Rarity: Etta Hulme’s Comic Strip “The Strangers”
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Famed Texas editorial cartoonist Etta Hulme (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram 1972 – 2008)
drew a comic strip for her newspaper for a month and a half in 1980.
Before we get to the 1980 comic strip let’s note that the “comeback” mentioned in the above promo was a reference to a Jerry Flemmens humor column that ran daily in The Star-Telegram during September (September 9 -27) of the 1979 baseball season.
Also note though it was about a fictitious Fort Worth Strangers baseball team (see: Texas Rangers 1972 – on) the feature, like the following year’s comic strip, would appear on page one of the local section.
So it was that the following Spring Star-Telegram reporter/columnist/travel editor Jerry Flemmons brought back his baseball team, now as a comic strip drawn by Star-Telegram cartoonist Etta Hulme.
“The Strangers” (as opposed to “The Fort Worth Strangers”) comic strip debuted April 20, 1980.
The strip would run seven days a week, but only the first one (above) would be a multi-tiered comic. Below are the rest of the April 1980 comic strips (click on strips to embiggen).
© Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (?)
May 1980 would continue the strip’s daily schedule with a break on May 18 for a “Favorite Stranger” contest announcement for which Etta Hulme drew a team portrait.
May would also see a change in the strip’s logo, saving space by moving it to the side.
The comic would end on June 6, 1980 with the last week returning to the original presentation.
Below are the last four strips.
Early in her career Etta Hulme had drawn comic books and she was not adverse to using sequential panels in her editorial cartoons, but the 48 strips of The Strangers were her only newspaper comic strip.
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