Stripper's Guide

 

In the heyday of Yellow Journalism, when Sunday circulation figures were more important to newspaper publishers even than the company's profit or loss, all sorts of freebies were given away with Sunday issues to stimulate those figures. One of those freebies were pictures that could be watercoloured by the buyer's children, using "special" inks printed directly on the pages. Add a little water and you could paint with the resulting concoctions. 

My educated guess is that those special inks were actually ink formulations that were found not to be colourfast and therefore poor choices for newspaper printing. This was, after all, in the days when publishers were still experimenting with ink formulas, looking for the quickest drying, most vibrant hues possible. The story of the Yellow Kid's origination, after all, was supposedly due to one of these experiments that required a nice big spot of yellow ink for testing. While I find the exact circumstances of the famous tale hard to swallow (there was already a workable yellow ink in use at this time), there is no doubt that colour ink experiments did take place. 

Anyway, back to today's One-Shot Wonder. Ed Carey neglected to sign this strip, but there's no doubt this is his work. It ran in the McClure colour comic section of August 17 1902 and the gag depends on the reader's knowledge of the watercolour stunts in use with some newspapers at the time, proof that they were quite common and well-known.

Labels: One-Shot Wonders

 

In their heyday New York's evening newspapers were designed with the evening commuter in mind. The stories tended to be short and punchy, the headlines lurid, and the comics catered to grown-up humour tastes. And yet sometimes decidedly different material snuck in, like Eleanor Schorer's Tumble Tom, which appeared in the Evening World daily from July 12 to September 18 1915. Tumble Tom was basically a rehash of Little Nemo, but with simpler stories and no apparent intent to entertain the grown-ups as well as the young 'uns.

In Tumble Tom a young boy divides his time between the waking world (Ope-Eye-World) and his version of Slumberland, called Bye-Low-Land. In Tom's dreamland there reside all the characters from the familiar fairy tales. In the confines of each daily strip he has a little adventure with the fairy tale characters and then wakes up, often to tell his mother of his experiences. It's a perfectly sweet strip, and no doubt was gobbled up by the children of Mr. Commuter when he arrived home and let them have the paper. 

But why did this strip, obviously geared for children, appear in the Evening World? The telltale answer comes in the running dates. In high summer New Yorkers, even cartoonists, took their vacations to get out of the blast furnace of NYC. The Evening World offered its A-list cartoonists leaves at this time of year, and that was an opportunity for cartoonists lower on the totem pole to get some of their wares accepted by the paper. Schorer took this opportunity to try out a kid's strip, as opposed to her more usual fodder of romantic material. Perhaps she was seeking to create a strip that would gain her a permanent berth with a regular title. If so it didn't work, and Tumble Tom took the long beddy-bye as the A-listers reappeared along with the cooler weather at their drawing boards.

Labels: Obscurities

 This year’s survey lost 3 papers, the News-Pilot (San Pedro, CA), San Bernardino County Sun (CA) and Pottsville Republican (PA). So the total for this survey is down to  254 papers. The loss of these three papers has caused an interesting situation at the top of the chart. Since two of these papers ran Garfield and not Peanuts, we now have a tie at the number one position.

In other Top 30 movements, Fox Trot added 7 papers and joined the 100 paper club and moved up 2 spots from 15 to 13. Zits being the big gainer this year it moved up 5 spots from #22 to 17. Rose is Rose enters the Top 30 while Arlo and Janis falls off.

