Stripper’s Guide to Newspaper Comics History - Explorations in Newspaper Comics History

Obscurity of the Day: Ol’ Dad Martin, or Hitt and Runn

Posted on: October 21, 2026 by Allan Holtz

Trying to pin down information on any World Color Printing strip that wasn’t part of their boilerplate Sunday section can be tough going. Their black and white material did not seem to have nearly the appeal to newspaper clients as their color Sunday section. Not surprising because most of it was pretty low-end stuff, more filler than attraction. Because of the lack of good sources I managed to louse up the data on Ol’ Dad Martin pretty thoroughly in my book. So get a gallon bottle of White-Out and be ready to make some edits.

One exception to WCP’s rather weak black and white offerings, in quality if not in success, was Ol’ Dad Martin by Oscar Hitt (who went under the fiendishly cryptic pseudonym A. Hitt on the feature). Hitt was not the greatest gagman, but my gosh, could he draw funny. Not that his penwork was at all what you would describe as technically brilliant, but his character designs and posing are, at least to this comics reader, instantly smile-inducing. Look at that wife in sample strip #4 above and tell me that her presence doesn’t take an utterly pedestrian, overused gag and make it sparkle.

Ol’ Dad Martin debuted as a daily strip in June 1916¹, and early on featured our star, John Martin, along with a few second fiddles — his aged pa Amos and daughter Flora. After a few weeks of mostly gag-a-day material, Dad and Gran’pop join up with the Army to go fight in the Mexican Revolution, and the strip starts looking very much like Mutt and Jeff, who had trod the same ground earlier in the decade.

After a month on that storyline, Dad’s son Alec pops up in the strip with no introduction, but bearing an uncanny resemblance to one A. Mutt (see example #1), and convincing Dad that he ought to desert the Army and come live high off the hog with him. Now the strip begins to really look like Mutt and Jeff; you have the beanpole and the shrimp, always broke and scheming to get money or food on the five-finger discount plan. The two leads being father and son would seem to offer a different dynamic than Mutt and Jeff, but Oscar Hitt doesn’t see it that way; he only lets their familial relationship matter when it is useful for a particular gag. Otherwise they are just co-conspirators.

In September another change comes when the strip is renamed. With no explanation or fanfare, suddenly the strip is called Hitt and Runn². Since Dad’s name is John and the son is Alec, and they’re both Martins, how does the new title make any sense? Well, the creator isn’t about to tell us straight out, but over the ensuing weeks we gradually realize that the pair are no longer father and son, and that ‘Dad’ is now Mr. Hitt, while ‘son’ is now Mr. Bull Runn. The transformation is complete; they are now truly Mutt and Jeff clones, and Oscar Hitt chose to memorialize that fact with the title change.

With all the chess pieces now placed to the liking of Hitt, the strip settled down to run the Mutt and Jeff clones through their paces, perhaps even occasionally managing to outdo the originals. In one memorable episode, for instance, they steal food from a little girl who is taking it to a paraplegic blind man. Anything for a gag, right?

It wasn’t to last long, though, as evidently Hitt’s strip was selling quite poorly. In fact, until recently I never saw it in its original run, but only in the years and years of reprints it went through with World Color Printing — thus the error-filled listings in my book³. The original run seems to have ended on or around May 12 1917, and was immediately being sold in reprints. When WCP inaugurated their weekly black and white page in the late 1910s the strip made regular appearances, and continued to run all through the 1920s and well into the 1930s. The strip looked very dated by then, and lots of the topical strips were mothballed, but the syndicate doggedly kept wringing their money’s worth out of it.

All dates from Hutchinson Daily Gazette. The Gazette did not print on Mondays, and the strip started there on Tuesday, May 27, so it seems a good guess that the official start date was May 26. ↩︎
I have this as a separate strip in my book, having not realized the connection at that time. ↩︎
One error I can’t even fathom. I have Clarence Rigby contributing to the strip in the listing, and I can find no evidence whatsoever that was the case. We’re harvesting a fine crop of mea culpas today! ↩︎

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Lincoln Features (sorta): Sally Snickers

Posted on: October 19, 2026 by Allan Holtz

My fascination with H.T. Elmo, the man at the helm of Lincoln Features, is such that I need to move the goal post a little and discuss at least a few of the features that he launched near the end of the Lincoln dynasty but that did not carry the Lincoln company name.

