Sometimes I sit and wonder.
For example…
I wonder if Mike Curtis and Joe Staton are going to bring Annie back to Dick Tracy every five years.
Annie, Warbucks and Company showed up five years ago (with some foreshadowing) in the Dick Tracy comic strip on the eve of the 90th anniversary of Little Orphan Annie’s first appearance (August 5, 1924).
Now, as Annie’s 95th approaches, she returns to Dick Tracy.
Looking forward to 2024 and Annie’s 100th.
I wonder if there is a new colorist for the Dennis the Menace Sunday strip.
For quite some time now the Sunday strip has had soft colors.
Those pastels are a big change from the bright primary colors I had grown accustomed to:
I wonder if Darby Conley has quit the game.
above: the last Get Fuzzy (so far)
Darby Conley went the Sunday-only route with his Get Fuzzy strip in 2013, with the dailies going rerun. But the last couple years have seen an increasing amount of reruns for the Sunday strips. Last year about half of the Sundays were reruns. Then new Sundays started appearing only once a month during October, November, and December 2018, and January, February, and March 2019. The last new Get Fuzzy (as of now) appeared March 31, 2019. The syndicate is staying mum.
I wonder how long until Comics Kingdom fixes the site.
With a new Sunday story for The Phantom comes a new title panel by artist Jeff Weigel (ala Prince Valiant). But Comics Kingdom patrons wouldn’t know that since the site still doesn’t show the full half-page version (though they do with Judge Parker and other selected strips).
I would think making this right on The Phantom page would be a priority as it is a worldwide favorite and Phans are going elsewhere for their Sunday fix.
Oh, here’s Jeff’s earlier title panels for The Phantom:
I wonder what are ERB Inc’s future plans for the Sunday Tarzan strip.
When the May 12, 2019 installment of Tarzan showed up I was a bit stunned. The Alex Simmons signature made me realize that this is the end of the Gray Morrow run. This Simmons/Morrow story will run six Sundays, until June 16, 2019, and that will be the last of the Morrow Tarzan.
If they continue in the original order we will get two stories by Alex Simmons and Eric Battle, taking us to Spring 2020. Which will be the end of the original Sunday Tarzan run.
But then what? Back to the start of Gray Morrow’s run? The Russ Manning Sunday’s should fit in today’s papers. My already expressed preference is that they start running the Roy Thomas/Tom Grindberg online Sundays.
With the recent addition of new categories to The Reuben Awards,
I wonder if the National Cartoonists Society would be amenable to a retro suggestion.
For a long time the newspaper comic strip division was divided into two classes.
I would like to see a return to that.
Why would Andrews McMeel stay MUM about the fate of Get Fuzzy?
Aren’t story strips at an all-time low for relevance? How many are even left?
There’s about a dozen acknowledged story strips from Alley Oop to The Amazing Spider-Man, from Rex Morgan to Rip Haywire. But then add in another dozen with storylines like Funky Winkerbean and 9 Chickweed Lane and Kevin and Kell and so on and Sally Forth.
I would be happy to see Wiley’s recent Genji and Nebbish Sunday story submitted to an imagined newspaper comic strip story division. It was a favorite comic story of mine this year.
Ron Ferdinand, Sunday Dennis the Menace cartoonist, responded to my wonderment:
“We are constantly experimenting with new ideas and direction for the Sunday strip.
In doing so, we’re simplifying the visuals and going for a softer color scheme to keep Dennis looking fresh for the fans
….and a new generation.
Thanks for wondering,
Scott, Ron and the Dennis Team”