Stripper's Guide

This half-pager was done for the McClure comic section of February 9 1902. As was their practice at the time, McClure often devoted pretty much their whole section to holiday themes, and this section was all about Valentine's Day. 

Although I have no doubt that Herriman could produce some passable poetry, for him to do so is quite a rarity. In fact, I'm going to take a guess that in this piece George might well be illustrating the doggerel of some other McClure scribe. What do you think?

Labels: Herriman One-Shots

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Back in the olden days, valued employees of a firm were given outmoded things called vacations as a perquisite. Even cartoonists, later viewed more as commodities than actual people, were offered these benefits. 

Granted, many employers failed to get into the whole reason for vacations, to take a breather and recharge the batteries, and told their cartoonists that they were welcome to take vacations -- all they had to do was work twice as hard beforehand in order to create a backlog of material. Shame on them, but then as now some employers can't see beyond the tip of their financial statements. 

The New York Evening World was an exception. Despite Pulitzer's reputation as a bit of a slavedriver, cartoonists in his bullpen did actually get vacations in the 1910s, the heyday of that paper. Better yet, instead of ruining the thing by making the cartoonists work double-time in order to earn that vacation, instead another bullpenner would take up the slack for the vacationing cartoonist. Above we have a particularly delightful example of that practice. 

In 1919 Vic Forsythe was riding high producing the popular new strip Joe's Car (later Joe Jinks) for the Evening World. When vacation time came around, fellow bullpen cartoonist Ferd Long was called upon to spell Vic with a substitute strip. Usually these substitute strips were tryouts, where the stand-in would make his play to come up with a new strip that would impress the readers enough to be invited to continue. Long was an old hand, though, and coming toward the end of his career. Instead of trying to to create the next blockbuster hit strip, he simply imagined what sorts of things might be happening on Forsythe's vacation. The title, simply enough, was Vic's Vacation. I imagine Long and the rest of the bullpen got quite a kick out of cooking up the ultimate bad vacation for Vic. 

As this was the end of the teens, and national syndication was quickly making this sort of practice outmoded, Vic's Vacation was not a complete replacement. In the Evening World Vic's Vacation ran on alternating days with new Joe's Car strips. In syndication, for which I gather Vic's Vacation was not considered a great fit for some reason, there were a limited number of Vic's Vacation strips distributed, and the additional slack was taken up with Jazbo Jones, a fill-in strip that ran very rarely in the home paper, and additional Joe's Car strips (reruns, presumably, though I haven't gone to the trouble to determine for sure). 

Vic's Vacation ran on alternate weekdays in the New York Evening World from June 28 to August 8 1919, less often in syndication. 

Thanks to Mark Johnson who supplied the samples above.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

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:

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:

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:

 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.

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 1 comments

With the end of the popular Far Side on January 1, 1995. the flood gates open for panel features to fill  the missing spot. The big winners were Close To Home with 30 papers coming on, and in second with 23 papers was Rubes. Dilbert was the biggest daily strip gainer with 20 papers. Fox Trot continues its growth with 17 papers. With the end of Winthrop in 1994,  some NEA clients opted to swap in Big Nate, but it  only gained 13 papers even though Winthrop had 33 papers in the last survey. The other 20 was taken up by other strips but most likely since NEA is owned by United Features at this time many picked up Dilbert. Here is the breakdown of the big gainers and how many papers each gained.

Close To Home – 30
Rubes - 23
Dilbert - 20
Fox Trot – 17
Big Nate - 13
Crankshaft - 9
For Better or For Worse – 9
Non Sequitur – 9
Quigmans – 9
Ballard Street - 7
Luann - 6
Baby Blues - 5
Family Circus – 5
Real Life Adventures – 5

The losers for 1994 were all strips that have been in the newspapers for over 15 years. With the influx of new strips, editors seemed open to experimentation. The biggest loser was Shoe with 13 papers. Coming in second with a 9 paper loss was Wizard of Id and in third continuing its downfall with 7 papers was Andy Capp. With so many panel holes to fill from Far Side, it’s really kind of amazing that there are panel features on this list at all, but somehow Marmaduke and Heathcliff managed to make the worst of a big opportunity. Here are the strips that lost 5 or more papers this year.

Shoe - 13
Wizard of Id – 9
Andy Capp – 7
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith - 6
Beetle Bailey – 6
Hagar The Horrible – 6
Marmaduke – 6
Tank McNamara – 6
Born Loser – 5
Farcus- 5
Heathcliff - 5
Hi & Lois – 5
Mary Worth – 5
Word For Word – 5

Both adventure and soap strips went down, with not a single gainer in the bunch. Adventure strips went down 10 percent and soaps went down 9 percent. Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, the top two soap strips, had the biggest losses in their category; that could be the same pattern that we see happening to long running strips in general this year. Here are the breakdowns:

Adventure
Alley Oop – 31 (-1)
Amazing Spider-Man – 15 (-3)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 12 (-1)
Dick Tracy – 10 (-1)
Brenda Starr – 8 (-1)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 6 (1)
Mickey Mouse – 5 (0)
Little Orphan Annie – 3 (0)
Rip Kirby – 2 (-2)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 2 (-4)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)

Soap
Mary Worth – 47 (-5)
Rex Morgan – 38 (-3)
Judge Parker – 22 (0)
Apartment 3-G – 14 (-1)
Gil Thorp – 8 (-1)
Winnie Winkle – 2 (-1)
Heart of Juliet Jones – 1 (-1)

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

 As we enter 1995 and 1996 we are going to have lots of empty slots for rookies to fill ... if they’re lucky. Two hugely popular features will end in 1995, Far Side on January 1 1995 and Calvin & Hobbes on December 31 1995. The syndicates will already have a new replacement for the dates January 3, 1995, and January 2, 1996. And since I look at the first week of the current year the immediate replacements will appear on this list. Of course, many papers will replace these features with proven strips, and those we can gauge on “Winners and Losers”,  tomorrow.

The biggest rookie of the year is a strip that was the long-awaited conservative answer to Doonesbury, Mallard Fillmore by Bruce Tinsley. Many papers would add the new strip to the editorial page, where it ran as a counterpoint to the liberal Doonesbury. The strip debuts on this survey with a whopping 24 papers, a big debut. Coming in second with 20 papers is Jack Ohman’s Mixed Media. The biggest panel debut came in third at 17 papers, the short-lived Chaos. Coming fourth with 8 papers is a strip that would eventually be seen as a modern classic, Mutts. Here is the complete breakdown:

Mallard Fillmore – 24
Mixed Media – 20
Chaos – 17
Mutts – 8
Committed – 6
Thatch – 6
Speed Bump – 6    
Crabby Road – 5 – Debut in the first week of 1995
Ralph – 5 – Debut in the first week of 1995    
Tight Corner – 2
Max’s World – 1 (local feature)
Moose Lake – 1
Smart Alex – 1
Tribune Toon – 1 (local feature)
Two Toes – 1

Labels: Paper Trends

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 2 comments

Here's another Foxy Grandpa postcard from the Hearst giveaway 'Li'l Arsonist' series of 1906. 

As this post is written, I just lost an auction for the first ever uncut page of these cards I've come across since starting my postcard collection. Evidently they are in serious demand as my bids were summarily bested no matter how high I went. I waved the white flag after we got up to $120 for three sheets.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 2 comments