Stripper's Guide

 

June 1 1910 -- A bittersweet announcement goes with this post. As we come to June 1910 in our complete reprinting of Herriman's LA Examiner cartoons, we have reached his final month with the paper. Yes, believe it or not, Herriman won't be at the Examiner for the Fight of the Century on July 4. Instead he'll be in New York starting a little strip called The Family Upstairs before the month is out, and finally carving out his exalted place in the history of newspaper cartooning.

This Stripper's Guide series has been running since June 2 2007, believe it or not. It has taken us a decade and a half to chronicle all of Herriman's (major) cartoons for the Examiner from 1906 to 1910, roughly three times as long as it took Herriman to produce them. 

There are now just four cartoons left. Be here for all of 'em!

Anyway, on to today's cartoon. The big parade is to celebrate the local fight card put together for Labor Day, featuring the headline bout between Tommy Burns and Sam Langford. Leading the parade for some reason is Charles Eyton, the referee. 

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

 

After dropping the popular Lady Bountiful Sunday strip, Gene Carr inexplicably decided to follow it up with what I consider a rather limp and uninspired Sunday strip titled Step-Brothers. It was a creativity-deficient Katzenjammer Kids knock-off that ran for almost seven years in Pulitzer's Funny Side Sunday section, from 1907 to 1914. Why Carr, a cartoonist of no small ability, would waste his time for so long on such dreck I cannot imagine, but he did. And there's no telling how long it could have gone on, but luckily in 1914 Pulitzer snagged Rudolph Dirks who was about to bring his original Katzenjammer Kids to the Funny Side. This development forced Carr to find something else to do in his space. We'll cover more about Step-Brothers one of these days, but today we're going to go deeper into obscurity with the successor/continuation/refocusing of that strip.

Step-Brothers starred a pair of kids (natch), whose adult antagonists/victims were Uncle Crabapple and Major Stuff. Once Carr had beaten the Katzies angle far enough into the ground to hit magma, he now refocused the strip on the two adults. The 'new' strip debuted on May 10 1914*, the week after the last official Step-Brothers strip (and a month before Dirks would make his debut). At first the kids were still around sometimes, but their roles were significantly reduced. By July the pair had decided to go camping, and for the next half-year the gags (as you will see above) all relate to the two city-dwellers adapting to life in the wilderness. 

The pair were finally brought back to the city, but they were no funnier there. The strip ended on February 21 1915, to be followed the next week with the revival of Lady Bountiful, which maybe Carr should have just stuck with in the first place.

The strip didn't really have an official title, but instead mentioned one of the two characters in the headlines; I elected to offer an 'official' Stripper's Guide title of Major Stuff only because I seem to see his name in the headline a little more often.

* Source: All dates from St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

 

Labels: Obscurities

This year we lost 3 more papers. The Alabama Journal (Montgomery AL) merged with another paper. The Petaluma Argus Courier (CA) and the Press-Tribune (Roseville, CA) decided that it was not in their best interest to publish every day. Both papers decided to cut down to twice a week, and so that was the end of their daily strips. Thie 1994 survey covers 261 papers.

 In the top 30  the biggest moves were Sally Forth and Fox Trot, both moving up 2 spots to 20 and 23 respectively. Since Andy Capp lost 8 more papers it fell 4 spots from 21 to 25. The Lockhorns enter the Top 30 while Marvin falls out.

 In the last survey Far Side reached number 5 with 195 papers. Would Far Side have hit the 200 club if it hadn’t been retired? We’ll never know, because this is the calm before the storm. Next year we will see the big chance for the other daily panels when Far Side ends. Two more years down the line and we’ll lose Calvin & Hobbes, another huge shake-up. I wonder what had happened with Far Side and Calvin was a major reason for both Peanuts and For Better or For Worse not to end but go into re-runs.

