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A zombie strip (also known as a "legacy strip" [1] ) is a comic strip whose creator has died or retired, but which continues to exist with new installments in syndication done by a succeeding writer or artist, most often relatives of the original creator. Zombie comic strips are often criticized as lacking the "spark" that had originally made the strip successful. [2] [3]
The usual reason for continuing a strip with a new cartoonist is to keep the profitable business or franchise going, preserving a number of jobs and allowing future generations to enjoy the work in a new form. Both the creator's relatives and the strip's syndicate stand to make significant money in royalties. [2] In the early days of comic strips, it was commonplace for a strip to be taken over by successors once the original cartoonist died. One of the earliest high-profile cartoonists to reject this was George Herriman, who decreed that his strip Krazy Kat not be continued after his death; Herriman died in 1944, after which Krazy Kat was canceled. [4]
The practice of continuing a zombie comic strip is commonly criticized by cartoonists, particularly younger ones in the new generation, including Bill Watterson [5] [6] and Stephan Pastis. Pastis addressed the issue in his strip, Pearls Before Swine , in 2005. [7] Mark Tatulli also commented on zombie strips in his strip Liō in 2010 [8] and in 2013. [9] After an incident in which United Feature Syndicate secretly retained the services of superhero comic artist Al Plastino to continue the comic strip Peanuts in case of an interruption, [10] the heirs of Charles Schulz, author and creator of Peanuts, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. [11] Since Schulz died in 2000, Peanuts has continued in reruns under two lines: Classic Peanuts [12] and Peanuts Begins. [13]
The principal criticism directed toward continuing a zombie strip is that the replacement cartoonist is seen as generally less funny or less inspired than the creator, [1] or that the new cartoonist does not have the same style of writing or understand the characters as well. [2] The death of the cartoonist and the strip's succession into zombie status thus is akin to the concept of "jumping the shark", in that the strip never returns to the quality or popularity it had during the run by the original cartoonist. An additional criticism is that continuing such strips prevents newer cartoonists from entering the business by filling newspaper space that might be devoted to new strips. [1] [2] [14] However, in numerous cases, the new head cartoonist has often been the assistant of the former, as Dennis the Menace , after Hank Ketcham's retirement, was developed by his former assistants who have taken over, similar to sporting coaches in a coaching tree, the new head cartoonist has been an understudy of the former. [15] Often the new cartoonist has developed the strip over a few years. [2] As another counterpoint, zombie strips can also provide proving grounds for unknown artists to prove their worth with an established brand; Jerry Scott began his national career writing and illustrating Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy , being given substantial artistic freedom in the process, before debuting his strips, Baby Blues and Zits . [16] In other cases, some strips have passed within generations of the original artist. Such has taken place most notably with the families of Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ), Johnny Hart ( B.C. and The Wizard of Id ), and Mort Walker ( Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois ), whose strips are currently written by Jeff Keane (Bil Keane's son), Mason Mastroianni (Johnny Hart's grandson), and brothers Brian and Greg Walker (Mort Walker's sons), respectively.
Zombie strips include Adam@home , Andy Capp , Blondie , Dennis the Menace , B.C. , The Wizard of Id , Frank and Ernest , Hi and Lois , Hägar the Horrible , Dick Tracy , Rex Morgan, M.D. , Mary Worth , Prince Valiant , The Family Circus , The Born Loser , Shoe , Spy vs. Spy , Barney Google and Snuffy Smith , and Ginger Meggs . [2] Now-defunct strips that were zombies for a time before being discontinued include Terry and the Pirates , Little Orphan Annie , and Brenda Starr .[ citation needed ]
Additional examples include strips that still have an association with their original author but receive significant assistance from others. The most widely known example of this is the widely syndicated Garfield, which was created and is still managed by Jim Davis but is currently written and drawn by staff [17] at Paws, Inc., which handles his brand licensing rights, and as of 2019, is a subsidiary of Paramount Global, which acquired the Garfield franchise in the same year. [18] Other examples are the multi-generational strips, such as B.C. , The Wizard of Id , Hi and Lois , Beetle Bailey , and The Family Circus . In those cases, the strips in later years were drawn by the original author with other family members. Following the deaths of the original authors, the next generation in the families continued their respective strips
Outside of comic strips, the idea of a production continuing without its creator is not uncommon at all, as creators typically do not own the rights to their work. For example, SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg largely stepped away from the show after 2004, but continued to serve as executive producer before returning to more active involvement in 2015 until his death three years later. [19] Similarly, Nickelodeon continued to produce episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show [20] even after firing the show's creator, John Kricfalusi. [21]
William Boyd Watterson II is an American cartoonist who authored the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The strip was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson concluded Calvin and Hobbes with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his negative views on comic syndication and licensing, his efforts to expand and elevate the newspaper comic as an art form, and his move back into private life after Calvin and Hobbes ended. Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The suburban Midwestern United States setting of Ohio was part of the inspiration for the setting of Calvin and Hobbes. Watterson lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio as of January 2024.
