John Darling (comic strip)

John Darling
John Darling
Author(s)	Tom Batiuk
Illustrator(s)	Tom Armstrong (1979–1985); Gerry Shamray (1985–1990)
Current status/schedule	Concluded daily strip
Launch date	March 25, 1979
End date	August 4, 1990
Syndicate(s)	Field Newspaper Syndicate (1979–1984); News America Syndicate (1984–1986); North America Syndicate (1986–1988); King Features Syndicate (1988–1990)
Genre(s)	Humor, Satire
Preceded by	Funky Winkerbean

Last updated May 09, 2024

John Darling is an American comic strip, created by Tom Batiuk, a spin-off of his earlier comic strip Funky Winkerbean . John Darling appeared from March 25, 1979, to August 4, 1990.^[1]

Storyline and characters

John Darling, a talk-show host, was originally a supporting character in Batiuk's strip Funky Winkerbean before being spun off into his own strip. Much of the strip's humor came from Darling's outsized ego, quirks, and frequent displays of ignorance; in one strip,^{[ which? ]} he interviews musician Prince, asking him "Exactly which country are you a prince of?"

Other featured characters were Darling's co-workers at "Channel One", the TV station where he worked, including ratings-obsessed producer Reed Roberts; clueless old-school anchor Charlie Lord; shrewish reporter Brenda Harpy; and insecure weatherman Phil. The strip also featured a large number of parodic appearances by celebrities (often being interviewed by Darling); this was such a feature of the strip that numerous newspapers carried John Darling on their TV page, rather than the comics page. Sunday strips generally included two panels of "TV Trivia" content otherwise unrelated to the strip as a whole.

History

John Darling debuted in March 1979 in 22 newspapers.^[2] The strip's original artist was Tom Armstrong, who left in 1985 for his own creation, Marvin , though he did return to draw the feature's final three weeks.^[1] His replacement was Gerry Shamray, whose first strip was dated March 3, 1985.^[3]

John Darling wound down in 1990, as writer Batiuk by his own account was growing tired of the work it involved. Perhaps even more of a factor was that the strip was no longer financially remunerative, as it had been dropped by numerous newspapers.^[4] With John Darling having been dropped by a number of newspapers over the years, the syndicate decided the strip was simply no longer profitable, and allowed it to die.

Batiuk, who had a contractual conflict with his syndicate (King Features Syndicate) over ownership of the character, stunned the strip's remaining readers by killing off Darling in the next-to-last strip. (The final strip featured other characters gathered around Darling's gravesite.)

Darling's murder later solved in Funky Winkerbean

John Darling's murder (which had been depicted as being by an unknown assailant) stayed unsolved until a 1997 Funky Winkerbean storyline celebrating that strip's 25th anniversary. Over the course of the storyline, Winkerbean character Les Moore wrote a book on Darling's murder ("Fallen Star") and solved the case. The murderer was revealed to be Peter Mossman, alias Plantman, an occasional character in the strip who reported on gardening and environmental issues. (Plantman had actually uttered the very last words in the John Darling strip, while standing next to Darling's headstone: "Goodbye, old friend.")

While Darling himself was rarely mentioned in Funky Winkerbean in the years immediately following his 1990 demise, Darling's daughter Jessica appeared as a regular in the Funky Winkerbean strip until 2007, when the feature was retconned by moving the continuing story up several years. The book about Darling's murder was referenced again during a 2010 strip, and Jessica reappeared in 2011.^[5] By 2013, John was mentioned quite often, as a continuing Funky Winkerbean plotline had Jessica actively searching for information about the father she lost at a very young age. Phil the Forecaster also made very, very occasional appearances in Funky Winkerbean, reappearing most recently in 2021 as he retired from his weather forecasting job at Channel One after over 40 years. Several minor characters in Funky Winkerbean's other spin-off strip Crankshaft have also worked at Channel One.

Related Research Articles

A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.

<i>Dick Tracy</i> American comic strip starting 1931

Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror, and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it.

For Better or For Worse is a comic strip by Lynn Johnston that ran originally from 1979 to 2008 chronicling the lives of the Patterson family and their friends, in the town of Milborough, a fictional suburb of Toronto, Ontario. Now running as reruns, For Better or For Worse is still seen in over 2,000 newspapers throughout Canada, the U.S., Mexico and around twenty other countries.

Tom Armstrong is an American cartoonist and the creator of the daily newspaper comic strip Marvin, which he has written and drawn continuously since its creation in 1982.

<i>Mutt and Jeff</i> 1907–1983 American comic strip

Mutt and Jeff is a long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns". It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week schedule had previously been pioneered through the short-lived A. Piker Clerk by Clare Briggs, but it was Mutt and Jeff as the first successful daily comic strip that staked out the direction of the future trend.

