Flo & Friends, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, carries the subtitle “Aging with an Attitude!” Title character Flo is a 65-year-old raising her teenage granddaughter.
“When I started, I thought ’65, that’s old,’ so I made Flo 65,” [cartoonist Jenny] Campbell says with a laugh. “I just turned 65 last year, so the strip is becoming more and more autobiographical. The characters have evolved into really good friends of mine.”
Diamond Lil, Lola, Pluggers, and Crankshaft are a few of the comic strips
starring and playing to the senior segment of newspapers’ demographic.
Older Americans may be ignored by much of the media, but they’re getting a lot of attention these days in one surprising venue: the comics.
Newspaper and online comic strips focusing on the lives of older characters are drawing readers of all generations. Other strips are plucking them out of the supporting cast to become central figures in their story arcs.
Greg Daugherty, for Next Avenue, looks at some of the strips skewed toward the superior citizens.
Older adults are front and center in ‘Pickles,’ ‘Flo & Friends,’
‘Sally Forth‘ and ‘The New 60‘ and appealing to all generations
Is there anyone under 50 who still reads comics?
Do you mean comics in the dead tree funny pages? Online, I read over 100 daily, both comics and editorial cartoons. That’s more than I ever did when I read newspapers, several a day.