Stripper's Guide

This year we did not lose any papers, but 3 more papers were missing from the archives; they will all return in a future poll. The count for this survey is 250 papers.

Since Peanuts lost 20 papers the strip fell from its number 2 spot down to number 4. This enabled For Better or For Worse to move up to the number 3 spot. With Shoe losing 15 papers the strip fell from #19 to 24. Our biggest gainer was Zits, which moved from 16 to 12.

Title (250 Papers)	Rank	Rank +/-	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Same	-5	218
Blondie	2	Same	-4	206
For Better or For Worse	3	Up 1	-2	203
Peanuts	4	Down 2	-20	190
Dilbert	5	Up 1	2	184
Beetle Bailey	6	Down 1	-6	178
Family Circus	7	Same	-1	163
Hagar The Horrible	8	Same	-2	159
Doonesbury	9	Up 1	-1	142
Cathy	10	Down 1	-11	134
Fox Trot	11	Same	5	115
Zits	12	Up 4	17	114
B.C.	13	Down 1	3	110
Hi and Lois	14	Down 2	-2	105
Frank and Ernest	15	Down 1	-7	93
Wizard of Id	15	Same	-6	93
Born Loser	17	Same	-3	87
Dennis The Menace	18	Same	-1	82
Baby Blues	19	Up 1	12	80
Sally Forth	20	Up 2	4	68
Marmaduke	21	Same	-3	61
Mother Goose and Grimm	22	Up 1	-1	58
Non Sequitur	22	Up 2	4	58
Shoe	24	Down 5	-15	57
Mallard Fillmore	25	Up 2	2	50
Rose Is Rose	26	Up 1	1	49
Jump Start	27	Up 2	1	48
Close To Home	28	Down 3	-4	47
Ziggy	28	Down 2	-3	47
Arlo and Janis	30	Same	2	45

The Average Number of Comic Strip per paper went up again; 18.668 strips per paper from last year’s total of 18.41.

Universal Comics Page

Over the past 80 years when you picked up a paper from another town or city in most cases you would read some of the strips that appeared in your local paper but mostly you would see strips that you have never seen before. By the 1980s, with the slow demise of newspapers beginning and fewer papers around to compete for features, more papers had the opportunity to buy strips that were not available to them before. This could lead to more variety from one paper to another, but instead, the editors of these papers would do the opposite and just pick the most popular strips. As this way of filling a comics page became more and more prevalent, you would now see many of the same comics in every paper.The Universal Comic Section is a measure of how many papers run the most popular strips. 

With a lot of classic strips being dropped the universal section had a shake-up this year. We only made it to the Top 16 strips before originality reared its head, but instead of one paper we had 4 papers that had the Top 16: El Paso Times (TX), Hartford Courant (CT), Montgomery Advertiser (AL) and Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL)

Top 2 – 186 (Down 4)
Top 3 – 165 (Down 8)
Top 4 – 139 (Down 14)
Top 5 – 113 (Down 11)
Top 6 - 95 (Down 6)
Top 7 – 83 (Down 4)
Top 8 – 68 (Down 2)
Top 9 – 53 (Down 4)
Top 10 – 41 (Down 3)
Top 11 – 23 (Same)
Top 12 – 19 (Up 5)
Top 13 – 13 (Up 2)
Top 14 – 10 (Up 6)
Top 15 – 9 (Up 5)
Top 16 – 4 (Same)
Top 17 – 0 (Down 1)

Here are the rest of strips that did not make the Top 30:

42 – Crankshaft – (0), Luann – (+3)

39 – Mary Worth (-3), Mutts (+5)

38 – Funky Winkerbean (+2)

36 – Rex Morgan (+1)

35 – Pickles (+5)

33 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-1), Herman (-2), Lockhorns (+1)

30 – Alley Oop (0)

28 – Boondocks (+5), Curtis (0), Get Fuzzy (+15)

24 – Kit N Carlyle (-1)

22 – Grizzwells (-3)

21 – Geech (+1), In The Bleachers (-1)

20 – Marvin (-2), Robotman (+2)

19 – Judge Parker (0), Sherman’s Lagoon (+4)

18 – One Big Happy (0), Real Life Adventures (-1), Rubes (0)
16 – Baldo (R), Crabby Road (+1)

15 – Bizarro (0), Gasoline Alley (-1)

14 – Adam (+1), Betty (+1), Lola (+4), Pluggers (0), Stone Soup (+1)

13 – Andy Capp (-3), Big Nate (-1), Drabble (0), Overboard (-3)

12 – Anges (+3), Buckles (+1), Fred Basset (0), Grand Avenue (-2), Heathcliff (0), Mark Trail (0)

11 – Phantom (0), Soup To Nuts (R), Tank McNamara (-2), Tiger (0)

10 – Berry’s World (0), Piranha Club (-2), Six Chix (R), Speed Bump (0)

9 – Dunagin’s People (0), Sylvia (-1)

8 – Gil Thorp (0), Heart of The City (+1), Hocus Focus (-2), Middletons (-1), Nancy (-2), That’s Life (+4), Zippy (0)

7 – Apartment 3-G (-1), Brenda Starr (0), Dinette Set (+2), Herb & Jamaal  (-1), Liberty Meadows (+4), Rhymes with Orange (-1), Rugrats (-6), Shirley and Son (R)

6 – Dick Tracy (-1), Duplex (-1), Fusco Brothers (+1), I Need Help (0), Mr. Boffo (-2), Off The Mark (0), Red & Rover (R), Strange Brew (+1)

5 – Amazing Spider-Man (-2), Archie (0), Ben (0), Bound & Gagged (0), Citizen Dog (0), Committed (-1), Grin and Bear It (0), Kuduz (0), 9 Chickweed Lane (0), Pokeman (R), Safe Havens (0), They’ll Do IT Every Time (-1)

4 – Buckets, Crock, Horrorscope, Momma, Over The Hedge, Randolph Itch, Tumbleweeds, Twins

3 - Cats With Hands, Coast, Comic For Kids, Cornered, Donald Duck, James, Love Is, Mixed Media, Our Fascinating Earth, Pooch Café, Ralph, That’s Jake

2 - Ballard Street, Better Half, Between Friends, Bobo’s Progress, Broom Hilda, Chubb & Chauncey, Helen Sweetheart of The Internet, Loose Parts, Meg, Mickey Mouse, Natural Selection, Nest Heads, New Breed, Norm, Offsides, On The Fastrack, Redeye, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Tarzan, Willy N Ethel

1 – Aminals, Animal Crackers, Belvedere, Big Picture, Bit Off, Bottom Liners, Do Not Disturb, Edge City, Fair Game, Flight Deck, Good Life, Laffbreak, Little Orphan Annie, Mandrake The Magician, Meehan Streak, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Mulch, Offline, Out of Bounds, Playing Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Quigmans, Raising Hector, Reality Check, Saturday Afternoon, Single Slices, Spooner, Squinkers, Top Secrets, Tundra, Warped

Labels: Paper Trends

The biggest gainer in 2001 was a repeat of last year. Cartoonist Jerry Scott’s two strips, Zits and Baby Blues, added a combined 29 papers between them, which is three more than his amazing performance of the year before. The other big gainer was last year’s bronze rookie winner, Get Fuzzy, which added 15 more papers, stepping up to silver.

