Birmingham Historical Comic Strips -- Birmingham News, The Nineties
We're approaching the end of the ride here in all sorts of ways. The '90's didn't take long to do and won't take long to write about, because there were very few changes during the decade -- about one swap a year, basically -- and all of the strips involved have existed in the Web age where there's a good bit of information about there for most of them already.
1990:
In January, the Pogo revival experiment ended, and they replaced it with Baby Blues. In November, they dropped Baby Blues and added Overboard.
Baby Blues,Kirkman and
Scott,Creators Syndicate
Overboard,Chip Dunham,Universal Press Syndicate
1991:
In June, they dropped Overboard overboard and picked up Walnut Cove (they were already running Cullum's syndicated editorial stuff).
Walnut Cove,Mark Cullum and John Marshall,King Features Syndicate
1992:
In April, they dropped Andy Capp, another of those "OK, but why now?" moves, and picked up Bound and Gagged.
Bound and Gagged,Dana Summers,Tribune Media Services
1993:
No changes.
1994:
In July, they dropped Herman (I think this is around the time when Unger's lead material ran out) and picked up Close to Home. At the end of the year, Gary Larson retired, ending The Far Side.
Close to Home,John McPherson,none listed
1995:
They picked up Non Sequitur to replace The Far Side, running it in strip form at first and boxing Blondie again. In March, they dropped Bound and Gagged, brought back Baby Blues, and swapped Blondie and Non Sequitur. From this point forward, any time they swapped a strip for a panel or vice versa, they changed formats on Non Sequitur. In August, they dropped Apartment 3-G and replaced it with Dilbert. At the end of the year, Calvin and Hobbes ended.
Dilbert,Scott Adams,
United Feature Syndicate
Non Sequitur,Wiley Miller,Washington Post Writers Group
1996:
They picked up I Need Help, which has been renamed to Pardon My Planet somewhere along the way since then, to replace C&H. In June, they added two new strips, taking up a quarter of another column -- this corresponded more or less to Erma Bombeck's death, but that's outside the scope of this project. The strips added then were Pickles and Jumpstart; in September, they added The Buckets -- Scott Stantis was and is the paper's resident editorial cartoonist, so that made some sense.
I Need Help,Vic Lee,King Features Syndicate
Jumpstart,Robb Armstrong,United Feature Syndicate
Pickles,Brian Crane,
Washington Post Writers Group
The Buckets,Scott Stantis,United Feature Syndicate
1997:
In July, they dropped I Need Help in favor of Zits.
Zits,Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman,King Features Syndicate
1998:
In October, they dropped Walnut Cove and brought in the Rugrats strip.
Rugrats,A Team of Many,
Viacom
1999:
In May, they replaced Rugrats with Mutts. In September, they actually shrunk the comics page a bit, dropping Mutts and Close to Home.
Mutts,Patrick McDonell,King Features Syndicate
Last Updated: December 18, 2007