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.
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They enjoyed each other's company and decided to meet on a regular basis.
The Ren & Stimpy Show, commonly referred to as simply Ren & Stimpy, is an American comedy animated television series created by John Kricfalusi and developed by Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, Jim Smith and Lynne Naylor for Nickelodeon. Originally produced by Spümcø, the series aired on Nickelodeon from August 11, 1991, to December 16, 1995, with its last episode airing on MTV on October 20, 1996, spanning for a total of five seasons and 52 episodes. The series follows the misadventures of Ren Höek, an emotionally unstable and psychotic chihuahua dog; and Stimpy, a good-natured and dimwitted Manx cat. It is the third to be aired of the original three Nickelodeon animated series known as "Nicktoons", alongside Doug and Rugrats, and is considered to be one of the progenitor series of the brand.
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts which features his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists in history, and cited by many cartoonists as a major influence, including Jim Davis, Murray Ball, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, and Dav Pilkey.
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. Peanuts is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of roughly 355 million across 75 countries, and had been translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion. It got a movie adaptation in 2015 by Blue Sky Studios.
Patrick McDonnell is a cartoonist, author, and playwright. He is the creator of the daily comic strip Mutts, which follows the adventures of a dog and a cat, that has been syndicated since 1994. Prior to creating Mutts, he was a prolific magazine illustrator, and would frequently include a dog in the backgrounds of his drawings.
George Joseph Herriman III was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat (1913–1944). More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes' article "The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself" was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herriman's work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Elzie C. Segar, Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.
Spümcø, Inc. was an American animation studio that was active from 1989 to 2005 and based in Los Angeles, California. The studio was best known for working on the first two seasons of The Ren & Stimpy Show for Nickelodeon and for various commercials. The studio won several awards, including an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject for the music video of the song "I Miss You" by Björk.
Elzie Crisler Segar, known by the pen name E. C. Segar, was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Popeye, a pop culture character who first appeared in 1929 in Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre.
Stephan Thomas Pastis is an American cartoonist and former lawyer who is the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. He also writes children's chapter books, commencing with the release of Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The seventh book, It's the End When I Say It's the End, debuted at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Middle Grade Books.
Michael John Kricfalusi, known professionally as John K., is a Canadian illustrator, blogger, and former animator and voice actor. He is the creator of the animated television series The Ren & Stimpy Show, which was highly influential on televised animation during the 1990s. From 1989 to 1992, he was heavily involved with the first two seasons of the show in virtually every aspect of its production, including providing the voice of Ren Höek and other characters. In 2009, he won the Inkpot Award.
William Aloysius Keane was an American cartoonist best known for the newspaper comic strip The Family Circus. He began it in 1960 and his son Jeff Keane continues to produce it.
It's Only a Game was a sports-and-game-oriented comics panel by Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts. This panel feature ran for 14 months, from November 3, 1957, to January 11, 1959. It's Only a Game was distributed by United Feature Syndicate.
George Liquor is a cartoon character created by John Kricfalusi. Liquor is most famous for his appearances on The Ren & Stimpy Show. He is considered Kricfalusi's signature character and was a mascot for Kricfalusi's defunct animation studio, Spümcø. Kricfalusi portrayed George Liquor as a patriotic, outspoken, politically conservative blowhard. Kricfalusi described Liquor as his favorite character to animate.
The comic strip switcheroo was conducted on April 1, 1997, in which several cartoonists, without the foreknowledge of their editors, worked on the other's comic strip for that date, in commemoration of April Fools' Day.
Krazy Kat is an American newspaper comic strip, created by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters had been introduced previously in a side strip with Herriman's earlier creation, The Dingbat Family, after earlier appearances in the Herriman comic strip Baron Bean. The phrase "Krazy Kat" originated there, said by the mouse by way of describing the cat. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, KrazyKat's mixture of offbeat surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic, idiosyncratic language has made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.
Clifford Sterrett was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip Polly and Her Pals.
Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.
