Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1995 -- Results

Before we start to look at the results of the Top 300 papers in 1995, a personal comment. This year’s survey is very special to me. I have come full circle. Back in 1995 I approached David Astor, who was the editor of The Syndicates/News Services section of the magazine Editor & Publisher, about doing a survey of comic strip syndication. The idea I came up with was to take their list of the Top 100 most circulated newspapers and find out which comics were the most syndicated in those papers. He liked the idea so I contacted all the feature editors to get copies of their comic section. The survey results were published in the March 11, 1995, issue. I continued this project for the next five years.

 

Jump 28 years later and here I am again looking at most of these papers -- and many more – many of which are of lesser circulation. Does this make a difference? Let’s find out!

On this year’s The 300 survey we have 260 papers left. The big change is that the most successful panel feature at the time, The Far Side, ended which in last year’s survey was at number 5. Many features moved up 1 slot because of this. One of the two new entries that came in hot was Close To Home, which gained 30 papers and entered the Top 30 right out of the gate at number 23. Another new entry was Crankshaft which added 9 papers and entered the Top 30, tied at number 29 with its ‘father’ strip Funky Winkerbean. One strip that fell out of the Top 30 was Lockhorns. The biggest mover was Fox Trot which moved up 5 places to number 18.

Garfield is now just one paper behind Peanuts. Will Peanuts lose its number one spot next year? 

Here is the Top 30 for this year:

 

Title	Rank	Rank Change	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Peanuts	1	Same	-2	220
Garfield	2	Same	3	219
Calvin and Hobbes	3	Same	2	213
Blondie	4	Same	0	206
Beetle Bailey	5	Up 1	-6	178
For Better or For Worse	6	Up 1	9	171
Hagar The Horrible	7	Up 1	-6	154
Family Circus	8	Up 2	5	147
Doonesbury	9	Same	-2	145
Cathy	10	Same	1	143
B.C.	11	Up 2	0	109
Wizard of Id	11	Up 1	-9	109
Frank & Ernest	13	Up 1	-3	102
Hi and Lois	14	Up 1	-5	98
Born Loser	15	Up 2	-5	92
Shoe	16	Same	-13	87
Dennis The Menace	17	Up 1	-2	82
Fox Trot	18	Up 5	17	70
Marmaduke	19	Same	-6	60
Ziggy	20	Up 2	4	59
Sally Forth	21	Down 1	-1	58
Mother Moose and Grimm	22	Down 1	-1	57
Close To Home	23	Entering	30	52
Mary Worth	24	Same	-5	47
Andy Capp	25	Same	-7	41
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	26	Same	-6	40
Arlo and Janis	27	Same	-4	38
Rex Morgan	27	Up 1	-3	38
Crankshaft	29	Entering	9	37
Funky Winkerbean	29	Same	0	37

 

The information from the survey I did in 1995 and today is an intriguing combination of very much the same and very much different. The Top 10 strips are exactly the same titles on both surveys, but many are in different positions, sometimes varying widely like For Better Or For Worse:

Strip	E&P 1995 Poll Rank	Papers (out of 100)	The 300 Poll Rank	Papers (out of 260)
For Better or For Worse	1	87	6	171
Blondie	1	87	4	206
Garfield	1	87	2	219
Peanuts	4	85	1	220
Calvin and Hobbes	5	84	3	213
Beetle Bailey	6	81	5	178
The Family Circus	6	81	8	147
Hagar The Horrible	8	80	7	154
Doonesbury	9	78	9	145
Cathy	9	78	10	143

There’s one important difference in the criteria for the two polls – in the E&P survey strips got ranked with Sunday papers included; in other words if a given daily or Sunday paper ran Peanuts, that paper got counted. This allowed Sunday-only strips and strips with more popular Sundays than dailies, to get in the running. The 300 poll covers daily features only.

 In the E&P survey both Outland and Prince Valiant made the top 25 on the strength of Sundays alone. Outland finished at number 15 and Prince Valiant at 21.  In the E&P poll Curtis was the most popular African American-themed strip in 1995, and in The 300 survey it tied with Jump Start. Dilbert was the newest strip to hit the Top 20 in E&P. In our new survey it had a big gain in 1995 but it is at number 31 (in other words, Dilbert was very popular as a Sunday).

Universal Comic Section

The Universal Comic Section continues to grow only in the Top 3 but since the end of Far Side which was number 5 last year, the ‘nearly ideal’ section is less common for the first time in years. Nevertheless, we still managed to get a winner with the top 17 most popular strips all appearing – the Colorado Springs Gazette. 