Here are the strips that added at least 5 papers or more. You will see an interesting pattern with these strips:

Zits – 17
Get Fuzzy - 15
Baby Blues - 12
Fox Trot – 5
Mutts – 5
Pickles – 5
Boondocks - 5

As we begin a new century, we can see the mindset of the feature editors was “out with old and in with the new.” All the strips that gained 5 or more papers this year are relatively young strips.
 

The strips that were the biggest losers were mainly veterans. Leading the pack as with last year was a strip that went into reruns. Peanuts dropped 20 papers. The other big loser this year was  Shoe, which dropped 15 papers and Cathy with 11 papers. Here are all the strips that lost 5 or more papers:

Peanuts – 20
Shoe - 15
Cathy – 11
Frank and Ernest - 7
Beetle Bailey – 6
Wizard of Id – 6
Rugrats - 6
Garfield – 5

The continuing pattern of adventure and soap strips losing papers continued in 2001 with adventures strips losing 4 spots and soaps losing 3.

Adventure (-4)
Alley Oop – 30 (0)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 11 (0)
Brenda Starr – 7 (0)
Dick Tracy – 6 (-1)
Amazing Spider-Man – 5 (-2)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 2 (0)
Tarzan – 2 (0)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (0)
Mandrake the Magician – 1 (0)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Zorro – 0 – (-1)

Soaps (-3)
Mary Worth – 39 (-3)
Rex Morgan – 36 (+1)
Judge Parker – 19 (0)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)
Apartment 3-G – 7 (-1)

Ended -- Heart of Juliet Jones, but it was already at 0 papers in the survey

Labels: Paper Trends

Last year our biggest rookie focused on a minority group in this country, the African American community, with the strip Boondocks. This year our top rookie focuses on a different minority community, Latinos, with the strip Baldo that gets 16 papers in our survey. Other big debuts were Soup to Nutz with 11 and Six Chix with 10. Here is the complete list of the Rookies for the past year:

Baldo – 16
Soup To Nutz – 11
Six Chix – 10
Shirley and Son – 7
Red and Rover – 6
Pokemon – 5
Randolph Itch Two A.M. – 4
The Coast (revival of Leftcoast, aka The Other Coast), Pooch Cafe – 3
Helen Sweetheart of The Internet, Natural Selection, Offsides – 2
A Bit Off, Mulch, Raising Hector, Saturday Afternoon, Spooner, Squinkers - 1

Labels: Paper Trends

In this year’s survey we lost only one paper and again it is a newspaper publisher who had a morning and evening paper closing one of them. This time it was the Indianapolis News. So the total papers reviewed for this survey is 253 papers.

The biggest mover in the Top 30 was Baby Blues, which moved up 3 spots from 23 to 20. With the end of the original Peanuts, the most popular strip in the last 20 plus years falls to number 2 tying with the most popular previous strip Blondie. Garfield now has the number 1 spot all to itself and I don’t think we are going to have a challenger in the future.

Arlo and Janis re-enters the Top 30 while Mary Worth falls out of the Top 30. With Mary Worth falling out of the Top 30 this means that all Top 30 strips are either sitcoms or gag a day strips.

Title (253 Papers)	Rank	Rank Change	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Same	0	223
Blondie	2	Up 1	1	210
Peanuts	2	Down 1	-13	210
For Better or For Worse	4	Same	1	205
Beetle Bailey	5	Same	2	184
Dilbert	6	Same	4	182
Family Circus	7	Same	7	164
Hagar The Horrible	8	Down 1	4	161
Cathy	9	Same	-4	145
Doonesbury	10	Same	-2	143
Fox Trot	11	Up 2	8	110
B.C.	12	Same	0	107
Hi and Lois	12	Down 1	-1	107
Frank and Ernest	14	Down 1	-2	100
Wizard of Id	15	Same	0	99
Zits	16	Up 1	16	97
Born Loser	17	Down 1	0	90
Dennis The Menace	18	Down 1	2	83
Shoe	19	Same	-4	72
Baby Blues	20	Up 3	10	68
Marmaduke	21	Same	1	64
Sally Forth	22	Down 2	-1	64
Mother Goose and Grimm	23	Down 1	-2	59
Non Sequitur	24	Same	0	54
Close To Home	25	Down 1	-3	51
Ziggy	26	Same	-3	50
Mallard Fillmore	27	Same	-3	48
Rose is Rose	27	Up 2	6	48
Jump Start	29	Down 1	4	47
Arlo and Janis	30	Returning	2	43

 

The average number of comic strips per paper went up to 18.41 from last year’s average of 18.18, a pretty big gain and perhaps helps to explain some of the strong debuts we saw.

On the Universal comic section there are big changes:

Top 2 – 190 (Down 19)
Top 3 – 173 (Down 9)
Top 4 – 153 (Down 4)
Top 5 – 124 (Same)
Top 6 – 101 (Up 13)
Top 7 – 87 (Up 16)
Top 8 – 70 (Up 7)
Top 9 – 57 (Up 1)
Top 10 – 44 (Down 4)
Top 11 – 23 (Down 10)
Top 12 – 14 (Down 9)
Top 13 – 11 (Up 4)
Top 14 – 4 (Down 2)
Top 15 – 4 (Same)
Top 16 – 4 (Up 1)
Top 17 – 1 (Down 1)
Top 18 – 1 (Same)
    

Here are the rest of the strips that made this year’s survey:

42 – Crankshaft (+5), Mary Worth (0)

39 – Luann (+7)

36 – Funky Winkerbean (+4)

35 – Herman (0), Rex Morgan (-2)

34 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-2), Mutts (+1)

32 – Lockhorns (0)

30 – Alley Oop (+2), Pickles (+5)

28 – Curtis (0)

25 – Grizzwells (0), Kit N Carlyle (0)

23 – Boondocks (R)

22 – In The Bleachers (-2), Marvin (-2)

20 – Geech (-1)

19 – Eek and Meek (0), Judge Parker (0), Real Life Adventures (-4)

18 – One Big Happy (0), Robotman (0), Rubes (-7)

16 – Andy Capp (-9), Gasoline Alley (-1), Overboard (-1)

15 – Bizarro (-2), Crabby Road (-1), Sherman’s Lagoon (+3)

14 – Big Nate (0), Grand Avenue (R), Pluggers (+1)