It was 1941, and Lincoln was running on fumes. Many of the features were now in reprints, sometimes retreaded more than once already. He’d lost all of his contributors other than the dogged Irv Tirman and an editorial cartoonist we haven’t yet met here. While the existing material was still selling in reprints to new markets, the papers that were buying it were, if possible, even less financially stable than Elmo’s usual hole-in-the-wall clientele. There’s no telling how many bad debt bills he was sitting on, but I bet it was an impressive stack.

What to do? Well, if Elmo had listened to competent business advice, he would probably have gotten out of the weekly comic strip business. But, as the old punchline goes, “Are you kidding, and quit showbiz?”

Elmo’s solution to his Lincoln woes was to launch an entire new syndicate directed at weekly papers. The new venture would be called the Elmo Feature Syndicate, which was certainly a propos because there was one important difference between the old syndicate and the new, self-titled, one. Elmo decided that he alone would produce all the material. He’d offer a range of material, just like Lincoln, but every bit of it would come from his own drawing board. With no need to meet a payroll, or even keep freelancers from rebelling, it must have seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel.

No wonder, then, that Lincoln Features just sort of petered out over the ensuing years, and seems to have shuttered for good circa 1944-45. Elmo was embarking on a project that between the heavy creative load, the technical work, the marketing and chasing deadbeat customers, would keep him very busy.

In late 1941 Elmo solicited for a balanced roster of gag and adventures strips, but this time he was apparently smart enough to supply them in a manner that didn’t allow his prospects to run the samples for free. I can say that because the early releases of Elmo Features are found in very few papers, and I don’t see a bunch of papers running a half dozen samples and no more, as was often the case with his Lincoln offerings. Unfortunately this also makes it hard to pin down a definitive start date and roster, as pickings are very slim.

The reason that I am covering Sally Snickers as an introduction to the syndicate is that it was the most popular of his early offerings, and would remain so for many years. So it was the easiest one for which to obtain a complete run. Did I come up with definitive running dates? Well, that’s questionable. The earliest adopter I’ve found is the Birmingham, Alabama Weekly Review, a black paper¹. Black papers are not generally that reliable a barometer of true start dates, but this paper did jump on the Elmo train a month before any other paper that I can find online. So for better or worse, they will be our benchmark. They also ran some early offerings that no one else did, so they really are the closest thing we’ll find to a gold standard. As Elmo was launching this new venture in December 1941, it is not too hard to imagine that many papers, even weeklies, were concentrating on world events more than allocating space for some new comics at the time. Just Elmo’s luck…

Sally Snickers was a gag-a-week strip about a pig-tailed girl whose pop runs a lunch wagon. The lunch wagon gags are sometimes quite sparkling (Why give customers dull knives? Cuz if they are given sharp ones they’ll assume the steaks are tough!) but these are outnumbered by the generic jokebook gags that could fit just as well in Elmo’s old Little Buddy strip — and I don’t doubt that many did.

What is impressive about Sally Snickers, and of a number of Elmo’s features for the new syndicate, is the longevity. While Lincoln strips rarely made it past the 150 strip mark, and if so were punctuated by lots of reruns, Sally Snickers was produced consistently for 281 episodes² — that’s almost six years of material!

Sally Snickers presumed start date based on the Weekly Review is December 12 1941³. While no single newspaper ran anything like a complete run of the strip, and none came even close to maintaining the strip number order, if we extrapolate from the strip count we end up with an end date of April 25 1947. But that is only the tip of the iceberg, because Elmo continued to sell his syndicate’s material, including Sally Snickers strips, for more than thirty years after that! Yes, you can actually find Sally Snickers strips running in the 1980s, looking every bit of their age, believe it or not.

