Author: Robert Greenberger

As regular series on the major networks wind up this month, ComicMix fans can start programming their DVRs for the summer series over at the Sci-Fi Channel.

New programming kicks off on June 6 with the return of Ghost Hunters at 9, followed by the new show, Destination Truth.  The six-episode series followers Josh Gates, an adventurer visiting weird places and investigation the supernatural.

Doctor Who’s third season returns on July 6 in the 9 p.m. slot.  It begins with the Christmas special, something to make you forget the summer heat.

On July 10, Eureka returns for its second season.

The second season of Stan Lee’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? arrives on July 25 at 9 p.m.  And if that isn’t enough to make you Face Front, True Believers, then be astounded at 10 p.m. when the untitled Derren Brown show debuts.  Brown is a British mentalist – imagine the Amazing Kreskin with an accent.

The thoroughly reimagined Flash Gordon series starring Smallville‘s Eric Johnson takes viewers from Earth to Mongo beginning August 10.

Johnny Hart passed away the other day and in one of the obituaries I read, it stated Creators Syndicate intended to keep his strips, B.C. and Wizard of Id, still going. It seems Hart had been receiving help from family for some time now and much of his work exists as digital files for repurposing.

Upon reading it, my first thought was, ”Why?” The strips stopped being funny some 20-25 years ago and were coasting on momentum. B.C., which Hart wrote and drew, also was delving into his religious faith with increasing frequency over the years and was far from entertaining.

All of this brings up a host of issues regarding newspaper comic strips and their future. It used to be that the comic strips were a selling point, a way for papers to distinguish themselves. After all, the news, stocks and sports score were the same so why buy the New York Daily News if you also read the New York Post? The News knew comic strips were a key and filled page after page with the best strips possible. The Sunday edition was wrapped in the comics’ section – growing up, the Sundays were started with the latest Dick Tracy on the front and Dondi on the back and in between, there were more than a dozen other features.

The first generation or two of comic strip creators were a fertile, wonderful bunch that gave us enduring figures from Little Orphan Annie to B.C. As a result, as people aged, moved out of their parents’ home and started subscribing to a hometown paper, the comic strips remained a tool to entice and retain readers.

Whenever newspapers conduct reader surveys to figure out which features to drop in favor of new ones, the old standbys still score strongly because of that ingrained habit. Locally, the comics editor at the Connecticut Post admitted that “the blue-haired old ladies” threatened to cancel their subs if beloved strips vanished. And with circulation dwindling, papers have to hold on to every last reader.

The problem, though, has become that many strips have outlived their entertainment value and continue to run only out of habit. B.C. and Peanuts and Marmaduke and many others stopped being entertaining and fresh and interesting decades ago. When the creators have retired, or died, others have continued the features, recycling the same puns, gags and stale humor.

Some of the younger, hipper, creators recognize that such recycling is a kiss of death these days. Jim Davis gave Jon Arbuckle a girl friend in Garfield and Cathy Guisewite married off her pathetic Cathy a few years back, each mining new strip possibilities. (more…)