Title (total 254 Papers)	Rank	Rank Change	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Same	-2	223
Peanuts	1	Up 1	1	223
Blondie	3	Same	-1	209
For Better or For Worse	4	Same	4	204
Beetle Bailey	5	Same	1	182
Dilbert	6	Same	13	178
Family Circus	7	Up 1	4	157
Hagar The Horrible	7	Same	-3	157
Cathy	9	Down 1	-4	149
Doonesbury	10	Same	-1	145
Hi and Lois	11	Same	-1	108
B.C.	12	Same	-1	107
Fox Trot	13	Up 2	7	102
Frank and Ernest	13	Same	-3	102
Wizard of Id	15	Down 1	0	99
Born Loser	16	Same	-2	90
Dennis The Menace	17	Same	-3	81
Zits	17	Up 5	21	81
Shoe	19	Down 1	-4	76
Sally Forth	20	Same	1	65
Marmaduke	21	Down 2	-4	63
Mother Goose and Grimm	22	Down 1	0	61
Baby Blues	23	Up 2	8	58
Close To Home	24	Up 1	4	54
Non Sequitur	24	Down 1	2	54
Ziggy	26	Down 3	1	53
Mallard Fillmore	27	Down 2	1	51
Jump Start	28	Up 2	3	43
Mary Worth	29	Down 1	-2	42
Rose Is Rose	29	Entering	5	42

 Not much movement on the universal comic section this year. The Top 6 and 7 had an increase and like last year the Arizona Republic won the most universal comic section running the Top 26 strips.

Top 2 – 209 (Up 5)
Top 3 – 182 (Up 6)
Top 4 – 157 (Up 5)
Top 5 – 124 (Same)
Top 6 – 88 (Down 3)
Top 7 – 71 (Down 4)
Top 8 – 63 (Up 4)
Top 9 – 56 (Up 9)
Top 10 – 48 (Up 12)
Top 11 – 33 (Up 11)
Top 12 – 23 (Up 8)
Top 13 – 7 (Down 2)
Top 14 – 6 (Up 3)
Top 15 – 4 (Up 1)
Top 16 – 3 (Up 1)
Top 17 – 2 (Same)
Top 18 – 1 (Same)
Top 19 – 1 (Same)
Top 20 – 1 (Same)
Top 21 – 1 (Same)
Top 22 -  1 (Same)
Top 23 -  1 (Same)
Top 24 – 1 (Same)
Top 25 – 1 (Same)
Top 26 – 1 (Same)


The Avenge Number of daily comics run by our papers went up just a tad. It is now 18.18 strips per paper, up from 18.03.

Here are the rest of the features that made this year's survey, along with the number of papers, and their increase or decrease from last year:


41 – Arlo & Janis (-1)

37 – Crankshaft (0), Rex Morgan (0)

36 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-1)

35 – Herman (+8)

33 – Mutts (+4)

32 – Funky Winkerbean (-1), Lockhorns (0), Luann (+2)

28 – Alley Oop (-2), Curtis (0)

25 – Andy Capp (-4), Grizzwells (-1), Kit N Carlyle (+4), Pickles (+3), Rubes (+3)

24 – In The Bleachers (-2), Marvin (-4)

23 - Real Life Adventures (-2)

21 – Geech (0)

19 – Eek and Meek (-1), Judge Parker (+1), Rugrats (R)

18 – One Big Happy (-1), Robotman (0)

17 – Bizarro (-3), Gasoline Alley (-2), Overboard (+1)

16 – Crabby Road (+2), Tank McNamara (-1)

14 – Big Nate (+1), Piranha Club (-1), Stone Soup (+2)

13 – Adam (-2), Drabble (0), Pluggers (0)

12 – Betty (+1), Fred Basset (-2), Mark Trail (0), Sherman Lagoon’s (+4)

11 – Buckles (0), Heathcliff (-5), Hocus-Focus (+3), Phantom (-2), Tiger (-2)

10 – Berry’s World (-3), Dave (+1), Dunigan’s People (+1), Mr. Boffo (0), Nancy (-2), Speed Bump (0), Sylvia (-1)

9 – Amazing Spider-Man (-2), Bound & Gagged (0), Middletons (-1)

8 – Apartment 3-G (-1), Dick Tracy (0), Gil Thorp (0), Zippy (0)