One final bit of business regarding Sally Snickers is the matter of credits. As usual, Elmo tried to make his syndicate seem like it had more creators than there were. He couldn’t simply come up with a single pen name and stick to it, so we need a table, below, for the signature credits (bylines were generally matching, though not always). Other than the ‘Jackson’ and ‘Ted’ names, his identity was comically transparent:

Strip Numbers	Date Equivalents	Signature
1-2	December 12 1941 – December 19 1941	Ted
3-48	December 26 1941 – November 6 1942	H.T. Elmo
49-176	November 13 1942 – April 20 1945	Jackson
177-244	April 27 1945 – August 9 1946	H.T. Omle
245-277	August 16 1946 – March 28 1947	Jackson
278-281	April 4 1947 – April 25 1947	H.T. Omle

Here are links to the almost complete run of Sally Snickers. I am missing strip numbers 97, 146, 181 and 182, but my guess is that they exist and I simply didn’t find them. As I mentioned before, no paper seemed able to run the strip in anything even approaching numeric order, so these missing numbers are probably lurking out there somewhere and I just missed them.

Sally Snickers Strip #1-50
Sally Snickers Strip #51-100
Sally Snickers Strip #101-150
Sally Snickers Strip #151-200
Sally Snickers Strip #201-250
Sally Snickers Strip #251-281

By the way, black papers would prove to be a good market for Elmo’s new syndicate. Whereas Lincoln material is rarely found in them, the Elmo material pops up in quite a few black papers. Elmo even (sort of) produced a strip specifically for them. But that’s a tale for another day. ↩︎
Okay, there could be some renumbered reruns in there. I freely admit that I did not cross-reference 281 different strips to be sure they were all different. If anyone finds duplicates in the run, please let me know! Also, it seems very odd to end on such an apparently random number. But I spent a lot of time looking for higher numbers and they just don’t seem to exist. ↩︎
By the way, copyright records are no help in pinning down a start date in this case. Alex Jay found copyright records for Sally Snickers, but it was not recorded until October 1942. ↩︎

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Wish You Were Here, from Walter Wellman

Posted on: October 18, 2026 by Allan Holtz

Here’s a Walter Wellman card from an unknown maker; possibly self-published. This card is #1048. Here we see the dangers inherent in not getting eyeglasses when they’re really needed. Vanity, thy name…

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One-Shot Wonders: Father’s Day at the Asylum, 1940

Posted on: October 17, 2026 by Allan Holtz

Why did the popularity of Russell Patterson stumble quite dramatically in the 1940s? I think this June 16 1940 magazine cover is pretty emblematic of why he was more and more shunned by the better markets. On this Father’s Day cover daughter looks like she’s trying to seduce dad, Junior seems to be terrified, and mom has turned vampire and is about to take a hunk out of dad’s neck. Father himself appears to have recently undergone a lobotomy. And who’s been throwing raw eggs against the living room wall?!?

What editor at King Features was fool enough to accept this piece from Patterson without at least asking some hard questions?

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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Don Cameron

Posted on: October 16, 2026 by Alex Jay

Donald “Don” Cameron was born on October 8, 1914 in San Francisco, California according to his World War II draft card and the California Birth Index at Ancestry.com. His Scottish immigrant parents were Kenneth Cameron (1873–1943) and Effie Morrison (1880–1954).

The 1920 United States Census counted Cameron, his parents, and siblings, Kenneth and Catherine, in Everett, Washington at 2118 Wetmore Street. His father was a foreman at a shipyard.

By the mid-1920s, the Camerons were in California. The Oakland Tribune had a children’s section called Aunt Elsie’s Magazine. Cameron was a regular contributor. Appearing in the July 19, 1925 magazine was the illustration, “The Fussenfeathers Go to the Fair”, composed of drawings by many youngsters including ten-year-old Cameron’s sailing ship on the right, number 35. Cameron was on Aunt Elsie’s honor roll several times.

Cameron contributed a pirate story, and two illustrated westerns here and here. His most ambitious contribution was the five-part western comic strip featuring cowboys Bill and Jim in the Pal’s Weekly Cartoon Page from January 1 to 29, 1928; parts one, two, three, four and five.

In the 1930 census, fifteen-year-old Cameron and his family resided at 1751 159th Avenue in Eden, California. His father was a ship carpenter. The same address was in the 1940 census. Cameron was an artist in the movie industry. Newsweek, August 3, 1942, said he was an “ex-Disney man”. Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999 said he was an animation in-betweener in 1939.