13 – Adam (0), Betty (+1), Drabble (0), Get Fuzzy (R), Rugrats (-6), Stone Soup (-1), Tank McNarama (-3)

12 – Fred Basset (0), Heathcliff (+1), Mark Trail (0), Piranha Club (-2)

11 – Buckles (0), Phantom (0), Tiger (0)

10 – Berry’s World (0), Hocus-Focus (-1), Lola (R), Nancy (0), Speed Bump (0), Sylvia (0)

9 – Agnes (R), Dunagin’s People (-1), Middletons (0)

8 – Apartment 3-G (0), Gil Thorp (0), Herb and Jamaal (+2), Mr. Boffo (-2), Rhymes with Orange (+1), Zippy (0)

7 – Amazing Spider-Man (-2), Brenda Starr (0), Dick Tracy (-1), Duplex (0), Heart of the City (+5)

6 – Against The Grain (-1), Buckets (0), Committed (+1), I Need Help (-1), Off the Mark (-1), They’ll Do It Every Time (-1)

5 – Archie (0), Ben (0), Bound  & Gagged (-4), Citizen Dog (-1), Dinette Set (+2), Fusco Brothers (0), Grin and Bear It (0), Kuduz (-1), 9 Chickweed Lane (+1), Our Fascinating Earth (+1), Safe Havens (0), Strange Brew (+1), Tumbleweeds (0)

4 – Crock, Horrorscope, Mixed Media, Momma, Ralph, That’s Life, Twins

3 – Ballard Street, Comic For Kids, Cornered, Donald Duck, Liberty Meadows, Love Is, Reality Check, That’s Jake, Willy N Ethel

2 – Animal Crackers, Better Half, Between Friends, Bobo’s Progress, Broom Hilda, Chubb & Chauncey, Clarie & Webber, Fair Game, Meg!, Mickey Mouse, New Breed, Norm, On The Fastrack, Over The Hedge, Quigmans, Redeye, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Second Chances, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Tarzan, Warped

1 – Best Years, Big Picture, Bottom Liners, Cats With Hands, Do Not Distrub, Ffram.com, Flight Deck, Good Life, Graffiti, Laffbreak, Little Orphan Annie, Loose Parts, Mandrake The Magician, Meehan Streak, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Nest Hands, Offline, Out of Bounds, Pooch Café, Raising Hector, Top Secret, Trudy, Tundra, Tuttle, Two Toes, Zorro

Labels: Paper Trends

The biggest gainer in 2000 was cartoonist Jerry Scott who had a one-two punch with a combined total of 26 papers added. Zits gained the most with 16 papers and Baby Blues, which gained 10 papers was the #2 gainer. Another big gainer was Fox Trot with 8 papers and Luann with 7 papers. Here is the list of all the strips that gained at least 5 papers during the past year.

Zits – 16
Baby Blues - 10
Fox Trot - 8
Family Circus – 7
Luann - 7
Rose is Rose – 6
Crankshaft – 5
Pickles – 5
Heart of The City - 5

The biggest losers did not happen until the first Monday of 2000. That is when the most successful strip of the second half of the 20th century, Peanuts, came to an end. Well, it did not really come to an end but went into reruns  In what was then a rare move, instead of ending the strip the syndicate started offering reprints from the year 1974. After that client papers had two options; they could run the older strips that were 4 panels long or the newer strips that were at most 3 panels long. Not all the current clients wanted reruns so 13 papers decided to drop the strip. But the vast majority signed on – that 13 paper drop represents only about 6% of Peanuts clients. And once syndicates realized that newspapers and readers would accept reruns, the practice started to flourish – a big blow to young cartoonists hoping to crack newspaper syndication.

Another big loser again was Andy Capp with a loss of 9 papers. Here is the complete list of strips that lost 5 or more papers.

Peanuts – 13
Andy Capp - 9
Rubes – 7
Rugrats – 6

On the story strip front the adventure strips and soap strips lost only 2 spots this year. This year we had the debut of the last pure adventure strip Zorro which only got 1 paper. Ten years from now we will have the debut of another adventure strip, Rip Haywire, but that falls in the category of comic adventure like Alley Oop.

Adventure (-2)
Alley Oop – 30 (+2)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 11 (0)
Amazing Spider-Man – 7 (-2)
Brenda Starr – 7 (0)
Dick Tracy – 7 (-1)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 2 (0)
Tarzan – 2 (+1)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (0)
Mandrake The Magician – 1 (-1)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Zorro – 1 (+1)

Ended
Rip Kirby – 2


Soaps (-2)
Mary Worth – 42 (0)
Rex Morgan – 35 (-2)
Judge Parker – 19 (0)
Apartment 3-G – 8 (0)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)

Labels: Paper Trends

How times have changed in a decade. Back in the late 1980s we had the beginning of the influx of strips that feature African American characters in leading roles.  Those strips were Curtis, Jump Start and Herb and Jamaal. The best any of these strips could muster was 8 client papers in their rookie years. Now in 1999 we have the introduction of the ‘black’ strip Boondocks by Aaron McGruder debuting with 23 papers to become the Top Rookie strip for 1999.  The Boondocks had already been in print for two years in the monthly hip hop magazine The Source, so it already had a bit of a track record. This is yet another attempt by feature editors to get a young and hip audience to read the daily newspaper.
 

There were more strong debuts this year from all of the top five rookies. Our top five represent an impressive 69 spots going to new features. Here are all the rest of the rookies:

Grand Avenue – 14
Get Fuzzy – 13
Lola - 10
Agnes – 9
That’s Life – 4
Bobo’s Progress – 2
Big Picture, Cats With Hands, Do Not Disturb (local), Ffarm.com, Flight Deck, Meehan Streak, Pooch Café (debuted in the first week of 2000 so not technically a rookie yet), Raising Hector (ditto), Top Secrets (local), Zorro – 1

Labels: Paper Trends

 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

In this year’s survey we lost one paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, not because the paper went out of business but because the information is not available online. But we did get two papers returning that were not available for the previous year, so this survey covers 256 papers.

In the Top 30 the biggest mover is Dilbert moving up 4 spots from 10 to 6. Baby Blues was the other big mover this year, moving up 2 spots from 27 to 25. Two strips moved into the Top 30. The first is the debut of Zits which debuted at the 22^nd position. Zits writer Jerry Scott became the second cartoonist to have two strips in the top 30 (the other is the Walker family with Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois). The other strip to enter the Top 30 is Jump Start at number 30. Three strips fell out of the Top 30 -- Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Crankshaft and Rex Morgan. With Barney Google falling out the oldest strip in the Top 30 is now Blondie and with Rex Morgan falling out that leaves only one adventure or soap strip in the thirty, Mary Worth.

