Atlanta Journal-Constitution restores two comics

Comments ¹⁸

1. Phil Tography

   wow, how weird is that ? a newspaper reverses itself. what is next, a pro athlete to take a pay cut ? will the madness never end ?
   Power to the comic paper lovin’ people !!!

2. Howard Roberts

   Judge Parker re-stored for the third time in the last 12 years at the AJC. They dropped it in 1997, 2004 and now 2009. Each time it has returned. Interesting.

   Kevin & Kell, done by an Atlanta cartoonist, Bill Holbrook gets the most votes, which makes sense.

   Maybe the esteemed Mr. Rizzo can drop by and share his thoughts on this recent process.

   I would say that 18,000 votes is a HUGE response. And, I would argue that is a testament to newspaper comics popularity and that papers should be ADDING, not cutting the space/money devoted to them.

3. Quint Nelson

   Gee, you think the voting might be rigged? What a joke. The newspaper is a joke.

4. Howard Roberts

   I happen to think the AJC is a well respected paper. And, no Editor is more passionate about comics than Frank Rizzo. It probably killed him to cut all of those comics.

5. mike crachiolo

   when i lived in atlanta i called to complain about some comics that were dropped and frank rizzo himself answered te phone and he told me the reason for dropping those comics, the readers wanted something different and some were his favotites, he told me it was a business and he could not keep the comics he liked

6. Quint Nelson

   Excuse me, but Judge Parker isn’t “something different”. No sale, it’s baloney.

7. dave taeusch

   Judge Parker is one of the most masterful drawn strips. the artist makes the slow stories interesting.

   Apt. 3-G is a joke with their current artist. The original artist was beautiful, and this current one makes all the women ugly. plus the fact they are redoing old stories. they just finished one about drug user who couldn;t paint any longer, and i remember that from the mid 70s. it got written up in various places.

8. Tom Heintjes

   Both restorations make sense. Judge Parker has a large readership among the Gray Panther set, who can real;ly mobilize when they have the incentive. And Kevin & Kell has a large, passionate and very active online fan base (not surprising for a strip that, other than the AJC, exists online only) that would naturally react to support the strip. I’m glad for Bill and for K&K fans. (As for Judge Parker, I wish he’d recuse himself in favor of the more unintentionally funny Mary Worth.)

9. Mike Rhode

   Judge Parker is totally smoking hot now that Eduardo Barreto is drawing it – give it a try, Tom. It’s a frequent topic of discussion on the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs blog too.

10. Tom Heintjes

    I know what you mean, Mike, but something happened along the line with the Barreto art. For a while last year, it was really sharp-looking, with a Wally Wood-like proficiency. Then, IIRC, Barreto fell ill and there was a fill-in artist who was not as polished. I guess Barreto came back, but the art never regained that earlier virtuoso sheen. I’ve always wondered (conspiracy theory warning) if King hired someone else and has been billing him as Barreto on the assumption that no one would notice.

11. Patty Leidy

    I think more papers should embrace the local talent…like the AJC should be publishing
    SCARY GARY.
    Mark Bufords Hometown is Atlanta!
    The papers these days aren’t recognizing regional talent, then could even do a nice interview and article about them…

12. Howard Roberts

    Tom…Eduardo Barreto is definitely doing the artwork on Judge Parker now. At the beginning he was trying to bridge the gap between himself and Harold LeDoux, per the syndicate.

    Right before he fell ill at the end of 2006, the decision was reached to “let the strip become his”. Then there was about a 4-5 week gap where John Heebink filled in. As much as Heebink tried, it was certainly nothing close to Barreto or LeDoux.

    I think when Eduardo returned to the strip in early 2007 he pretty much has drawn it his way. The art, IMHO, has only gotten better since then. Especially this last story arc in Arizona.

13. Tom Heintjes

    Wow, it was 2006 when Barreto got sick? Geez, time flies…it doesn’t seem that long ago! But before he got sick, I was really impressed with the art…like I said, the use of Wally Wood-style lighting and shadows, really supple line work and gorgeous gals. While it’s nice currently, the art hasn’t been quite the same (if I were a better archivist I could post examples), and that’s what led me to believe there had been some sort of personnel change.

14. Howard Roberts

    Tom…if you are so inclined, go to the “Comic Strip Archive” website and you can look at some of the first six months of Barreto’s work on Judge Parker (he started late in May of 2006).

    Link:

    http://www.comicstriparchive.com/Judge_Parker/

    You can also view the Heebink and the post-illness Barreto work up through today.

15. Alan Gardner  (admin)

    I interviewed Woody Wilson (the writer) after Barreto’s automobile accident that caused him to take a short hiatus from the strip.

    You can read it here. It should give a fairly good overview of the history of Judge Parker artists.

16. John Kohut

    How about adding “Jane’s World” and losing that cat comic strip?

17. nahjee saunders

    Check out my myspace to see some of my artwork. I want my comics to be featured in ajc’s newspaper or any newspaper. My page is http://www.myspace.com/definitionofjustice

18. sue bixler

    When I was young, in the 1956, there was a comic strip with a girl called Mopsey in the ajc i want to know how i can get a copy of one of the comic strips.or just a pict. of her
    thanks S. Bixler