Almost five months later on October 16, Cameron signed his draft card which had the address, 1751 159th Avenue in San Leandro. He was a self-employed artist who wore glasses and had gray eyes and blonde hair. His height and weight were not recorded. It’s not clear if he served.

A record of Cameron in New York has yet to be found. The Grand Comics Database said Cameron (aka Dan Dameron) started work for DC Comics. He signed his Les Watts story in Flash Comics #12, December 1940. Evidently, his work was acceptable to M.C. Gaines who published Picture Stories from the Bible. The Bridgeport Sunday Herald published ten eight-page inserts from April 5 to June 21, 1942. About five weeks later, DC Comics began publishing the 64-page comic books.

Newsweek, August 3, 1942, examined Picture Stories from the Bible. The comic books and some of Cameron’s art were in a window display at Morehouse-Gorham Company in Manhattan.

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said the comic strip version of Picture Stories from the Bible ran in the Dayton Daily News and Pottsville Republican from January 10, 1943 to November 10, 1946. At some point, the series was syndicated by the George Mathew Adams Service (Editor & Publisher, September 6, 1947).

Cameron’s comics career ended in 1947. The Oakland Tribune, April 27, 1947, said

More than 200 parents, neighbors and well-wishers turned out for the open house party that launched Oakland’s newest teen-age center on Havenscourt Boulevard a week ago, …

Five evenings a week guys and gals with an eye to the future will call it fun to study … commercial art on Thursday, under direction of Don Cameron, formerly with the Walt Disney Studio, …

Cameron was listed in the 1949 Oakland city directory at 516 Beverly Avenue. The 1950 census had the same street address which was in San Leandro. Cameron was a newspaper artist who lived with his 70-year-old mother. The next available Oakland directory, 1954, said his address was 1337 102nd Avenue. Little else is known about Cameron’s career.

Cameron passed away on January 3, 1977. He was laid to rest at Chapel of the Chimes Memorial Park.

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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Montgomery Mulford

Posted on: October 15, 2026 by Alex Jay

Paul Montgomery “Monty” Mulford was born on July 23, 1903 in Buffalo, New York according to his World War II draft card. His first name was recorded on some of the census records. Mulford’s parents were Henry Jones Mulford (1867–1958) and Maude Evelyn Montgomery (1876–1947) who married on September 21, 1895.

The 1905 New York state census counted Mulford, his parents and a servant in Buffalo at 143 Allen Street. His father was a physician and surgeon.

In the 1910 United States Census, the family and a servant were at the same address. Mulford’s sister, Ruth, was a year old. The 1915 New York state census said Mulford’s brother, Hugh, was five-years-old.

The Buffalo Courier-Express, January 17, 1971, said Mulford graduated Lafayette High School.

According to the 1920 census and 1925 state census, the Mulfords were Buffalo residents at 949 Delaware Avenue. Mulford’s occupation was literary.

The Buffalo Evening News, January 18, 1971, said

Between 1928 and 1940, Mr. Mulford’s stamp columns were published in newspapers throughout the English-speaking world.

The 1930 census said Mulford was a newspaper reporter.

Mulford’s marriage was noted in the Buffalo Times (below), August 18, 1931, and Linn’s Weekly Stamp News, August 29, 1931.

The marriage of Miss Elsie Tomlinson Francis, daughter of Thomas Francis of London, Eng., to Paul Montgomery Mulford son of Dr. and Mrs. Henry A. Mulford of Delaware avenue, was solemnized on Sunday Aug. 16, in the presence of the immediate family.

The Rev. Andrew J. Purdy officiated.

The 1940 census said Mulford, his wife and two sons, Francis and Roger, lived with his parents and brother at 1450 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. Mulford was a self-employed writer.

In the Buffalo Courier-Express, February 20, 1941, Mulford opined:

Editor Buffalo Courier-Express: A news item you carried the other day told of the plan of the International Council of Religious Education, which hopes to change various words in the Bible, as “saith” to “says,” “corn” to “grain,” etc.

