Stripper's Guide

 As mentioned in yesterday’s post, on December 31, 1995 Calvin and Hobbes ended its run. On the last survey Calvin appeared in 213 papers in our survey. This is the highest circulation for a strip we’ve seen come to an end. So which strips gained the most from Calvin ending? Well, the big winner is Dilbert by Scott Adams, which added a whopping 69 papers to its total. Other big winners were For Better or For Worse with 28 papers, Mallard Fillmore with 25 papers and Fox Trot with 21 papers.

Non Sequitur in 1995 started offering the strip in two formats, one as a regular daily comic strip and as a new daily panel version. In the process Non Sequitur added 13 papers. 15 papers either added the new panel format or decided to switch from the daily strip format to the single panel format. Mutts also gained 13 papers. Cathy and One Big Happy also gained 10 or more papers. Here is the breakdown of the strips that have gained 5 or more papers since last year.

Dilbert - 69
For Better or For Worse – 28
Mallard Fillmore - 25
Fox Trot – 21
Non Sequitur – 13
Mutts - 13
Cathy – 11
One Big Happy - 10
Baby Blues – 9
Rose Is Rose - 5

The losers of 1996 are generally new strips or long running panels. The biggest losers were the panel strip Chaos with a loss of 9 papers; the feature will end in a year. The next big loser was Big Nate, down by 7 papers; it had just gained 13 papers last year mainly because of the end of Winthrop. Here are the rest of the big losers for this year.

Chaos - 9
Big Nate - 7
Beattie Blvd. – 6
Walnut Cove – 6
Ziggy – 5
Berry’s World – 5
Mixed Media – 5
Dunagin’s People – 5
Ballard Street – 5

Adventure and Soap Strips
Soaps were down a big 9.1 percent from last year. With The Baltimore Evening Sun ending we have lost the last paper on this survey to run The Heart of Juliet Jones with about 5 years to go on that strip before it ended in 2000. Heart of Juliet Jones joins Secret Agent Corrigan and Tim Tyler’s Luck where we do not have an internet source (newspapers.com, Newspaper Archives, Genealogy Bank, Proquest and Google News) for this story strip in 1995. On The adventure strip front we have a rare increase of 2.8 percent. This is because of the debut of Terry and the Pirates and Ghost Story Club, which will surely set us up for a big drop next year. Notice in the list below they are the only adventure strips to post gains. Here is the breakdown:

Adventure (+3) (+2.8%)
Alley Oop – 31 (0)
Amazing Spider-Man – 13 (-2)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 11 (-1)
Dick Tracy – 10 (0)
Brenda Starr – 8 (0)
Terry and The Pirates – 6 (+6)
Ghost Story Club – 5 (+5)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 4 (-2)
Mickey Mouse – 3 (-2)
Rip Kirby – 3 (+1)
Little Orphan Annie – 2 (-1)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 1 (-1)


Soap (-12) – (-9.1 %)
Mary Worth – 43 (-4)
Rex Morgan – 36 (-2)
Judge Parker – 20 (-2)
Apartment 3-G – 11 (-3)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)
Winnie Winkle – 2 (0)
Heart of Juliet Jones – 0 (-1)

Let’s look at the Top 5 features of each decade as they stand in 1996.

Pre 1950
Blondie (1930) – 205
Mary Worth (1934/1940) – 43
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (1919) – 39    
Rex Morgan (1948) – 36
Alley Oop (1932) - 31

1950- 1959
Peanuts (1950) – 220
Beetle Bailey (1950) – 177
B.C. (1958) – 105
Hi and Lois (1954) – 101
Dennis The Menace (1951) - 80

1960-1969
Family Circus (1960) – 148
Wizard of Id (1964) – 106
Born Loser (1965) – 88
Andy Capp (1963) – 38
Eek and Meek (1965) - 20

1970 – 1979
Garfield (1978) – 220
For Better or For Worse (1979) – 197
Hagar The Horrible (1973) – 155
Cathy (1976) – 154
Doonesbury (1970) – 144

1980-89
Dilbert (1989) – 105
Fox Trot (1988) – 91
Mother Goose and Grimm (1984) – 60
Sally Forth (1982) – 57
Arlo and Janis (1985) - 37

1990 – 1996
Close To Home (1992) – 54
Mallard Fillmore (1993) – 49
Non Sequitur (1992) – 46
Baby Blues (1990) - 39    
Real Life Adventures (1991) – 25

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 5:29 AM