Title (256 Papers)	Rank	Rank Change +/-	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Same	4	225
Peanuts	2	Same	3	222
Blondie	3	Same	4	210
For Better or For Worse	4	Same	-3	200
Beetle Bailey	5	Same	2	181
Dilbert	6	Up 4	28	165
Hagar The Horrible	7	Down 1	4	160
Cathy	8	Down 1	1	153
Family Circus	8	Same	2	153
Doonesbury	10	Same	1	146
Hi and Lois	11	Up 1	5	109
B.C.	12	Down 1	3	108
Frank and Ernest	13	Up 1	4	105
Wizard of Id	14	Down 2	-5	99
Fox Trot	15	Same	0	95
Born Loser	16	Same	4	92
Dennis The Menace	17	Up 1	3	84
Shoe	18	Down 1	-3	80
Marmaduke	19	Same	5	67
Sally Forth	20	Same	3	64
Mother Goose and Grimm	21	Same	1	61
Zits	22	Debut	Rookie	60
Non Sequitur	23	Up 1	1	52
Ziggy	23	Down 1	-3	52
Baby Blues	25	Up 2	9	50
Close To Home	25	Down 2	-2	50
Mallard Fillmore	25	Same	3	50
Mary Worth	28	Down 2	2	44
Arlo and Janis	29	Down 1	3	42
Jump Start	30	Entering	9	40

E&P Survey vs. Stripper's Guide The 300 Survey

The surveys I did for Editor & Publisher were of the top 100 papers in the US, by circulation. There’s an important difference in the criteria for that poll compared to The 300 – 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.

This is the last year we can compare the Top 25 from both surveys. Out of the 25 top strips, 23 of them are on both surveys. The main difference is because we have added smaller circulation papers to this survey, and many of them were using the NEA package which included their two more successful strips, Born Loser and Frank and Ernest. The E&P list has Prince Valiant in the Top 25, proving that Prince Valiant is the most successful adventure strip of all time and the most successful Sunday only strip.

Title	The 300 Ranking	The 300 # Papers	E&P Ranking	E&P # Papers
Garfield	1	225	1	94
Peanuts	2	222	4	90
Blondie	3	210	5	88
For Better or For Worse	4	200	3	90
Beetle Bailey	5	181	10	78
Dilbert	6	165	2	91
Hagar The Horrible	7	160	8	82
Cathy	8	153	7	86
Family Circus	8	153	9	81
Doonesbury	10	146	6	86
Hi and Lois	11	109	19	54
B.C.	12	108	13	68
Frank and Ernest	13	105	Unknown	Under 50
Wizard Of Id	14	99	12	70
Fox Trot	15	95	16	65
Born Loser	16	92	Unknown	Under 50
Dennis The Menace	17	84	11	71
Shoe	18	80	14	65
Marmaduke	19	67	17	63
Sally Forth	20	64	15	65
Mother Goose and Grimm	21	61	18	60
Zits	22	60	20	53
Non Sequiter	23	52	24	51
Ziggy	24	52	23	52
Baby Blues	25	50	21	53
Jump Start	30	40	22	52
Prince Valiant	No Daily Version		25	50

Universal Comics Page

Over the past 80 years when you picked up a paper from another town or city in most cases you would read some of the strips that appeared in your local paper but mostly you would see strips that you have never seen before. By the 1980s, with the slow demise of newspapers beginning and fewer papers around to compete for features, more papers had the opportunity to buy strips that were not available to them before. This could lead to more variety from one paper to another, but instead, the editors of these papers would do the opposite and just pick the most popular strips. As this way of filling a comics page became more and more prevalent, you would now see many of the same comics in every paper.The Universal Comic Section is a measure of how many papers run the most popular strips. 

The universal comic strip had growth in some papers and a drop in others. As last year, the most universal comic section had the top 26 strips but this time it is not Colorado Springs Gazette but The Arizona Republic. Here is the breakdown:

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 Average Number of Comic Strip per paper cracked 18 this year moving to an average of 18.03 from 17.59.

Here are the rest of the strips that made this year’s survey:

38 – Rose is Rose (+3)

37 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-1), Crankshaft (0), Rex Morgan (0)

33 – Funky Winkerbean (0)

32 – Lockhorns (+2)

30 – Alley Oop (0), Luann (+4)

29 – Andy Capp (-5), Mutts (+6)

28 – Curtis (+2), Marvin (+1)

27 – Herman (R)

26 – Grizzwells (+1), In The Bleechers (-1)

25 – Real Life Adventures (+2)

22 – Pickles (+3), Rubes (-6)

21 – Geech (+1), Kit N Carlyle (-1)

20 – Bizarro (0), Eek and Meek (0)

19 – Gasoline Alley (-3), One Big Happy (+1)

18 – Judge Parker (-1), Robotman (+2)

17 – Tank McNamara (0)

16 – Heathcliff (-1), Overboard (-1)

15 – Adam (+1), Ernie (+2)

14 – Crabby Road (+5), Fred Basset (-1)

13 – Berry’s World (-5), Big Nate (+2), Drabble (0), Tiger (+1)

12 – Mark Trail (0), Nancy (-1), Stone Soup (0)

11 – Amazing Spider-Man (-1), Betty (0), Buckles (+1), Sylvia (-2)

10 – Ghost Story Club (-1), Middletons (+1), Mixed Media (-3), Mr. Boffo (-1), Speed Bump (0)

9 – Apartment 3-G (-1), Bound and Gagged (-1), Dave (-2), Dunigan’s People (+1), I Need Help (+1), Rhymes with Orange (-3)

8 – Dick Tracy (-1), Gil Thorp (0), Hocus-Focus (0), Sherman’s Lagoon (-1), Zippy (-1)

7 – Against The Grain (+1), Archie (-1), Brenda Starr (0), Buckets (-1), Duplex (-1), Herb & Jamaal (-2), Off The Mark (+1), Over The Hedge (-6), Tommy (-6)

6 – Citizen Dog (+2), Kuduz (-2), Momma (0), Ralph (-1), Thatch (-1), They’ll Do It Every Time (-1)

5 – Bliss (+4), Dr. Katz (R), Fusco Brothers (-2), Grin and Bear It (-1), Horrorscope (+1), 9 Chickweed Lane (+1), Safe Havens (0), That’s Jake (0), Tumbleweeds (0)

4 - Broom Hilda, Comic For Kids, Committed, Crock, Motley’s Crew, Us & Them, Willy N Ethel

3 - Ballard Street, Ben, Bottom Liners, Cornered, Donald Duck, Liberty Meadows, Love Is, Norm, On The Fastrack, Our Fascinating Earth, Redeye, Small Society, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Twins, Warped

2 - Animal Crackers, At The Zu, Beattie Blvd, Better Half, Between Friends, Chubb & Chauncey, Dinette Set, Fair Game, Feet of Clay, Frumpy The Clown, Ick, Meg, Mickey Mouse, New Breed, Out of Bounds, Quigmans, Reality Check, Rip Kirby, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Second Chances, Stitches, Too Much Coffee/Strange Brew, Tuttle, Two Toes, Word For Word

1 – Belvedere, Charlie, Flintstones, Good Life, Homespin, J.D. Comics, Laffbreak, Little Orphan Annie, Lumpy Gravy, Meatloaf Night With Brewster, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Pellets, Penmen, Playing Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Popcorn, Quality Time, Rural Rootz, Scrimmages, Sneed, Suburban Cowgirls, Swan Factory, Tarzan, Trudy, Tundra, Walnut Cove, Wild Life, Wit of The World

Labels: Paper Trends

 For the third year in a row Dilbert is the biggest gainer with an increase of 28 papers.  Dilbert in these past three years has gained a whopping 129 papers. Other big gainers this year include both Baby Blues and Jump Start which each added 9 papers. Baby Blues has been going up since its debut, but  might have gotten a bigger push this year because of writer Jerry Scott’s new juggernaut strip Zits (see yesterday’s post). 