To do so is to really destroy an old record—what if the Bible words used, are not modern? If we change them, why not also modernize all earlier literary classics? Even Mother Goose has words we don’t use similarly today! Certain words are proper, as showing time a work was written or produced in—let’s leave the Bible alone!

Seven months later, Editor & Publisher, September 20, 1941, listed Mulford’s Modern Bible Stories, a weekly text feature of around 200 words, syndicated by the Inter-American Press Association.

Exactly how Mulford and artist Don Cameron got involved with publisher M.C. Gaines’ comic book, Picture Stories from the Bible, is not known. Gaines, a Brooklyn resident, had an office in Manhattan, while Mulford lived in Buffalo and Cameron in San Leandro, California.

An article in the July 1942 issue of The Writer’s Monthly mentioned Mulford’s contact with Gaines.

Montgomery Mulford of Buffalo, N. Y., has more than once appeared in these pages and the fact that in the first third of 1942 he has sold 40 scripts lends authority to his words. In a letter to the Editor he mentions a recent radio talk [April 22, 1942] by M. C. Gaines, under the title “Children Also Are People,” in which an eminent psychiatrist was quoted as saying that “the comic strip is the folklore of the times.”

Mr. Mulford goes on to say: “When I talked with Mr. Gaines about six months ago he said, in effect, that it isn’t fair to denounce all comic strips on the ground that they sometimes use ‘the horrible.’ Some of the classic fairy tales, such as are still read to young children, featured demons, fantastic creatures and ‘horribles’ quite as repellant [sic] as those found in certain ‘comics’ today.” …

Evidently, Mulford spoke to Gaines in late 1941. At some point, possibly before their conversation, Gaines recruited Mulford to write Picture Stories from the Bible. In Author & Journalist, June 1943, Mulford wrote:

For the man with a job, writing scripts for the comics is a good sideline. I know for I have been writing them for a year and a quarter. I sold my first three in December, 1941, sold a hundred during 1942, and do all the scripts for all issues of the quarterly Picture Stories from the Bible. …

Mulford’s first three scripts were probably for Picture Stories from the Bible. The Bridgeport Sunday Herald published Picture Stories from the Bible in ten eight-page inserts from April 5 to June 21, 1942. About five weeks later, DC Comics began publishing the 64-page comic books.

Newsweek, August 3, 1942, examined Picture Stories from the Bible. The comic books and original art were in a window display at Morehouse-Gorham Company in Manhattan.

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said the comic strip version of Picture Stories from the Bible ran in the Dayton Daily News and Pottsville Republican from January 10, 1943 to November 10, 1946. At some point, the series was syndicated by the George Mathew Adams Service (Editor & Publisher, September 6, 1947).

Mulford also scripted comics for publishers Street & Smith and Holyoke; Sparkling Stars #1, June 1944; Sparkling Stars #2, July 1944; Sparkling Stars #7, December 1944.

On February 14, 1942, Mulford signed his draft card. He was employed at the Savage Multi System (a supplier of printed matter and mailing services including advertising campaign, circular letters, automatic typewritten letters, addressing and multigraphing). Mulford’s description was five feet seven inches, 130 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair.

The 1950 census said Mulford’s Buffalo address was 512 Lenwood Avenue. He was a newspaper editorial writer. Mulford retired from the Buffalo Evening News in August 1968.

Mulford passed away on January 16, 1971. Two days later an obituary appeared in the Buffalo Evening News.

Montgomery Mulford Is Dead at 67; Ex News Reporter
Private funeral services will be held for Montgomery Mulford, 67, a retired reporter of the Buffalo Evening News, who died Saturday (Jan. 16, 1971) in his home at 689 Linwood Ave.

A professional writer through four decades, Mr. Mulford wrote four books, 20 booklets and newspaper and magazine columns about stamps, words and crime.

He retired from The News in August 1968 after 24, years on its staff. He covered Lackawanna for years, a service for which the Bett-Toomey Detachment of the Marine Corps League there cited him in 1967.

In the mid-1940s, Mr. Mulford wrote the scripts for two editions of Picture Stories From The Bible, one on the Old Testament and the other on the life of Christ. About 2 million copies of these were reported sold.

