Honor Eden

In 1960 the McClure Syndicate was on its last legs but still in there swinging. In a desperate attempt to appear hip one of their last original offerings was Honor Eden, a soap opera that tried to capture a youthful flavor with cool cats and hip lingo.

The 44-year old Jack Sparling created the new strip in 1960 and he apparently thought this was going to be the big one after a string of less than stellar syndicated outings. Alas, ’twas not to be. Between a weak syndicate, snappy patter that was probably unintelligible to most of the newspaper-reading public, and a subject that was similar to an already successful strip (On Stage) and Honor Eden didn’t stand much of a chance.

As capsulized in the promo above, Honor Eden was a housemother to a group of girls trying to make it in the big city.

The strip started either in January 1960 (according to Leiffer and Ware’s E&P index) or April 11 1960 (the start date in my samples from the San Francisco Chronicle). The strip was advertised in E&P until 1963 but good luck finding any that late — this is one very elusive strip. One reference claims that the feature lasted until 1972, which is patently ridiculous.

Thanks to:
tzlovesmusic

Honor Eden 1960 Dailies
Honor Eden 1961 Dailies

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