In the case of Jump Start it seems that newspaper editors have made this this their first choice for an African American strip -- which unfortunately is how for many the calculation works -- it is the rare paper that offers multiple strips featuring minorities. There were three daily African American strips available in general syndication in 1998: Jump Start, Herb & Jamaal and Curtis. 64 of our papers ran at least one of them, but only nine ran two, and one ran all three -- that was the Detroit Free Press. 

Here are the rest of the big gainers for this year:

Dilbert – 28
Baby Blues – 9
Jump Start – 9
Mutts - 6
Hi and Lois – 5
Marmaduke – 5
Crabby Road - 5

The biggest losers were a mix of  new and old strips again. The biggest loser with 14 papers is the panel strip Beattle Blvd. New strips Tommy and Over the Hedge both lost six papers and Andy Capp continued its downfall with 5 more papers dropping the strip. Here is the list of strips that had 5 or more lost papers this past year.

Beattle Blvd - 14
Rubes – 6
Over The Hedge – 6
Tommy - 6
Wizard of Id – 5
Andy Capp – 5
Berry’s World – 5

This year adventure strips lost 9 spots with almost half of them due to the cancellation of the second version of Terry and The Pirates. Soaps stayed even, as Mary Worth picked up a couple of clients while others lost a few.

Adventure (-9)
Alley Oop – 30 (0)
Phantom – 13 (+1)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Amazing Spider-Man – 11 (-1)
Ghost Story Club – 10 (-1)
Dick Tracy – 8 (-1)
Brenda Starr – 7 (0)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 3 (-1)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Rip Kirby – 2 (0)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (-1)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Tarzan – 1 (0)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 0 (-1)
Terry and The Pirates (ended) – 0 (-4)

Soap (0)
Mary Worth – 44 (+2)
Rex Morgan – 37 (0)
Judge Parker – 18 (-1)
Apartment 3-G – 9 (-1)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)

Labels: Paper Trends

 For the year 1997 we have one crazy popular debut, and that strip is Zits, which has accomplished an amazing feat which has not happened in over 15 years -- it debuts with over 50 papers in our survey. The highest we’ve encountered in The 300 was in 1981 when The Muppets debuted with 70 papers. Zits did not quite reach that total, coming in at 60 papers. But this is sort of a Babe Ruth – Roger Maris situation, because in our 1981 survey we had at least 40 more papers. I imagine that if there was a level playing field Zits would have beat The Muppets.

Looking at the previous rookies that started out big in The 300, we can see that a big initial splash does not guarantee long-term success. Here is a list of all the rookies that started with 30 or more papers.

The Muppets (1981) – 70
Amazing Spider-Man (1977) – 50
Star Wars (1979) – 50
Shoe (1977) – 47
Winnie The Pooh (1978) – 46
Marvin (1982) – 39
For Better or For Worse (1979) – 38
Best Seller Showcase (1977) – 37
World Greatest Superheroes (1978) – 34
U.S Acres (1986) – 32
Pogo (1989) – 32

As of 1998, only Shoe and For Better or For Worse have more papers than they started with. Spider-Man and Marvin have less, and seven out of eleven of them have been cancelled.  Evidently, a big debut is more of a curse than a blessing.

The only other big debut of 1997 was not really a rookie, it was a returning strip. The comic panel Herman was last seen in the survey 5 years ago. In 1992 when Unger retired it, the feature had 52 papers in our survey. In a return that was billed as a mix of old and new material, it will only get 27 papers.

The remaining rookies did not make much of an impact in 1997. Here is the complete list:

Zits – 60
Herman – 27
Dr. Katz – 5
Liberty Meadows, Warped – 3
Fair Game, Feet of Clay, Meg, Stitches, Too Much Coffee*, Tuttle – 2
Homespin, Meatloaf Night with Brewster, Pellets, Scrimmages, Sneed – 1

* about to be retitled Strange Brew. 

Labels: Paper Trends

In 1996 we lost only one paper, the Muncie Evening Press (IN) which ended on May 18, 1996. It merged with the Star Press which is also on this survey. We also had a paper that was missing information last year come back, so the number of papers stays at 255 for this survey.

Big news this years is that it finally happened -- Garfield has taken over the number #1 spot by adding just one more paper to its total.  Not much other movement in the Top 30. Dilbert added 37 papers but only moved up one spot from 11 to enter the Top 10. Andy Capp has fallen out of the Top 30 and Crankshaft and Rex Morgan enter or reenter the Top 30.

Title	Rank	Rank Change +/-	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Same	1	221
Peanuts	2	Down 1	-1	219
Blondie	3	Same	1	206
For Better or For Worse	4	Same	6	203
Beetle Bailey	5	Same	2	179
Hagar The Horrible	6	Same	1	156
Cathy	7	Same	-2	152
Family Circus	8	Same	3	151
Doonsbury	9	Same	1	145
Dilbert	10	Up 1	32	137
B.C.	11	Same	0	105
Hi and Lois	12	Up 1	3	104
Wizard of Id	12	Down 2	-2	104
Frank and Ernest	14	Same	3	101
Fox Trot	15	Same	4	95
Born Loser	16	Same	0	88
Shoe	17	Same	-4	83
Dennis The Menace	18	Same	1	81
Marmaduke	19	Same	-1	62
Sally Forth	20	Up 1	4	61
Mother Goose and Grimm	21	Down 1	0	60
Ziggy	22	Same	1	55
Close To Home	23	Down 1	-2	52
Non Sequitur	24	Up 1	5	51
Mallard Fillmore	25	Down 1	-2	47
Mary Worth	26	Same	-1	42
Baby Blues	27	Same	2	41
Arlo and Janis	28	Down 1	2	39
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	29	Down 2	-1	38
Crankshaft	30	Entering	2	37
Rex Morgan	30	Entering	1	37

 

E&P Survey vs. Stripper's Guide The 300 Survey

The surveys I did for Editor & Publisher were of the top 100 papers in the US, by circulation. There’s an important difference in the criteria for that poll compared to The 300 – 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.