Between 1928 and 1940, Mr. Mulford’s stamp columns were published in newspapers throughout the English-speaking world.

His articles on word usage appeared in Publishers Auxiliary.

Mr. Mulford collected toy soldiers and tie pins, many of which he fashioned himself and gave away to friends.

Mr. Mulford was born in Buffalo, the son of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Jones Mulford. He entered the writing via the old Buffalo Construction News.

Mr. Mulford was a former vice president of the old Philatelic Journalists of America and a former member of Buffalo Local 26, American Newspaper Guild.

He attended Westminister Presbyterian Church.

Surviving are his wife, the former Elsibeth Tomlinson of Wales, Britain; two sons Francis M. of Kenmore and Roger of Belmont, Mass.; a sister, Mrs. John Mitten of Kenmore, and a brother, Hugh M. Mulford of New Jersey.

Mulford was laid to rest at Forest Lawn.

Further Reading
Author & Journalist, October 1947, Should We Copy Bible Writers?

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Jeffrey Lindenblatt’s Paper Trends: The 300 for 2008 — Overall Results

Posted on: October 14, 2026 by Allan Holtz

NEW! Do a deep dive! The full newspaper lists for each year of The 300 are now available right here on the website. Just click on The 300 on the menu bar.

Since the 2007 survey we lost 6 papers. Some of them will be back and others are gone for good (not stopped publishing, just unavailable from newspapers.com). One of them is the San Francisco Examiner, which is not actually gone but they decided on August 24, 2007 to drop their entire comic strip section. So, the count for this survey is 237 papers.

There was big movement in the Top 30 this year. Pearls Before Swine, which added 12 papers since last year, moved up a whopping 7 spots from 28 to 21. Pickles moved up 3 spots to number 22. Zits continue its climb up by one to enter the Top 5, giving the boot to Beetle Bailey.

On the other end, even though B.C. lost 19 papers it only fell two spots to 14. One strip entered the Top 30 and that was Crankshaft. The strip it evicted was Mallard Fillmore, which had been tied for #25.

This is the last year of the original run of For Better or For Worse. The strip did not move up or down but stayed steady at 3^rd position. The strip will be going into re-runs like Peanuts. Will For Better or For Worse follow Peanuts, which was number 2 in its last year producing original material and now is losing papers every year and it is currently at number 7? Time will tell.

In the 30 percent club, Zits was the bigger gainer with an increase of 3.86 percent. Our biggest loser was B.C with a drop of almost 7 percent and Wizard of Id with a drop of 3.44 percent to fall out of the 30 percent club (it had been a member since 1979). Wizard of Id become the third strip to do drop out for reasons besides cancellation; the other two were Andy Capp and Shoe. Cathy had a drop of 4.14 percent making her total this year 32.48 percent — will she be next to fall out of 30 percent club?

Title (237 Papers)	Rank	Rank +/-	Papers	Papers +/-	30 Percent Club	Percent +/-
Garfield	1	Same	203	-4	85.65	-0.35
Blondie	2	Same	199	-6	83.96	-0.4
For Better or For Worse	3	Same	197	-5	83.12	0
Dilbert	4	Same	175	-6	73.83	-0.65
Zits	5	Up 1	173	5	72.99	3.86
Beetle Bailey	6	Down 1	166	-7	70.04	-1.15
Peanuts	7	Same	156	-7	65.82	-1.25
Family Circus	8	Same	155	-5	65.4	-0.44
Hagar The Horrible	9	Same	143	-5	60.33	-0.57
Doonesbury	10	Same	133	-1	56.11	0.97
Baby Blues	11	Same	116	4	48.94	2.85
Hi and Lois	12	Up 1	93	-1	39.24	0.56
Get Fuzzy	13	Up 1	91	2	38.39	1.77
B.C.	14	Down 2	79	-19	33.33	-6.99
Non Sequitur	15	Up 1	78	-1	32.91	0.4
Born Loser	16	Up 3	77	1	32.48	1.21
Cathy	16	Down 2	77	-12	32.48	-4.14
Dennis The Menace	16	Up 2	77	0	32.48	0.8
Frank and Ernest	19	Down 2	73	-5	30.8	-1.29
Wizard of Id	20	Same	65	-10	27.42	-3.44
Pearls Before Swine	21	Up 7	62	12
Pickles	22	Up 3	60	7
Mother Goose and Grimm	23	Down 2	57	1
Marmaduke	24	Down 3	55	-1
Mutts	24	Down 3	55	-1
Jump Start	26	Up 1	52	0
Close To Home	27	Up 2	50	2
Sally Forth	27	Down 3	50	-4
Rose is Rose	29	Same	48	0
Crankshaft	30	Entering	47	2