7 – Against The Grain (0), Brenda Starr (0), Duplex (0), I Need Help (-2), Rhymes With Orange (-2), They’ll Do It Every Time (+1)

6 – Buckets (-1), Citizen Dog (0), Herb & Jamaal (-1), Kuduz (0), Mixed Media (-4), Momma (0), Ralph (0)

5 – Archie (-2), Ben (R), Committed (+1), Free For All (+5), Fusco Brothers (0), Grin and Bear It (0), Horrorscope (0), Over The Hedge (-2), Safe Havens (0), Tumbleweeds (0)

4 – Crock, Dr. Katz, Liberty Meadows, 9 Chickweed Lane. Our Fascinating Earth, Strange Brew, That’s Jake, Twins

3 – Bliss, Bottom Liners, Broom Hilda, Comic For Kids, Dinette Set, Donald Duck, Love Is, Motley’s Crew, Murray’s Law, On The Fastrack, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Us & Them, Willy N Ethel

2 – Animal Crackers, Ballard Street, Better Half, Between Friends, Chubb & Chauncey, Claire & Weber, Cornered, Fair Game, Mandrake The Magician, Heart of The City, Meg!, Mickey Mouse, Nest Heads, New Breed, Norm, Quigmans, Redeye, Reality Check, Rip Kirby, Second Chances, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Tuttle, Warped

1 – Belvedere, Charlie, Farcus, Good Life, Graffiti, Laffbreak, Littlebuck, Little Orphan Annie, Loose Parts, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, No Huddle, Offline, Outcasts, Pellets, Raw Material, Rural Rootz, Small Society, Tarzan, Top of The World, Trudy, Tundra, Two Toes, Walnut Cove, Word for Word

Labels: Paper Trends

 After its big debut last year with 60 papers, Zits continued its growth by adding another 21, which is the biggest gainer of the year. Dilbert continues its growth adding another 13 papers. Baby Blues added 8 papers from last year, perhaps piggybacking on the success of Zits. Here is the list of the strips that gained 5 or more papers.

Zits - 21
Dilbert – 13
Baby Blues – 8
Herman – 8
Fox Trot – 7
Rose is Rose – 5

Only one strip lost 5 or more papers this year and that was Heathcliff with 5.

Adventure and Soap strips continue their slow downfall. Adventure lost 6 spots falling from 92 to 86 spots. Soaps lost 2 spots going from 114 to 112.

Spiderman dropped 2 papers this year. It falls below the 10-paper mark and has gone a long way down since it debuted in the 1978 survey with 50 papers.

Adventure (-6)

Alley Oop – 28 (-2)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 11 (-2)
Amazing Spider-Man – 9 (-2)
Dick Tracy – 8 (0)
Brenda Starr – 7 (0)
Mandrake The Magician – 2 (+1)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Rip Kirby – 2 (0)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 2 (-1)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (0)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Tarzan – 1 (0)


Soap (-2)

Mary Worth – 42 (-2)
Rex Morgan – 37 (0)
Judge Parker – 19 (+1)
Apartment 3-G – 8 (-1)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)

Labels: Paper Trends

In 1998 newspaper editors again went to the entertainment medium (movie and television) for the biggest rookie, trying again to get the kids to read newspapers. Of course this did not work in the long run. The rookie winner was Rugrats; the kid’s show that was airing on Nickelodeon debuted in 19 papers. The remaining rookies did not make a significant impact in 1998. Only one other strip got 5 or more papers and that was Ben by Daniel Shelton which also got 5 papers, 4 of them being in Canada. Here is the complete but very short list of 1998 rookies:

 Rugrats – 19

Ben – 5

Murray’s Law – 3

Clarie & Weber, Heart of The City, Nest Heads – 2

Littlebuck, No Huddle, Offline (remarketing of old Smart Chart feature), Raw Material, Top of The World – 1

Labels: Paper Trends

 

Labels: Wish You Were Here