Bumped to the top and updated.
Jack and Carole bid farewell in what, for the moment at least, is the last Alley Oop panel.
Read the entire final Bender daily strip at GoComics.
Carole says Goodbye on her Facebook page –
Doing Alley Oop is a dream job we were lucky to have, but make no mistake about it, it is an enormous job. The deadlines never go away, and there’s no such thing as weekend. For the most part, we worked seven days a week, 365 days a year. Being our own bosses meant we could set our own schedule, but taking a day off meant working twice as hard the next day.
Jack and I met right at the time that Jack signed the contract to be the official artist of Alley Oop, and he hired me soon after to do the lettering. We owe our lives together to that caveman!
original August 14, 2018 post:
Longtime “Alley Oop” cartoonists Carole and Jack Bender are retiring from the “Alley Oop” comic strip. The last original Alley Oop from the Benders will appear on September 1st.
Jack Bender started on the comic as the illustrator (taking over for Dave Graue, who remained as the writer) in 1991. After Dave retired from writing in 2001, Jack’s wife Carole Bender became the writer. (Dave was tragically killed in a car accident a few months after he retired).
The strip was originally created by V.T. Hamlin in 1932.
Andrews McMeel Syndication says the strip will go into reruns through the end of the year as they decide next steps for the comic.
(The Daily Cartoonist is owned by Andrews McMeel)
During the 4 month rerun process in September-December 2018, will Andrews McMeel search for a new writer and/or artist to fill the Benders’ shoes?
If they choose to relaunch, I hope they are as lucky as Nancy was when they chose the pseudonymous Olivia Jaimes.
My contenders for a new writer and artist for Alley Oop: Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley – both have worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book originally with Archie comics and now with IDW comics.
I’m sorry but it’s hard enough to find “real estate” in print and a comic that’s been around since 1932 (smh) prevents newer content from emerging. Want to be in comic strips? Too bad, because comics like this first printed ten years before the first television was invented are still in print. Let that sink in.
It not only should have been given a proper burial a long time ago the idea it’s going into reruns until the syndicate can decide what to do is funnier than any AO strip they’ll ever write.
-ML
Well, I gotta say, I hope whoever gets it has a lot of fun with it. LOTS of great material to mine there. If the readers will let them. But as mentioned above The Nancy Experience bodes well for Alley Oop.
Sorry to see Alley Oop go, but it would be hard to replace. So many of the newer comics are either dumb or disinteresting, too much like late night “comedy”.
Anybody lamenting the loss of Alley Oop either hasn’t been reading it or doesn’t know much about contemporary “comedy.” I don’t think the Benders even claimed it was a comedy strip —
It was a lighthearted, molasses in movement “adventure” comic. Nothing funnny about it.