The Average Number of Comic Strips had a small increase again this year from 18.8230 to 18.8607.

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

46 – Luann (-1), Mallard Fillmore (-7)
44 – Arlo and Janis (+3)
38 – Shoe (-3)
37 – Funky Winkerbean (-1)
36 – Ziggy (-1)
35 – Bizarro (+4)
34 – Rex Morgan (-1)
30 – Lockhorns (-2)
26 – Lio (-1), Speed Bump (0)
25 – Stone Soup (+3)
24 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-3)
23 – Alley Oop (+1)
22 – Baldo (-2), Curtis (-3), Frazz (-1), Grizzwells (+1)
21 – Herman (0)
20 – Mary Worth (-5), Sherman’s Lagoon (-2)
18 – Kit N’ Carlyle (0)
17 – F Minus (+7), Pooch Café (+1), Rhymes With Orange (+1)
16 – Grand Avenue (0), One Big Happy (-2), Pluggers (+1)
15 – Brevity (-5), Flying McCoy Brothers (-2), Monty (0), Pardon My Planet (+1)
14 – Judge Parker (-1), Marvin (-3), Red and Rover (0), Rubes (-2), Tina’s Groove (0)
13 – Adam (+1), In The Bleachers (-2)
12 – Big Nate (+1), Drabble (+1), Lola (+2), Real Life Adventures (-1)
11 – Heart of The City (+1), Mark Trail (-1), Other Coast (0), Tundra (+4)
10 – Andy Capp (0), Buckles (0), Candorville (+3), Overboard (0)
9 – Amazing Spider-Man (-1), Between Friends (+2), Gasoline Alley (-2), Prickly City (+3), Soup To Nutz (-1)
8 – Hocus-Focus (-3), Off The Mark (0)
7 – Agnes (-1), Bliss (0), Cul De Sac (R), Dinette Set (-1), Fred Basset (+1), Over The Hedge (0), Pajama Diaries (+4), Retail (+1)
6 – Brillant Mind of Edison Lee (+2), Chuckle Brothers (-1), Cornered (0), Duplex (0), Elderrerries (+2), Gil Thorp (-1), Middletons (+1), Nancy (0), 9 Chickweed Lane (0), Six Chix (-1)
5 – Ben (0), Betty (-1), Brewster Rockit: Space Guy (-1), Cow and Boy (-3), Dog Eat Doug (-1), Girls and Sports (+1), Heathcliff (-2), Lucky Cow (-1), Tank McNamara (0), Tiger (-3)
4 – Apartment 3-G, Archie, Bound and Gagged, Brenda Starr, Cleats, Dick Tracy, Little Dog Lost, Moderately Confused, Mr. Boffo, Prianha Club, Preteena, Sylvia, They’ll Do It Every Time
3 – Ballard Street, Buckets, Comics For Kids, Herb and Jamal, Housebroken, Ink Pen, La Cucaracha, Love Is, My Cage, Phantom, Reality Check, Watch Your Head, Zack Hill
2 – A Doctor, A Lawyer, A Cop, Broom Hilda, Diesel Sweeties, Edge City, Grin and Bear It, Loose Parts, Maintaining, Mickey Mouse, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Rudy Park, Safe Havens, Willy N’ Ethel, Working It Out
1 – Animal Crackers, Argyle Sweater, Better Half, BoNanas, Brainwaves, Clear Blue Water, Crock, Donald Duck, Evil Inc, Flight Deck, Flo and Friends, Free Range, Fusco Brothers, Humble Stumble, Kevin & Keil, Little Orphan Annie, Meaning of Lia, Meet Mr. Lucky, Momma, 9 to 5, On A Claire Day, Play Better Golf With Jack Nicklaus, Polliwog Pond, Raising Hector, Rugrats, Saturday Afternoon, Single and Looking, Spot The Fog, Stan Smith Tennis Class, State of The Union, Todd The Dinosaur, Without Reservations