 

Title	Place	Movement	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Peanuts	1	Same	2	222
Garfield	2	Same	0	216
Calvin and Hobbes	3	Same	3	211
Blondie	4	Same	-1	206
Far Side	5	Same	2	195
Beetle Bailey	6	Same	-4	184
For Better or For Worse	7	Up 1	1	162
Hagar The Horrible	8	Down 1	-3	160
Doonesbury	9	Same	1	147
Cathy	10	Same	1	142
Family Circus	10	Up 1	5	142
Wizard of Id	12	Same	1	118
B.C.	13	Same	-2	109
Frank and Ernest	14	Same	-3	105
Hi and Lois	15	Up 1	0	103
Shoe	16	Down 1	-6	100
Born Loser	17	Same	1	97
Dennis The Menace	18	Same	3	84
Marmaduke	19	Same	1	66
Sally Forth	20	Up 2	4	59
Mother Goose and Grimm	21	Down 1	1	58
Ziggy	22	Same	0	55
Fox Trot	23	Up 2	3	53
Mary Worth	24	Same	-2	52
Andy Capp	25	Down 4	-8	48
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	26	Same	-2	46
Arlo and Janis	27	Same	-1	42
Rex Morgan	28	Same	-2	41
Funky Winkerbean	29	Up 1	2	37
Lockhorns	30	Entering	1	35

 

Again, the Universal Comic Section continues to grow.

 Top 2 – 199 (Up 1)

Top 3 – 180 (Up 3)

Top 4 – 161 (Up 5)

Top 5 – 139 (Up 5)

Top 6 – 117 (Up 2)

Top 7 – 90 (Up 4)

Top 8 – 71 (Up 5)

Top 9 – 58 (Up 5)

Top 10 – 51 (Up 4)

Top 11 – 39 (Up 4)

Top 12 – 30 (Up 3)

Top 13 – 24 (Up 2)

Top 14 – 8 (Up 1)

Top 15 – 5 (Down 1)

Top 16 – 3 (Same)

Top 17 – 1 (Same)

 The Galveston Daily News (TX) won again this year universal comic section newspaper.

Here are the remaining results of the 1994 survey.

33	Marvin (-3), Winthrop (-1)
32	Alley Oop (0)
30	Tank McNamara (+1)
29	Gasoline Alley (-4)
28	Crankshaft (+5), Eek and Meek (-4)
26	Berry’s World (+6), Heathcliff (+2), Rose is Rose (+1)
25	Baby Blues (+15), Farcus (+4), Grizzwells (-2)
24	Geech (0), In The Bleachers (0), Non Sequitur (+5)
23	Curtis (+3), Kit ‘N’ Carlyle (0)
22	Close to Home (+13), Judge Parker (-2)
21	Jump Street (+2), Luann (0)
20	Beattie Blvd/Snafu (+1), Real Life Adventures (-3)
18	Amazing Spider-Man (+2), Nancy (+1)
17	Adam (+4), Bizarro (+2)
16	Dilbert (+4), Overboard (+3)
15	Apartment 3-G (0), Ernie (+1), Fred Basset (+2), Robotman (-1)
14	Pluggers (R)
13	Dunagin’s People (+1), Phantom (-1), Sylvia (+3), Tumbleweeds (0)
12	Dave (+5), Drabble (+1), Herb and Jamaal (+2), Mark Trail (-2), Tiger (-2)
11	Archie (-1), Buckets (+2), Dick Tracy (0), Walnut Cove (-1)
10	Hocus-Focus (+5), Pop Culture (+1)
9	Brenda Starr (0), Gil Thorp (-1), Kuduz (+1), Rubes (0)
8	Fusco Brothers (+2), Pickles (+5), Safe Havens (0)
7	Bound & Gagged (-2), Crock (0), Middletons (0), Momma (-1), Mr. Boffo (0), Word for Word (+2), Zippy (0)
6	Betty (0), Comic For Kids (-1), Donald Duck (-1), Grin and Bear It (-1), Hazel (0), One Big Happy (-1), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (-2), That’s Jake (0), They’ll Do It Every Time (-2), Willy N’ Ethel (-1)
5	Bent Offering (+3), Big Nate (-2), Broom Hilda (-3), Duplex (R), Francie (0), Horrorscope (-1), Mickey Mouse (-1), Motley’s Crew (0), Sherman’s Lagoon (+1), Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (-2)
4	Animal Crackers, 9 Chickweed Lane, On The Fastrack, Our Fascinating Earth, Redeye, Rip Kirby
3	Agatha Crumm, Better Half, Curious Avenue, Ducking Out, In A Word, Little Orphan Annie, Love Is, New Breed, Quality Time, Sports Hall of Shame, Trudy, Winnie Winkle
2	Bottom Liners, Catfish, Chubb & Chauncey, Ferd’Nand, Heart of Juliet Jones, Laff-A-Day, Moose Miller, Off The Leash, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Ryatts, Sibling Revelry, Single Slices, Small Society, Suburban Cowgirls, Tar Pit, Wit of the World
1	Ask Shagg, Ballard Street, Belvedere, Ben Wicks, Drawing from Life, Duffy, Family Business, First Lady, Flintstones, Graffiti, Guy Stuff, Kaleb, Lack of Focus, Laffbreak, Meet Mr. Luckey, Miss Peach, Modesty Blaise, Nooz, Outcasts, Out of Bounds, Play Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Potluck, Professor Doodles, Quigmans, Smith Family, Stan Smith Tennis Class, Wild Life

