Birmingham Historical Comic Strips -- Birmingham Post-Herald, The Seventies
I was born in 1966, which means that I probably noticed the comics page somewhere around 1974 and became a regular reader somewhere around 1976. This means that this was the decade where the comics page began to look like what I remember, even though we didn't live in Birmingham and the exact lineup of strips wouldn't have matched. There's one year in particular where that really sank in as I reviewed, as we'll see. That means that we're past the point where I'm a dispassionate observer. From my vantage point, though, it wasn't the decade where things exploded into modernity - we're talking about adding BC, not Frog Applause.
1970:
In June, the paper added a small panel about talking squirrels named Tops & Button. The panel itself wasn't particularly notable, although the occasional entry hit a decently funny note. The background was more interesting - the creator, Howard Cruse, was a Birmingham native who had dropped out of grad school and returned to town to the usual series of odd jobs. To help pay the bills, he created Tops & Button completely aboveboard. He also created a counterculture strip called Barefootz for the University of Alabama student paper. Over time, the subtext became text, as Barefootz became more popular and then Cruse left Birmingham for the big city, ending the panel and extending his reach into alternative strips and work for Playboy and Heavy Metal before moving into graphic novels in time.
On more prosaic fronts, Bugs Bunny was dropped in October, replaced by a humor strip about the inhabitants of a blue-collar neighborhood called Gummer Street. Side Glances, which had been around intermittently through the '50's and early '60's, had changed artists to Gill Fox and began to be run more consistently somewhere around 1968; it ran almost every day through most of the '70's.
Tops & Button, H. Cruse, none
Gummer Street, Phil Krehn, none
1971:
The old guard started to wind down in '71, with Abbie and Slats winding down in January and Terry ending in May. Abbie and Slats was replaced by Momma, which has at least shown remarkable consistency for over 50 years now, and Terry was replaced by Doonesbury. It's interesting to see, even if you've read the whole run to date, how much Doonesbury grew over that first decade.
In the body of the paper, the P-H added a couple of new panels, both of which were quite different, although I'm not sure either of them could be called good. Abracadabra was sort of what happens when you try to fit two-color cubism into a small panel with two characters - basically every outing was two varying characters with weirdly angular shapes attempting things that appear to have been intended to be funny. The art was actually unique and quite striking, but good writing could have made it great. The other was about as far from the avant garde as you can get, as they added Love Is.... I remember Love Is... from the '80's, where it was just banal and weird, so I wasn't really prepared for the first few years of the panel, which were downright unintentionally anti-feminist - a panel written by a young woman intended to be sweet that pretty much boiled down to, "Love is picking up his dirty underwear and being happy about it."
Abracadabra, none listed, Chicago Tribune
Love Is..., none listed,
Los Angeles Times
Momma, Mell, Field
Syndicates
Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau,
Universal Press Syndicate
1972:
The period from summer of 1971 to summer of 1972 was the year that the P-H comics page went from feeling like an old-fashioned collection with a few new strips to the page I grew up with. Orphan Annie, Our Boarding House, Alley Oop, and Out Our Way all dropped off over the course of March, replaced by BC and Funky Winkerbean (and Ann Landers). In addition, they filled a little corner with an average slice-of-life called Funny Business, which was mostly notable for being a 2-panel strip laid out so that it could be squeezed in anywhere. In November, Gummer Street departed (with a nice last strip where the two main characters literally walked into the sunset), replaced by a singles-on-the-dating-scene strip called Mixed Singles. Tops & Button left in June, as Cruse headed off to New York; Abracadabra ended in September, at least locally; and Love Is... was dropped in November.
BC, Johnny Hart, Field
Syndicates
Mixed Singles, Wm. F. Brown and Mel Casson, United Features Syndicate
Funny Business, Roger Bollen, NEA Service
Funky Winkerbean, Tom
Batiuk, Field Syndicates
1973:
In May, the dropped They'll Do It Every Time; due to its odd formatting, this led to a major layout restructuring of the comics page. In June, they dropped BC, for reasons that were never clear; it was replaced by Eek & Meek in its anthromorphic mice phase. In September, they added Heathcliff at a floating spot in the news section.
Heathcliff, none,
McNaught Syndicate
Eek & Meek, Howie
Schneider, NEA Service
1974:
March saw the introduction of a forgettable panel in the news section called Lansky's Look.
Lansky's Look, none, Universal Press Syndicate
1975:
Lansky's Look wandered on off in May. Mixed Singles, which had increasingly focused on a single character named Boomer, was renamed to "Boomer" in March before disappearing at the end of the year. In October, they added an editorial panel called Toppix; it was intended to be an edgier equivalent to Berry's World but never seemed to have much focus.
Toppix, none, Chicago Tribune
1976:
1976 was another tumultuous year. Eb(b) and Flo left in January, followed in September by L'il Abner. The January replacement was a newsroom strip called Wordsmith, which had potential but didn't really gel in the 16 months that it ran in the P-H. The September replacement was a really odd strip called Inside Woody Allen, which was kind of like six months of a strip that simulated an episode of "Between Two Ferns" every day. They also made room in October for The Born Loser (see comment about Momma above).
The Born Loser,
Art Sansom, NEA Service
Wordsmith, Tim Menees, Universal Press Syndicate
Inside Woody Allen, Joe Marthew, King Features Syndicate
1977:
As mentioned, Inside Woody Allen and Wordsmith left so fast they didn't even say goodbye. A serial strip called Jeff Hawke came in in September, followed a few days later by Frank and Ernest.
Jeff Hawke, Sydney Jordan, Universal Press Syndicate
Frank and Ernest,
Bob Thaves, NEA Service
1978:
Side Glances made its last appearance in November. Toppix and Jeff Hawke both left in July. Two modern staples, Ziggy and Tank McNamara, started up in July.
Ziggy, none listed (the
current layout didn't have spaces for artist names), Universal Press
Syndicate
Tank McNamara, none,
Universal Press Syndicate
1979:
Eek & Meek left in March, replaced by Nielsen, a somewhat interesting strip which used a female screenwriter as a lens to focus gentle ridicule on Hollywood and the advertising industry. It lasted through November (my theory is that it was a joint venture by a couple of established names - Jeff Millar and Jon McIntosh - and they dropped it when it didn't launch quickly enough) and was then replaced by Cathy.
Nielsen, none, Universal Press Syndicate
Cathy, none, Universal
Press Syndicate
Last Updated: July 10, 2023