Mary Worth is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight-decade run from 1938. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this soap opera-style strip influenced several that followed. It was created by writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Connor, and initially appeared under the pseudonym "Dale Allen". Ken Ernst succeeded Connor as artist in 1942.

<i>Brenda Starr, Reporter</i> 1940-2011 American comic strip

Brenda Starr, Reporter is a comic strip about a glamorous, adventurous reporter. It was created in 1940 by Dale Messick for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, and continued by others until 2011.

Funky Winkerbean was an American comic strip by Tom Batiuk. Distributed by North America Syndicate, a division of King Features Syndicate, it appeared in more than 400 newspapers worldwide.

King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.

Rick Burchett is an American comic book artist known for his work on such characters as Batman and Superman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Batiuk</span> American cartoonist (born 1947)

Thomas Martin Batiuk is an American comic strip creator, best known for his long-running newspaper strip Funky Winkerbean.

Crankshaft is a comic strip about a character by the same name — an older, curmudgeonly school bus driver —which debuted on June 8, 1987. Written by Tom Batiuk and drawn by Dan Davis, Crankshaft is a spin-off from Batiuk's comic strip Funky Winkerbean. Prior to April 2, 2017, the strip was drawn by Chuck Ayers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Smith (cartoonist)</span> American cartoonist, 1902-1986

Al Smith was an American cartoonist whose work included a long run on the comic strip Mutt and Jeff. Comics historian R. C. Harvey postulates that Smith's nearly 50-year run on the strip was, at the time of Smith's retirement, a world record for longevity. Smith also ran a comic strip syndication service — mainly serving weekly newspapers — from the 1950s until the late 1990s.

James Scancarelli, known professionally as Jim Scancarelli, is an American cartoonist and musician. Since 1986, he has been writing and drawing the syndicated comic strip Gasoline Alley for Tribune Media Services. In that role, his predecessors were Frank King, Bill Perry and Dick Moores. He had served as an assistant to the latter for several years before taking over. Scancarelli is also a prizewinning bluegrass fiddler.

David M Willis is an American web cartoonist currently living in Columbus, Ohio. He is best known for his interconnected series of webcomics Roomies!, It's Walky!, Shortpacked!, and Dumbing of Age. Willis is also known online for his chatrooms and forums including "ItsWalky". KUTV in Salt Lake City calls him a satirist who is "a little bit edgy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Publishers-Hall Syndicate</span>

Publishers-Hall Syndicate was a newspaper syndicate founded by Robert M. Hall in 1944. Hall served as the company's president and general manager. Over the course of its operations, the company was known as, sequentially, the Hall Syndicate (1944–1946), the New York Post Syndicate (1946–1949), the Post-Hall Syndicate (1949–1955), the Hall Syndicate (1955–1967), and Publishers-Hall Syndicate (1967–1975). The syndicate was acquired by Field Enterprises in 1967, and merged into Field Newspaper Syndicate in 1975. Some of the more notable strips syndicated by the company include Pogo, Dennis the Menace, Funky Winkerbean, Mark Trail, The Strange World of Mr. Mum, and Momma, as well as the cartoons of Jules Feiffer.

Jinx, in comics, can refer to:

The Amazing Spider-Man is a daily comic strip featuring the character Spider-Man which has been syndicated for more than 40 years. It is a dramatic, soap opera-style strip with story arcs which typically run for 8 to 12 weeks. While the strip uses many of the same characters as the Spider-Man comic book, the storylines are nearly all originals and do not share the same continuity. A consistently popular strip, new material was published from 1977 to 2019, with the strip going into reruns afterwards.

Gerald James Shamray was an American comic book artist known for his work on Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comic book series American Splendor and the syndicated comic strip John Darling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morning Funnies</span> Breakfast cereal

Morning Funnies is a fruit-flavored breakfast cereal produced by Ralston Cereals in 1988 and 1989. The name of the cereal was based on the assortment of newspaper comic strips featured on the box. Innovative packaging allowed the back flap of the box to be opened revealing additional comic strips, different on each edition of the cereal box. Poor sales and negative consumer reaction led to the cereal being discontinued in 1989.

References

1 2 Tom Batiuk at the Lambiek Comiclopedia. Retrieved on October 8, 2016.
↑ Lindenblatt, Jeffrey (March 11, 2020). "Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The Three Hundred for 1980 -- The Rookies". Stripper's Guide.
↑ Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 217. ISBN 9780472117567.
↑ Batiuk, Tom (Feb 4, 2020). "Match to Flame 115". Funky Winkerbean Blog. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020.
↑ "So many sadnesses – the Comics Curmudgeon". 17 April 2011.

External links

John Darling at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016.