gasoline Alley (-4)

37 - Alley Oop (+2)

36 - Tank McNamara (-1)

35 - Eek and Meek (-2), Fox Trot (+25)

34 – Lockhorns (0)

32 – Heathcliff (-1), Pogo (R)

29 – Grizzwells (+5)

28 – Geech (+4)

27 - Judge Parker (-4)

26 - Berry’s World (-13), In The Bleachers (+8), Rose is Rose (+11)

25 - Kit N Carlyle (+1), Snafu (+3)

23 - Apartment 3-G (+1), Bugs Bunny (-4), Nancy (-5)

22 - Dick Tracy (-1)

21 – Crankshaft (+12), Tiger (-2)

20 – Curtis (+13)

19 – Luann (+1)

18 - Amazing Spider-Man (-5), Ernie (+3)

17 – Tumbleweeds (-4)

16 - Broom Hilda (0)

15 – Batman (R), Fred Basset (0), Mark Trail (-3)

14 – Phantom (-5)

13 – Kudzu (+2), Mr. Boffo (+3)

12 – Archie (-2), Drabble (+1)

11 – Adam (0), Brenda Starr (-1), Phipps (R), Safe Havens (+8)

10 – Bizarro (0), Crock (-2), Donald Duck (0), Dunagin’s People (-1), Gil Thorp (-1), Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (-3), Willie ‘N Ethel (-1)

9 – Hazel (-1), Middletons (0), Norb (R)

8 - Herb and Jamaal (R), Momma (0), Neighborhood (-4), They’ll Do It Every Time (-2), Word For Word (R), Zippy (+1)

7 - Animal Crackers (+1), Good News Bad News (+7), Hocus-Focus (+2), Little Orphan Annie (-2), New Breed (R), On The Fastrack (-3), Redeye (-4)

6 – Elwood (0), Francie (-1), Grin and Bear It (-2), Jump Start (R), Motley’s Crew (0), Off The Leach (+2), Our Fascinating Earth (-2), Rubes (R?), Small Society (-5), That’s Jake (-4), What A Guy (-2)

5 - Bent Offering (-1), Fusco Brothers (R), Robotman (-1), Sylvia (0), Trudy (+2)

4 – Dilbert, Grammy, Love Is, Miss Peach, Moose Miller, One Big Happy, Rip Kirby

3 - Agatha Crumm, Amy, Better Half, Catfish, Chubb & Chauncey, Dillion, Duffy, Flintstones, Graffiti, Heart of Juliet Jones, Long Overdue, Pavlov, Pops Place, Quigmans, Ryatts, Sibling Revelry, Smith Family, Winnie Winkle, Wright Angels

2 – Belvedere, Ben Wicks, Boner’s Ark, Bringing Up Father, Counter Culture, Defunitions, Ferd’nand, Flash Gordon, Henry, Laff-A-Day, Mickey Mouse, Miss Featherbee, Ophelia And Jake, Play Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Popeye, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Wildlife

1 - Being There, Ching Chow, Dad’s-Eye-View, Furtree High, Laffbreak, Modesty Blaise, Monkey Business, Moon Mullins, Out of Bounds, Professor Doodle, Sam and Silo, Single Slices, Sports Hall of Shame, Stan Smith’s Tennis Class, Tom and Jerry, Willie, Wit, Wyse Advice, Yecch Is, Yooper Bloopers

Labels: Paper Trends