 Continuing our comparison of the Editor & Publisher Top 100 Circulated Papers and the papers in this survey, we have some interesting differences. In my 1997 E&P article, four strips that appear on the Strippers Guide Top 25 do not appear on the E&P Survey. Three of them can be explained because of the papers in different surveys. Born Loser and Frank and Ernest are two strips from the NEA syndicate package. NEA clients are mainly small town papers so more of them are in The 300 survey. Also, the same could be true for Mallard Fillmore;  small town papers tend to have a more conservative political outlook compared to big cities and their high-circulation papers. Lastly, Prince Valiant is not on The 300 survey since it is a Sunday only strip.

Title	Top 300 Ranking	Top 300 # Papers	E&P Ranking	E&P # Papers
Garfield	1	221	1	92
Peanuts	2	219	3	88
Blondie	3	206	5	87
For Better or For Worse	4	203	2	90
Beetle Bailey	5	179	10	75
Hagar The Horrible	6	156	9	83
Cathy	7	152	6	86
Family Circus	8	151	8	84
Doonesbury	9	145	7	85
Dilbert	10	137	4	88
B.C.	11	105	13	69
Hi and Lois	12	104	19	56
Wizard of Id	12	104	12	73
Frank and Ernest	14	101	Not in Top 25
Fox Trot	15	95	18	58
Born Loser	16	88	Not in Top 25
Shoe	17	83	14	66
Dennis The Menace	18	81	11	75
Marmaduke	19	62	15	66
Sally Forth	20	61	16	61
Mother Goose and Grimm	21	60	17	59
Ziggy	22	55	20	55
Close To Home	23	52	Not in Top 25
Non Sequitur	24	51	21	51
Mallard Fillmore	25	47	Not in Top 25
Baby Blues	29	41	22	49
Prince Valiant	No Daily Version	No Daily Version	23	48
Jump Start	37	31	24	43
Mary Worth	28	42	25	42

 

Other strips mentioned in the E&P article:

I Need Help	94 Tie	8	99	9
Tommy	63 Tie	13	64	16
Buckles	84 Tie	10	97	9
Curtis	41	26	26	41
Andy Capp	33	34	28	37
Over The Hedge	63 Tie	13	53	20
Us and Them	94 Tie	8	92	9

 

Universal Comics Page

Over the past 80 years when you picked up a paper from another town or city in most cases you would read some of the strips that appeared in your local paper but mostly you would see strips that you have never seen before. By the 1980s, with the slow demise of newspapers beginning and fewer papers around to compete for features, more papers had the opportunity to buy strips that were not available to them before. This could lead to more variety from one paper to another, but instead, the editors of these papers would do the opposite and just pick the most popular strips. As this way of filling a comics page became more and more prevalent, you would now see many of the same comics in every paper.The Universal Comic Section is a measure of how many papers run the most popular strips. 

Very little change in the Universal comic section this year and the Colorado Spring Gazette still has the most universal comic section running the Top 26 strips in their newspaper.

Top 2 – 204 (Same)

Top 3 – 176 (Up 2)

Top 4 – 152 (Up 3)

Top 5 – 124 (Up 2)

Top 6 – 91 (Down 1)

Top 7 – 75 (Down 1)

Top 8 – 59 (Up 1)

Top 9 – 47 (Up 1)

Top 10 – 36 (Up 6)

Top 11 – 22 (Down 1)

Top 12 – 15 (Up 3)

Top 13 – 9 – (Down 1)

Top 14 – 3 (Up 1)

Top 15 – 3 (Up 2)

Top 16 – 2 (Up 1)

Top 17 – 2 (Up 1)

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 average number of comics per paper moves up just a bit to 17.59 from 17.33.

 

Here are the remaining results of the 1997 survey:

35 – Rose is Rose (+3)

34 – Andy Capp (-4)

33 – Funky Winkerbean (-1)

31 – Jump Start (+4)

30 – Alley Oop (-1), Lockhorns (-1)

28 – Rubes (0)

27 – In The Bleachers (+2), Marvin (-1)

26 – Curtis (-1), Luann (-1)

25 – Grizzwells (0)

23 – Mutts (+2), Real Life Adventures (-2)

22 – Gasoline Alley (-3), Kit N Carlyle (-1)

20 – Bizarro (0), Eek and Meek (0), Geech (-2)

19 – Judge Parker (-1), Pickles (+5)

18 – Berry World (-1), One Big Happy (0)

17 – Heathcliff (-1), Overboard (-1), Tank McNamara (-5)

16 – Beattie Blvd (-1), Farcus (-1), Robotman (0)

15 – Fred Basset (0)

14 – Adam (+1)

13 – Drabble (0), Ernie (-3), Mixed Media (-2), Nancy (-2), Over The Hedge (-3), Pluggers (-1), Sylvia (-2), Tommy (R)

12 – Amazing Spider-Man (-1), Mark Trail (0), Phantom (+1), Rhymes With Orange (+2), Stone Soup (+4), Tiger (-1)

11 – Betty (0), Big Nate (0), Dave (0), Ghost Story Club (+6), Mr. Boffo (0)

10 – Apartment 3-G (-1), Bound & Gagged (-1), Buckles (R), Speed Bump (+1)

9 – Crabby Road (0), Dick Tracy (-1), Herb and Jamaal (0), Middletons (0), Sherman’s Lagoon (+1), Zippy (0)

8 – Archie (+1), Buckets (0), Dunagin’s People (-1), Duplex (+1), Gil Thorp (0), Hocus-Focus (0), I Need Help (R), Kuduz (0), Us & Them (-3)

7 – Brenda Starr (-1), Fusco Brothers (0), Ralph (0), Thatch (0), They’ll Do It Every Time (0)

6 – Against The Grain (R), Chaos (-2), Grin and Bear It (0), Momma (0), Norm (R), Off The Mark (+3)

5 – Committed (0), Motley’s Crew (0), Safe Havens (-1), That’s Jake (0), Tumbleweeds (-1)

4 – Ballard Street, Bottom Liners, Broom Hilda, Citizen Dog, Comic For Kids, Crock, Donald Duck, Horrorscope, 9 Chickweed Lane, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Terry and The Pirates, Willy N Ethel

3 – Bent Offering, Better Half, On The Fastrack, Quigmans, Reality Check, Ripley’s Believe It or Not

2 – Animal Crackers, At The Zu, Between Friends, Chubb & Chauncey, Cornered, Culture Shock, Frumpy The Clown, Little Orphan Annie, Mickey Mouse, New Breed, Our Fascinating Earth, Redeye, Rip Kirby, Second Chances, Swan Factory, Tundra, Two Toes, Walnut Cove

1 – Belvedere, Ben, Bent Halos, Best Years, Bliss, Family Business, Flintstones, Good Life, Hazel, Health Capsules, Ick, J.D. Comics, Laffbreak, Love Is, Lumpy Gravy, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Moose Miller, Out of Bounds, PC and Pixel, Penmen, Quality Time, Rural Rootz, Small Society, Suburban Cowgirls, Tarzan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tight Corner, Trudy, Twins, Wild Life, Wit of The World, Word for Word

Labels: Paper Trends

 For the year 1996 there were not many changes to the landscape of the comic section. Editors seemed like they wanted to keep things calm with their section since the pandemonium of the year before, when they lost two of the biggest strips of all time. Dilbert was still gaining papers with another banner year -- 32 papers added in 1996 making a two-year total of 101 papers. For Better or For Worse still found some more papers adding 6 more to its already huge client list. Here is the list of all strips that gained five or more papers in 1996.