Top 2 – 202 (Up 3)

Top 3 – 184 (Up 4)

Top 4 – 161 (Same)

Top 5 – 129 (Down 10)

Top 6 – 104 (Down 13)

Top 7 – 79 (Down 11)

Top 8 – 60 (Down 11)

Top 9 – 49 (Down 9)

Top 10 – 42 (Down 9)

Top 11 – 27 (Down 12)

Top 12 – 24 (Down 6)

Top 13 – 9 (Down 15)

Top 14 – 6 (Down 2)

Top 15 – 2 (Down 3)

Top 16 – 2 (Down 1)

Top 17 – 1 (Same)

Average Number of Daily Strips

We have talked a lot about the popularity of individual strips, but something I have not covered yet is the number of daily features the average paper prints. I went back and crucnched the number to see if there was any trend evident. Between 1978 and 1995 did papers run more or fewer strips? Well, here's the answer:

Year	Total Features Overall in Survey	# of Papers Surveyed	Average # of Features Per Paper
1995	4,490	260	17.26
1994	4,595	261	17.60
1993	4,521	263	17.19
1992	4,542	265	17.13
1991	4,624	268	17.25
1990	4,605	269	17.11
1989	4,556	270	16.87
1988	4,535	273	16.61
1987	4,500	274	16.42
1986	4,394	278	15.80
1985	4,377	281	15.57
1984	4,191	279	15.02
1983	4,163	281	14.81
1982	4,181	286	14.61
1981	4,213	285	14.78
1980	4,320	289	14.94
1979	4,281	290	14.76
1978	4,353	300	14.51

 The trend is very definitely upward. The average paper added slots for about three additional comic features between 1978 and 1995. Is this because of the continuing miniaturization of newspaper comics, or did newspaper editors see fit to offer comics a little more space over that span of years? 

It will be interesting to watch these numbers over the coming decades. With the internet stealing newspaper readers and causing belt-tightening at papers, will editors decide they can't afford as many comics as they did in the past? 

Survey Overall Results

 Here are the remaining results of the 1995 survey.

36 – Dilbert (+20)

33 - Non Sequitur (+9)

32 – Lockhorns (-3), Rubes (+23)

31 - Alley Oop (-1), Marvin (-2)

30 - Baby Blues (+5)

27 – Luann (+6), Rose is Rose (+1)

26 – Gasoline Alley (-3), Grizzwells (+1)

25 - Real Life Adventures (+5)

24 - Berry’s World (-2), Curtis (+1), Eek and Meek (-4), Geech (0), Jump Start (+3), Mallard Fillmore (R), Tank McNamara (-6)

23 - Beattie Blvd (+3), In The Bleachers (-1)

22 - Judge Parker (0), Kit N Carlyle (-1)

21 – Heathcliff (-5)

20 – Bizarro (+3), Farcus (-5), Mixed Media (R), Overboard (+4)

19 – Robotman (+4)

18 - Big Nate (+13), Ernie (+3)

17 – Chaos (R)

16 – Adam (-1)

15 - Amazing Spider-Man (-3), Nancy (-3), Sylvia (+2)

14 - Apartment 3-G (-1), Dunagin’s People (+1), Fred Basset (-1), Pluggers (0)

12 – Drabble (0), Mark Trail (0), Phantom (-1), Tiger (0)

11 – Dave (-1), Herb & Jamaal (-1), Pickles (+3)

10 - Dick Tracy (-1), Quigmans (+9)

9 – Buckets (-2), Kudzu (0), Middletons (+2), Tumbleweeds (-4)

8 - Ballard Street (+7), Brenda Starr (-1), Fusco Brothers (0), Gil Thorp (-1), Horrorscope (+3), Mutts (R), One Big Happy (+2), Pop Culture (-2), Safe Havens (0), Walnut Cove (-3), Zippy (+1)

7 – Archie (-4), Betty (+1), (Who would ever thought that this to strips would end of together on this list) , Bound & Gagged (0), Duplex (+2), Hocus-Focus (-3), Momma (0), Mr. Boffo (0), They’ll Do It Every Time (+1)

6 – Committed (R), Crock (-1), Donald Duck (0), Grin and Bear It (0), Speed Bump (R), Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (+1), Thatch (R)

5 - Crabby Road (R), Mickey Mouse (0), Motley’s Crew (0), New Breed (+2), 9 Chickweed Lane (+1), Ralph (R), Sherman’s Lagoon (0), That’s Jake (-1)

4 - Animal Crackers, Bent Offerings, Bottom Liners, Broom Hilda, Comic For Kids, Hazel, On The Fastrack, Our Fascinating Earth, Willy ‘N Ethel

3 - Better Half, Ducking Out, Francie, Little Orphan Annie, Off The Mark, Quality Time

2 - Agatha Crumm, Chubb & Chauncey, Love Is, Moose Miller, Outcasts, Play Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Redeye, Rip Kirby, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Sibling Revelry, Small Society, Suburban Cowgirls, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tight Corner, Trudy, Winnie Winkle, Word For Word

1 – Belvedere, Between Friends, Duffy, Family Business, Flintstones, Graffiti, Heart of Juliet Jones, Lack of Focus, Laff-A-Day, Laffbreak, Max’s World, Miss Peach, Modesty Blaise, Moose Lake, Out of Bounds, Professor Doodle’s, Single Slices, Smart Alex, Smith Family, Tribune Toon, Tundra, Two Toes, What A Guy, Wild Life, Wit of The World

Remember, The 300 Results are also available in an  extended format, showing in which specific newspapers each feature ran. This is available as a Word document; just drop a line to strippersguide@gmail.com.