While some cartoonists issue reruns for a couple weeks to get vacation time (or grab some shut-eye), Darrin Bell has come up with a unique method of getting ahead of deadlines so he can clock in some vacation, or do promotional tours, or give him time to do his political cartoons.
Darrin does two daily comic strips and is also a regular editorial cartoonist!
Darrin’s comic strips, Candorville and Rudy Park, exist in the same universe (the Bellverse?), and at times there have been crossovers. But now instead of crossovers or guest shots Darrin creates a story where characters of both comic strips appear and then runs that same strip in the newspaper real estate assigned to both titles.
The current, what I’ll call amalgamation, began on Saturday June 2, 2018 when both Candorville and Rudy Park started running the same strip.
Above: the June 7, 2018 dated strips of Candorville and Rudy Park – your pick
The first strips do not feature the stars of either strip, but a couple of Darrin’s other regular characters. The story line, of unexplained occurences, continues as the stars of Candorville show up in the Monday June 11 Rudy Park strip; while Rudy Park stars show up in the Tuesday June 12 Candorville strip.
In the Sunday June 17 Candorville, both Lemont Brown and Rudy Park appear together in a page not associated with the daily continuity. The amalgamation of the strips appears occasionally on Sundays (i.e.: June 10, 2018), but mainly it is a daily phenomenon.
Above the June 17, 2018 strip.
My understanding is that Candorville, which appears in hundreds of newspapers, and Rudy Park, whose circulation is in the dozens(?), do not both appear in any same newspaper. So there is no overlap in print readership.
My guess is that the character of both strips will meet and co-star in the current daily story line soon.
At least that is what happened in last year’s Russian story, where occasionally Darrin played with the amalgamation.
The June 5, 2017 Candorville strip (top) and the June 5, 2017 Rudy Park strip (bottom)