Comic strips

Marvin – Still Going (Arm)Strong at 40

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D. D. Degg July 31, 2022 1 minute 0 comments

On a Sunday forty years ago cartoonist Tom Armstrong introduced the world to a young couple who had just become parents in a comic strip named after the little one – Marvin.

The Miller family debuted on August 1, 1982:

At the time Tom Armstrong was drawing John Darling, a spin off of Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean, for Field Enterprises. Wanting a comic strip to call his own Tom began submitting ideas to the syndicate. Below Claire Martin, for The St. Petersburg Times, talks to Tom Armstrong about Marvin’s conception. (Tom would continue to draw the John Darling strip for two and a half years while also doing Marvin.)

The first week of dailies (below) also discussed Marvin’s birth.

 
 
 
 

© North America Syndicate

Here’s some odds and ends from KFS celebrating Marvin’s 30th anniversary.

Yeah, we’re celebrating a day ahead of Marvin’s actual first appearance of August 1,
but we’re just following creator Tom Armstrong’s lead:

You’re good for another 40 years, right Tom?