Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Obscurity of the Day: What a Guy!
Hoest was a bit of a workaholic, though, and one hit feature wasn't enough to keep him as busy as he liked. Several others followed which were also successful -- Bumper Snickers for National Enquirer in 1974, Agatha Crumm in 1977, and Laugh Parade for Parade magazine in 1980. Hoest's last effort before his untimely death in 1988 at age 62 was What a Guy!, which debuted from King Features on March 29 1987. Unlike the others, this one didn't seem to find a very enthusiastic readership.
The premise is that an elementary school kid named Guy is obsessed with the idea that he's a businessman. He wears a frumpy suit, has a middle-age paunch, worries about ulcers, the whole nine yards. The idea was timely in the go-go 1980s, but Hoest didn't get there first -- the Guy character is strongly reminiscent of Alex P. Keaton from the hit TV sitcom Family Ties. The popularity of the TV show was probably seen as an asset, but it didn't seem to have the desired slingshot effect to propel What a Guy! into newspapers.
The feature at first used the tried-and-true model of The Lockhorns for the Sunday page -- a group of panel cartoons that could be rejiggered into many different formats. For unknown reasons this format was dropped in 1988 and the Sunday became a strip feature. From the beginning the daily was in strip form instead of a panel, though the 'strip' was almost always a single panel.
When Bill Hoest died in 1988, assistant John Reiner took over the art reins on all of the features, including What a Guy!. On August 7 1989 he was awarded a credit on the feature, perhaps when Bill Hoest's backstock ran out. On that same date Bill's widow Bunny Hoest, who had long collaborated with her husband on gag-writing, also began taking credit.
What a Guy!, the only real dud in the Hoest feature list, was finally given the pink slip in 1997 (exact date unknown), along with the more popular Agatha Crumm. The two features only claimed to be in about 50 papers each when they were retired, which seems a liberal figure in the case of our obscurity. Bunny Hoest commented that she was dropping the features to concentrate more on The Lockhorns, whose 500 paper list dwarfed the others.
Although the feature was never a hit, two reprint books were produced. Tor published What a Guy! in 1989 and What's The Latest? in 1990.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
Since you have 1986 as a start date, my information is probably incorrect, but I noticed that the Mimai Herald started it on Sunday March 29 1987, and the Toronto Star announced it on March 30 1987. The year 1987 is also confirmed by the Howard Huge website (seems to be kind of official?) No idea about the end date though.
# posted by 
: 9/09/2010 3:51 AM
: 9/09/2010 3:51 AM
Thanks very much for researching that Fram. On further checking the 1986 date was bogus -- the King Features ad section in the 1987 E&P directory calls it a brand new feature, so 3/29/87 it is. Post has been fixed.
--Allan
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--Allan
Monday, February 19, 2018
Obscurity of the Day: My Son John
Bill Hoest made his lasting mark on the funny pages with The Lockhorns, but his first syndicated strip, titled My Son John, didn't catch on at all.
The Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate accepted My Son John, a strip about a kid who acts like a harried and angry adult, for reasons I cannot understand. Maybe they saw it as competition for Peanuts, but if John was supposed to be the next Charlie Brown, they were a little off -- he was basically a male Lucy.
Hoest made a very successful career out of cartooning very unlikeable people in the Lockhorns, but unlikeable kids are another matter. Dennis the Menace is a little hellion, but he's not mean and angry. John, on the other hand, was simply insufferable. The syndicate allowed Hoest two years to find his footing, but it seemed totally doomed as a concept. Hoest, however, felt he had something. In 1976 he said, "It lasted two years and provided me great experience. I wish they had kept it on another year. I felt that I was really getting into it; the characters were coming alive and were well-defined, and new characters added to the interest. When it died, a apart of me died."
The strip began on April 4 1960, and John was finally put to bed without his supper sometime in 1962, probably around April. Hoest would then go on to ghost Harry Haenigsen's Penny for a year, which gave him the maturity he needed to come up with The Lockhorns in 1968.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
Do you have a clue on how much work Bill Hoest did on "Penny"? Looking it up, many sources indicate that Hoest did most of the work when the original creator got injured in a car accident, but the dates they provide don't add up, with many saying Hoest left the strip to work on "My Son John" in 1970, even though the strip actually started in 1960, a full decade earlier.
Perhaps they meant to say that Hoest left "Penny" to work on "Lockhorns"?
Perhaps they meant to say that Hoest left "Penny" to work on "Lockhorns"?
