Birmingham Historical Comic Strips -- Birmingham Post-Herald, The Nineties

This was a very static decade, with only nine changes overall and multiple years with no change at all. This is fairly symptomatic of larger issues, I think. The current narrative is about how the Internet killed the newspaper, but examining the evidence really shows that, while online news was certainly a later accelerating factor (or, to be more accurate, online classifieds and ad competition were), papers were in decline earlier than can really be blamed on web factors. Circulation was already dropping, which initially led to consolidation within markets before the last paper standing eventually shriveled away on its own or moved mostly online.

With the exceptions of The Boondocks, which is in perpetual reruns on comics.com with the animated series always available, and Mallard Fillmore, which is infamous enough to need little explanation, all the strips added during the '90's are still in existence, so there won't be as much introductory text as usual in this entry.

1990:

There were no changes made in 1990.

1991:

One week into the year, the P-H dropped Momma (it's OK, the next 30 years have been exactly the same as what had run before this point) and picked up Big Nate, a significant upgrade. Nate, interestingly, was much taller in the beginning, or at least longer-legged.

Big Nate, none listed, United Features Syndicate

1992:

It was another fairly stable year, but Gary Trudeau did take another brief sabbatical for the summer. The P-H began to run The Buckets on June 1 as a replacement. When Trudeau returned in August, they dropped Gasoline Alley and kept The Buckets. While it's hard to work up a huge sense of loss for Gasoline Alley, it had some significance overall, since Gasoline Alley had been present in the paper since Day 1 back in 1950. The Buckets both looked and felt very close to the same then as it does now, despite the fact that it's had a change in both art and writing along the way.

The Buckets, none listed, Tribune Media Services

1993:

1993 was also change-free.

1994:

In June, they dropped Fox Trot and introduced Mallard Fillmore. That sentence speaks for itself on an artistic basis, but we probably shouldn't miss the chance to look at Bruce Tinsley's whole career in light of the damage that the J-school instruction to present both sides has done to the news industry as a whole; I think it's worth thinking of every newspaper slot that he took up with his execrable mess that didn't go to a better strip as a microcosm of the damage done by pretending that there are always exactly two sane sides - it's often half a dozen, and sometimes it's just one - and thinking of how we got to our current dysfunctional national information landscape.

Mallard Fillmore, none listed, King Features Syndicate

1995:

Once again, there were no changes in 1995.

1996:

On January 1, Scott Stantis, creator of The Buckets, was hired by the Birmingham News as their editorial cartoonist. The strip followed him over there in June when they cleared a space for it, but the Post-Herald dropped it at the beginning of the year (the two published joint Saturday papers at that point but were still mostly separate entities). They replaced it with Sherman's Lagoon.

Away from the comics page, in August they swapped out Tank McNamara for In the Bleachers on the sports Scoreboard page. In the Bleachers has its charms - it's a perfectly acceptable sports gag panel with an odd number of jokes about insect legs - but it's not Tank, which has grown wonderfully over the years.

Sherman's Lagoon, none listed, Creators Syndicate
In the Bleachers, none listed, Universal Press Syndicate

1997:

We're back to no changes again for 1997.

1998:

On January 1, they dropped Big Nate and brought back Fox Trot. In June, they rearranged the page a bit, dropping Curtis and adding Speed Bump, which is kind of the definition of a perfectly average gag-a-day panel.

Speed Bump, none listed, Creators Syndicate

1999:

In September, they replaced Mallard Fillmore with The Boondocks. I was living in Birmingham by that time and don't remember any news coverage of anyone's head actually exploding, so the need for fake balance may have been exaggerated. The impact of The Boondocks has kind of been dimmed by this point by the eternal reruns on comics.com, but it was a huge blast of different at the start. As part of that remodel, they also moved Doonesbury to the editorial page.

The Boondocks, none listed, Universal Press Syndicate

Last Updated: November 14, 2023