Jeffrey Linenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1992 -- Rookies of 1991

 We have a tie this year for most successful rookie strip. One is still running and that is Scott Stantis’ The Buckets. According to Wikipedia this strip should not be a rookie because it says the strip began in 1990*. The other strip is Mark Cullum’s Walnut Cove which would have a 9 year run. Both strips got 12 papers in our survey.

The second tier batch all started with 6 papers. Two were trying to go in the The Far Side vein, Farcus and Real Life Adventures. The other two were Lyttle Women and Big Nate. Big Nate would make a big success as a book series in the style of Diary of the Wimpy Kid.

1991 was a good year to start a comic strip; of 13 new features surveyed, 5 are still running today. A 38% survival rate after over 30 years  is really quite amazing.

Here’s the complete list of surveyed rookies for 1991:

Buckets – 12
Walnut Cove – 12
Big Nate – 6
Farcus – 6
Lyttle Women – 6
Real Life Adventures – 6
Betty – 4
Sherman’s Lagoon – 3
Ballard Street, Crossing The Line (Canadian sports cartoons), Mr. Lucky, Southpaw, Spellbound – 1

* Note from Allan: This is definitely a Wiki error. The Buckets strip started on April 22 1991.