 

Labels: Paper Trends

 The top two gainers this year are strips that both began earlier in the 1990’s. Baby Blues gained 15 paper and Close to Home gained 13. The success might be in the vein of the Garfield boom in the early 1980’s with its successful book series. Both Baby Blues and Close to Home had two successful collection books in print at this time. The remaining big gainer is a nice mix of old and new strips. Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side did not make the top gainers list this year, maybe they reached a point of saturation that they could not gain many new papers. Here are the big gainers:

Baby Blues – 15
Close To Home - 13
Berry’s World – 6
Family Circus – 5
Crankshaft – 5
Non Sequitur – 5
Dave – 5
Hocus-Focus – 5
Pickles - 5

PS – Both Calvin and Far Side did gain a few papers. Calvin with 3 and Far Side with 2.

For big losers this year we have only two. Andy Capp continued its downfall by losing 8 more papers. Andy Capp is a classic case where the times change. A strip about a drunkard in the 1990’s was not a popular subject. Even though Jeff MacNelly had the big rookie with Pluggers his earlier strip, Shoe, lost 6 papers this year.  There were no other strips that lost 5 or more paper this year.

Adventure strips continue their decline, but lost only 7 combined spaces this year. Amazing Spider-Man gained 2 papers perhaps because of its Mutant Agenda crossover with Marvel Comics. This was a marketing gimmick in which Marvel published a three issue mini-series, but the fourth ‘issue’ has readers clip the newspaper strip and glue it into a comic book.

The daily version of Flash Gordon came to an last year; we have one paper on file that ran it to the end. That cannot be said for Secret Agent Corrigan and Tim Tyler’s Luck, which are all still available this year, but we have not even a single taker among our surveyed papers. Popeye’s only remaining paper dropped it, but it was not a big loss because the Popeye dailies were in re-run at this time. Here is the breakdown:

Adventure strips overall (-7)
Alley Oop – 32 (0)
Amazing Spider-Man – 18 (+2)
Phantom – 13 (-1)
Mark Trail – 12 (-2)
Dick Tracy – 11 (0)
Brenda Starr – 9 (0)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 6 (-2)
Mickey Mouse – 5 (-1)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 5 (-2)
Rip Kirby – 4 (+1)
Little Orphan Annie – 3 (0)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Popeye – 0 (-1)
Flash Gordon – 0 (-1)  ** ended

The soap strips this year lost more papers than the adventure strips they lost 8 papers. Not a single one managed to gain papers. Here is the breakdown:

Soap strips overall (-8)
Mary Worth – 52 (-2)
Rex Morgan – 41 (-2)
Judge Parker – 22 (-2)
Apartment 3-G – 15 (0)
Gil Thorp – 9 (-1)
Winnie Winkle – 3 (0)
Heart of Juliet Jones – 2 (-1)

Labels: Paper Trends

In 1993 there was only one rookie strip that had  early success and that was the daily panel Pluggers by Jeff MacNelly which debuts in our listings with 14 papers. Its early success is most likely because of MacNelly’s successful strip Shoe. Editors seem to like buying features from creators with a proven track record.

None of the other rookie strips got more than 5 papers but as you can see from the list many of them are still running today. Here are all the rookies:

Pluggers – 14
The Duplex – 5
9 Chickweed Lane – 4
In A Word – 3
Bottom Liners – 2
Tar Pit – 2
Drawing From Life, The First Lady, Lack of Focus - 1

Labels: Paper Trends

 

Here's another card from Grace Drayton's Glad Easter Series, otherwise known as Raphael Tuck Series 1000. Unlike some others from this series in which there is reasonable question over whether the art is actually by Drayton, I'd wager a nickel or two that this is the real thing. What say you?

Labels: Wish You Were Here