Dilbert - 32
For Better or For Worse – 6
Ghost Story Club - 6
Non Sequitur – 5
Pickles – 5
I Need Help – 5 (new offering)

Only one strip had a big loss and that was Tank McNamara which lost 5 papers.

On the story strip front 1996 saw the end of three long-running features. Two adventure strips ended, Secret Agent Corrigan and Tim Tyler’s Luck. Neither had any papers in our survey and I mentioned last time that no paper currently available online was running them. The third story strip to end was Winnie Winkle which had 2 papers in our survey that ran it to the end. You can read the complete 76 years run online through many different newspapers.

Overall, the adventure strip market penetration stayed at the same number of papers, even though some papers were dropping these features. Ghost Story Club, a newer strip geared to younger readers, gained 6 papers to help offset the losses of others. Here is the breakdown:

Adventure (net change 0)
Alley Oop – 30 (-1)
Amazing Spider-Man – 12 (-1)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 12 (+1)
Ghost Story Club – 11 (+6)
Dick Tracy – 9 (-1)
Brenda Starr – 7 (-1)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 4 (0)
Terry and The Pirates – 4 (-2)
Little Orphan Annie – 2 (0)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (-1) - Reruns
Rip Kirby – 2 (-1)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Tarzan – 1 (+1) - reruns
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 1 (0) – reruns
Mandrake the Magician – 0
Popeye – 0 - reruns

Ended
Secret Agent Corrigan
Tim Tyler’s Luck

Soap strips had a drop of 3.4% since last year. Here are the individual strip totals:

Soaps (net change -4)
Mary Worth – 42 (-1)
Rex Morgan – 37 (+1)
Judge Parker – 19 (-1)
Apartment 3-G – 10 (-1)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)
Heart of Juliet Jones – 0

Ended
Winnie Winkle – 2   

Labels: Paper Trends

1995-6 was a very tumultuous time for the comics/feature editors, losing two of the top 10 strips to retirement. The new entries for 1996 did not make much of an impact – evidently the general consensus was to replace these spots with proven strips.

The top rookie of 1996, Tommy by Jay Martin, debuted in just 13 papers. Although the strip was quite original it was obviously intended to be a replacement for Calvin & Hobbes in spirit. Tommy would last only 21 months.

The next most successful rookie was Buckles by David Gilbert which debuted in 10 papers. This dog strip had a more successful run lasting until 2021.

Here are the rankings for all the rookies of 1996:

Tommy – 13
Buckles – 10
I Need Help – 8  (debuted in the first week of 1996, now an official rookie)
Against The Grain – 6 – (debuted in the first week of 1996, now an official  rookie)
The Norm – 6
Cornered, Frumpy The Clown, Second Chances, Swan Factory – 2
Ben, Bliss, J.D. Comics (local strip), Lumpy Gravy, PC and Pixel – 1

Over the past few years the rookie strips have made medium to low starts. Next year we will see something that has not happened in over 15 years.

Labels: Paper Trends

In 1995 we lost 4 additional papers, three of them merging with other papers which included the Lincoln Star (August 4), Evening Sun (Baltimore, MD) (September 15) and Times-Advocate (Escondido, CA) (December 2). The fourth paper, the Vidette Messenger (Valparaiso, IN) is not archived past July 31, 1995. The paper itself would only last another four years before its demise. So, this survey is down to 255 papers.

As with last year’s survey when Far Side ended, a major upheaval has again happened in the daily paper. That was the end of Calvin and Hobbes, which in the last survey had 213 papers, the 3rd highest total of any feature. As mentioned in Winners and Losers yesterday, the strip that reaped the most of its clients was Dilbert, which added 69 papers. So it comes as no surprise that Dilbert enters the 100 paper club and tied in 11th place with B.C. Other big moves are Cathy moving up 3 places to number 7, Fox Trot also moving up 3 places to number 15. Blondie rising back to the number 3 spot and For Better or For Worse moving up 2 spots to number 4. Andy Capp continues its downward spin falling from #25 to 29. I’m betting it will fall off the Top 30 by next year’s survey.

It is notable that the top ten strips got no benefit from the end of Calvin & Hobbes -- they barely moved. That would seem to show that these features were either already appearing in most of the papers that ran Calvin, or that newspaper editors were almost unanimously looking to add newer, fresher features to their pages.

Also making it into the top 30 along with Dilbert are three additional features. Mallard Fillmore at #24, Non Sequitur at #25 and Baby Blues at #27.  The three strips that fell out this year are Funky Winkerbean, Crankshaft and Rex Morgan, which all failed to capture papers in the post-Calvin bonanza. With Rex Morgan falling out that leaves Mary Worth as the only continuity strip in the Top 30.

Another huge event comes this year -- Peanuts has been #1 on all these surveys for 18 years, but we now have a tie for first place. Garfield added one paper to its total and now is in a tie for the number 1 spot. Will Garfield take over the number 1 spot next year?

Title	Rank	Rank Change +/-	Papers +/-	Total Papers
Garfield	1	Up 1	1	220
Peanuts	1	Same	0	220
Blondie	3	Up 1	-1	205
For Better or For Worse	4	Up 2	26	197
Beetle Bailey	5	Same	-1	177
Hagar The Horrible	6	Up 1	1	155
Cathy	7	Up 3	11	154
Family Circus	8	Same	1	148
Doonesbury	9	Same	-1	144
Wizard of Id	10	Up 1	-3	106
B.C.	11	Same	-4	105
Dilbert	11	Entering	69	105
Hi and Lois	13	Up 1	3	101
Frank and Ernest	14	Down 1	-4	98
Fox Trot	15	Up 3	21	91
Born Loser	16	Down 1	-4	88
Shoe	17	Down 1	0	87
Dennis The Menace	18	Down 1	-2	80
Marmaduke	19	Same	3	63
Mother Goose and Grimm	20	Up 2	3	60
Sally Forth	21	Same	-1	57
Close To Home	22	Up 1	2	54
Ziggy	22	Down 2	-5	54
Mallard Fillmore	24	Entering	25	49
Non Sequitur	25	Entering	13	46
Mary Worth	26	Down 2	-4	43
Baby Blues	27	Entering	9	39
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith	27	Down 1	-1	39
Andy Capp	29	Down 4	-3	38
Arlo and Janis	30	Down 3	-1	37

 

 E&P Survey vs. Stripper's Guide The 300 Survey

Now let's check in with a comparison of my two surveys for 1996; the current one and the one I did for Editor & Publisher back in the day; the E&P survey was of the top 100 papers in the US, by circulation. There’s an 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.

