Wednesday, March 06, 2024
Obscurity of the Day: Mr. Lowe
Okay, so when I decided that Mr. Lowe would make a good Obscurity of the Day, I didn't know that the strip had been appearing in re-runs on GoComics for several years. Hmm, not so terribly obscure after all. But hey, it's a great strip, and I did the scanning, so yer gettin' 'em.
Mark Pett's Mr. Lowe is a strip about an enthusiastic young grade school teacher, a subject that Pett knew very, very well since he had recently been one. Pett sold the strip to Creators Syndicate, who in my opinion had every reason to think they had a winner on their hands. The strip is sweet but never saccharine, the gags are consistent, funny and very much rooted in reality, and the art is pretty darn fab. Pile on to that list of plusses that the strip is about a subject very relatable to teachers and students, two big juicy demographics, and it seems like a powerhouse.
So now is usually when I try to explain why it might not have gone so well. But on this one I'm a bit flummoxed. The best I can come up with is that it got lost among a number of other good strips that debuted in 2000 -- Baldo, James, Monkeyhouse, Pooch Cafe, Red and Rover, Soup to Nutz, Six Chix ... that's a lot of tough competition for very few opening slots. I'll say one thing; it'll be interesting to see what Jeffrey Lindenblatt has to tell us about new features in The 300 series when he gets to year 2000.
Mister Lowe debuted in a very small number of papers on May 15 2000*, and the last I can find it running is February 10 2001**. It was a Sunday and daily strip, but if the daily is rare, Sundays are like the proverbial hen's teeth. Surely some paper ran them?!?
If you're intrigued enough to read Mr. Lowe, you can get it on GoComics, and there was also a reprint book of the feature published back in 2002 by Cottonwood Press.
Mark Pett soon returned to syndication with (in my opinion) an even better strip, called Lucky Cow, about employees in a fast-food restaurant. This one managed to stick around for five years, but was barely touch and go for sales the whole time. Since then Pett has recognized the weird newspaper syndication curse that hangs over his head, and has perhaps wisely switched to other pursuits like illustrating books.
* Source: Cartoonist PROfiles #128.
** Source: Salt Lake Tribune.
Labels: Obscurities
I have the reprint book, which contains most, but not all, of the strips. The missing strips I saw for the first time when GoComics reran it.