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Jeffrey Lindenblatt’s Paper Trends: The 300 for 2008 — Biggest Winners and Losers

Posted on: October 13, 2026 by Allan Holtz

NEW! Do a deep dive! The full newspaper lists for each year of The 300 are now available right here on the website. Just click on The 300 on the menu bar.

Even though we lost information on six papers since the 2007 survey, we managed to have a few and impressive winners this year. Pearls Before Swine was the champ by gaining twelve papers from the last survey. Other big winners were Pickles and F-Minus, gaining seven papers, while Zits continues to grow with five papers. Those are the only features that gained five or more papers since last year – keep in mind that by losing six papers this category was a tough nut to crack.

On the other hand, we had lots of big losers, and the biggest one was Johnny Hart. Hart died in 2007 and the news caused newspapers to dump his features in droves. He lost a combined 29 papers; nineteen for B.C. and ten for Wizard of Id.

Also, Cathy again continues its race to the bottom with ten papers who removed the strip from their comic section. We still remain somewhat baffled by the continuing losses for this strip. Some have guessed that it was all due to the character getting married in 2004, but the losses started even before that. One has to wonder if Guisewite looked at these numbers and considered giving her character a divorce!

Here are all the strips that lost 5 or more strips, but remember we lost 6 papers since last year, so it wasn’t exactly hard to qualify:

B.C. – 19
Cathy – 12
Wizard of Id – 10
Beetle Bailey, Peanuts, Millard Fillmore – 7
Blondie, Dilbert – 6
For Better or For Worse, Family Circus, Hagar The Horrible, Frank and Ernest, Brevity, Mary Worth – 5

Adventure strips lost just two papers overall. Tarzan joined Mandrake the Magician as strips that are being syndicated but do not have even one paper in this survey that is running them.

The soap strips lost a combined 8 spots; the big loser was Mary Worth with 5 of them.

Adventure (-2)
Alley Oop – 23 (+1)
Mark Trail – 11 (-1)
Amazing Spider-Man – 9 (-1)
Brenda Starr – 4 (0)
Dick Tracy – 4 (0)
Phantom – 3 (-1)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (0)
Tarzan – 0 (-1)
Mandrake The Magician – 0

Soaps (-8)
Rex Morgan – 34 (-1)
Mary Worth – 20 (-5)
Judge Parker – 14 (-1)
Gil Thorp – 6 (-1)
Apartment 3-G – 4 (0)

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Jeffrey Lindenblatt’s Paper Trends: The 300 for 2008 — Rookies of 2007

Posted on: October 12, 2026 by Allan Holtz

NEW! Do a deep dive! The full newspaper lists for each year of The 300 are now available right here on the website. Just click on The 300 on the menu bar.

The rookies of 2007 did not make much of an impact and, ironically, the ones that started out well would not really last long in newspapers. Our top rookie, Cul de Sac, debuted in the Washington Post three years earlier and was picked up in 2007 by Universal Press Syndicate. This now almost legendary strip debuted in only 7 papers, and its run was cut far too short by the death of creator Richard Thompson.

Coming in second place with only 4 papers is Little Dog Lost, a strip syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Funny that they did not syndicate Cul de Sac!

Here are all the rookies of 2007, with features still running as of our post date shown in green:

Cul de Sac – 7

Little Dog Lost – 4

My Cage – 3

Diesel Sweeties, Maintaining – 2

Arctic Circle, Argyle Sweater, Free Range, Polliwog Pond¹, Spot The Frog – 1

Note from Allan: Polliwog Pond by Tom McGinty reportedly debuted sometime around 1998-99 in the Erie Times, and three years later, in the Oil City Derrick. The former is online, but I am unable to find the strip there. The Derrick is not online for these years, but there is sufficient proof that they ran it from 2001 until McGinty’s death in 2009. ↩︎

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