As with last year we can compare what I researched for Editor and Publisher in 1996. Most of the information turns out to be basically the same with a few minor changes in the Top 10, mostly due to skewing based on the popularity of Sunday versions. All the newer strips were moving up the chart in both surveys, and the same rookies had big debuts.

Title	Strippers Guide Rank	SG Total Papers	E & P Rank	E&P Total Papers
Garfield	1	220	1	92
Peanuts	1	220	4	Unknown
Blondie	3	205	2	90
For Better or For Worse	4	197	3	89
Beetle Bailey	5	177	9	Unknown
Hagar The Horrible	6	155	6	Unknown
Cathy	7	154	7	Unknown
Family Circus	8	148	8	Unknown
Doonesbury	9	144	5	Unknown
Wizard of Id	10	106	13	Unknown
B.C.	11	105	12	Unknown
Dilbert	11	105	10	80

 Universal Comics Page

Over the past 80 years when you picked up a paper from another town or city in most cases you would read some of the strips that appeared in your local paper but mostly you would see strips that you have never seen before. By the 1980s, with the slow demise of newspapers beginning and less papers around to compete for features, more papers had the opportunity to buy strips that were not available to them before. This could lead to more variety from one paper to another, but instead, the editors of these papers would do the opposite and just pick the most popular strips. As this way of filling a comics page became more and more prevalent, you would now see many of the same comics in every paper.The Universal Comic Section is a measure of how many papers run the most popular strips. 

With the ending of Calvin and Hobbes the universal comic section had its biggest drop, with papers opting to try out newer features instead of just plugging in a member of the popular old guard. However,  we have one paper that uses the top 26 strips and that is the Colorado Springs Gazette. 

The average number of comic strips per paper moves up to 17.33, a small increase.

Top 2 – 204 (Up 2)
Top 3 – 174 (Down 10)
Top 4 – 149 (Down 12)
Top 5 – 122 (Down 7)
Top 6 – 92 (Down 12)
Top 7 – 76 (Down 3)
Top 8 – 58 (Down 2)
Top 9 – 46 (Down 3)
Top 10 – 30 (Down 12)
Top 11 – 23 (Down 4)
Top 12 – 12 (Down 12)
Top 13 – 10 (Up 1)
Top 14 – 2 (Down 4)
Top 15 – 1 (Down 1)
Top 16 – 1 (Down 1)
Top 17 – 1 (Same)
Top 18 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 19 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 20 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 21 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 22 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 23 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 24 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 25 – 1 (Up 1)
Top 26 – 1 (Up 1) 

Here are the number of papers per feature, the rest beyond the top thirty:

36 - Rex Morgan (-2)

35 – Crankshaft (-2)

34 - Funky Winkerbean (-3)

32 - Rose Is Rose (+5)

31 - Alley Oop (0), Lockhorns (-1)

28 – Marvin (-3), Rubes (-4)

27 – Curtis (+3), Jump Start (+3), Luann (0)

25 - Gasoline Alley (-1), Grizzwells (-1), In The Bleachers (+2), Real Life Adventures (0)

23 - Kit N' Carlyle (+1)

22 – Geech (-2), Tank McNamara (-2)

21 – Mutts (+13)

20 – Bizarro (0), Eek & Meek (-4), Judge Parker (-2)

19 - Berry's World (-5)

18 – Heathcliff (-3), One Big Happy (+10), Overboard (-2)

17 - Beattie Blvd. (-6), Farcus (-3)

16 – Ernie (-2), Over The Hedge (R), Robotman (-3)

15 - Fred Basset (+1), Mixed Media (-5), Nancy (0), Sylvia (0)

14 – Pickles (+3), Pluggers (0)

13 – Adam (-3), Amazing Spider-Man (-2), Drabble (+1), Tiger (+1)

12 - Mark Trail (0)

11 - Apartment 3-G (-3), Betty (+4), Big Nate (-7), Bound & Gagged (+4), Dave (0), Mr. Boffo (+4), Phantom (-1), Us & Them (R)

10 - Dick Tracy (0), Rhymes With Orange (R)

9 - Crabby Road (R), Dunagin’s People (-5), Herb and Jamaal (-2), Middletons (0), Speed Bump (+3), Zippy (+1)

8 - Brenda Starr (0), Buckets (-1), Chaos (-9), Gil Thorp (0), Hocus-Focus (+1), Kudzu (-1), Sherman’s Lagoon (+3), Stone Soup (R)

7 - Against The Grain (NR), Archie (0), Duplex (0), Fusco Brothers (-1), Ralph (R), Thatch (+1), They’ll Do It Every Time (0)

6 - Grin and Bear It (0), Momma (-1), Safe Havens (-2), Terry and The Pirates (R), Tumbleweeds (-3)

5 - Citizen Dog (R), Comic For Kids (+1), Committed (-1), Donald Duck (-1), Ghost Story Club (R), Horrorscope (-3), Motley’s Crew (0), That’s Jake (0)

4 - Broom Hilda, New Breed, 9 Chickweed Lane, Quigmans, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Willy ‘N Ethel

3 - Agatha Crumm, Ballard Street, Bent Offering, Crock, I Need Help, Mickey Mouse, Off The Mark, On The Fastrack, Rip Kirby, Wit of The World

2 - Animal Crackers, Better Half, Bottom Liners, Chubb & Chauncey, Culture Shock, Hazel, Little Orphan Annie, Love Is, Outcasts, Out of Bounds, Reality Check, Redeye, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Tundra, Two Toes, Walnut Cove, Winnie Winkle, Word for Word

1 - At The Zu, Belvedere, Bent Halos, Ben Wicks, Best Years, Between Friends, Don’t You Just, Family Business, Flintstones, Francie, Good Life, Graffiti, Ick, Lack of Focus, Laffbreak, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Moose Lake, Moose Miller, Our Fascinating Earth, Penmen, Pete & Clete, Playing Better Golf with Jack Nicklaus, Rural Rootz, Single Slices, Small Society, Sports Hall of Shame, Suburban Cowgirls, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tribune Toon, Trudy, Twins, What A Guy, Wild Life 

As always, if you would like the more detailed version of this list, which includes which papers run each feature, just email strippersguide@gmail.com, and do include which years of the detailed list you would like.

Labels: Paper Trends