Oh yes, I meant to mention that misperception on the web about Hoest's timeline; thanks for reminding me.
According to an interview with Hoest in 1976, he basically gave up Penny after working on it "almost a year" in order to develop and offer The Lockhorns. So that places his stint on Penny likely in 1966-67.
--Allan
According to an interview with Hoest in 1976, he basically gave up Penny after working on it "almost a year" in order to develop and offer The Lockhorns. So that places his stint on Penny likely in 1966-67.
--Allan
Ah, that makes more sense.
Even with the unlikable main character, there are still some funny gags in the samples you posted. I laughed at the frozen lemonade strip. I love how Hoest had the final dialogue written in tiny letters, which really sells the gag.
Even with the unlikable main character, there are still some funny gags in the samples you posted. I laughed at the frozen lemonade strip. I love how Hoest had the final dialogue written in tiny letters, which really sells the gag.
Hoest did another strip in the 1980s, "What a Guy!", about a kid who acted even more like an adult than John in "My Son John."
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# posted by : 2/19/2018 11:18 PM
: 2/19/2018 11:18 PM Monday, January 24, 2022
Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1988 -- 1987's Rookie Features
The most popular rookie strip starting in 1987 continues a pattern we had in previous years -- a strip from the NEA package replacing another NEA strip that was cancelled. The last time this happened was in 1985 when Arlo and Janis replaced Levy’s Law. This time we had the Grizzwells replacing Snake Tales. The Grizzwells debuts with 22 papers which is an increase of 5 more papers than Snake Tales had in 1986.
Coming in second is What A Guy with 14 papers. This is by Bill Hoest, who now offers his third comic strip, along with Agatha Crumm and The Lockhorns. This is case of the previous success of the artist being rewarded with editorial trust and approval.
The rest of the rookies of 1987 did not make much of an impact on the daily newspapers, at least early on. The best only ran in 6 papers. The trend continues to be that editors are being very conservative in changing their features, mainly adding strips that have been successful in other newspapers. Here is the breakdown of the rest of the rookies.
Crankshaft – 6
Gamin & Patches – 6
Love Handles – 4
Tales of Hans Christian Anderson – 4
Briefcase – 3
Single Slices – 3
Guinness Factfile, Iota, Sadie (aka Clyde), Wild Life (local feature), Yecch Is (local feature)– 1
Top Strips that began between 1977-1987
Garfield (1978) – 206
Far Side (1979) – 139
Bloom County (1980) – 127
Shoe (1977) – 117
For Better or For Worse (1979) – 104
Top Strips that began in the 1980’s
Bloom County (1980) – 127
Calvin and Hobbes (1985) – 82
Marvin (1982) – 48
Mother Goose and Grimm (1984) – 40
Sally Forth (1982) – 36
Labels: Paper Trends
Comments:
Hoest also had a weekly panel in Parade, the syndicated Sunday supplement. It was about Howard Huge, a lovable Saint Bernard.
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Thursday, January 23, 2020
Obscurity of the Day: Lyttle Women
King Features finally noticed by 1990 that they had no women cartoonists in their stable (if we don't count writer Bunny Hoest). Seeking to remedy that situation, they resolved to sign a female-created strip in the hope that they could catch fire with their own phenomen like Lynn Johnston or Cathy Guisewite. They chose Kathryn LeMieux's Lyttle Women, which they began advertising in 1990, but as best I can tell did not actually hit papers until February 4 1991*.
Lyttle Women starred a pair of kids named Irene and Amy Lyttle (hence the title). Irene is a tomboy while Amy is more into girly things like fashion. Both kids, though, are into female empowerment despite their differing personalities. As with many 'comics with a cause', the strip tried to walk a tightrope between humor and proselytizing.Too often the humor suffered for the cause, leaving editors and readers feeling like the strip was cheerleading for feminism more than it was offering laughs.
Perhaps Lyttle Women could have found a happy medium if LeMieux had been given more time to find it, but the plug was pulled after less than a year and a half, with the last strip appearing May 30 1992**. King's next female-created strip would be Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy, which they picked up from self-syndication in 1994, and is still running today in 2020.
LeMieux later became one of the founding Six Chix, keeping her day in the line-up from 2000 to 2009. Today she is painting at her art studio in Tomales California.
* Source: York Dispatch
** Source: Danville News
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
One of my favorite artists. I was always amazed by how she used black in her turn at SIX CHIX. LeMieux and Mark Tonra are the two still living cartoonists I most wish still did cartoons.
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