Birmingham Historical Comic Strips -- Birmingham Post-Herald, The Sixties
There's a certain surreal nature to doing comics research in a Birmingham paper during the '60's - the front page is frequently full of the depths of the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement, which makes checking for the latest Peanuts a little awkward. A fair criticism at the time was that the comics page, almost entirely, chose to remain a safe escape place through the decade. Teen trends could feature (see the tepid Emmy Lou, for example, currently running in perpetuity on comics.com) as long as they were just the '60's equivalent of "Oh, those kids and their cell phones," but the larger societal issues were largely ignored until Doonesbury broke through.
1960:
A new panel called Forever Feminine began in February, debuting at random spots in the news section before eventually settling into the comics page sometime in 1961. Despite the title and some occasional stereotyping, it certainly doesn't represent the worst depths of the misogyny of the age; it was apparently written by a woman - there's no byline, but the signature appears to be Dorothy with an unreadable last name - and a lot of the jokes are of the "wife pointing out husband's inexplicable actions" school. The web as a whole appears to be wholly unaware of the panel, which isn't that unusual at this remove. The last Boots and Her Buddies, dated 10-15, ran on October 17, 1960, as the strip wound down to a close.
Forever Feminine, none listed, National News Syndicate
1961:
A new gag-a-day panel called Our Ancestors showed up in April for the first time. It was generally run intermittently, usually about once a week; I don't know if that was the production schedule or just how often the P-H had space for it. Most of the time it was, like Forever Feminine, typically stuck in somewhere in the news section, but it did seem to run on the comics page more or less daily for most of 1962. The premise of the panel itself was a joke each day about some varying point in history. The jokes weren't deep - "Every time I eat at Lucrezia Borgia's restaurant I get a tummyache," or "The Camelot Press Gossip Columnist" - but the panel was decent overall, as a lot of them did require at least a mild bit of historical knowledge and would pull an understanding chuckle if you had that knowledge. After 1962, it tapered off again in frequency, making its final apperance in April of 1964.
Our Ancestors, Quincy, NEA Services
1962:
Grandma left the paper in January; Forever Feminine left in July. Ben Casey started in late November. It was exactly as good as you would expect a TV tie-in serial to be, but also no worse than that, falling into the "competent but uninspiring" bucket.
Ben Casey, Neal Adams, NEA Services
1963:
The only change in 1963 may not count, depending on my mood. October saw the debut of Berry's World, an intermittent syndicated editorial panel. Otherwise, I've skipped editorials, but Berry's World is something of a historical oddity; in a world where papers either had their own editorial cartoonists or didn't bother with them, it was a consistent presence on editorial pages around the country for 40 years. Making the question even more muddy was that Jim Berry's humor was often more about political workplace humor than actual politics. So, here we are; I'll list it unless I change my mind down the road. There were no changes at all in 1964.
Berry's World, none listed (Jim Berry), none listed
1965:
Even back in the '50's, the running of Sweetie Pie had become very irregular. During the '60's, the P-H had dropped it to a half-dozen or so times a year, and the last run was in April of 1965.
1966:
The Ben Casey strip came to an end in early July, after the TV show had aired its last new episode in March. It was replaced, in a different type of cross-media synergy, by Tales of the Green Berets, somewhere between the original book and the not-specifically-related #1 single. If you don't know of the Green Berets, think about the media fetishization over the last ten years of the Navy Seals, with the circular feedback into better funding for those units and increased demand to get into them, back it up to the less complicated media landscape of the Vietnam era, and you've got the general idea. Although the writing on the strip was officially credited to Robin Moore, the author of the original book, it was actually written by one of Al Capp's brothers, Jerry.
Tales of the Green
Berets, Robin Moore and Joe Kubert, Chicago Tribune
1967:
1967 was a relatively active year for the mostly sedate P-H comics page. The Green Berets went away in May after a year or so, replaced by a serial drama about a globetrotting fashion icon named Robin Malone. Robin Malone ran in the news section, leaving room for more advertising on the comics page. In December, they added Ebb and Flo, a humor strip about a middle class couple with a stock punchline husband. Just as significantly, when they added Ebb and Flo, they took the occasion to also significantly redesign the comics page; the result was mixed, since the overall layout was more visually pleasing but a few of the four-panel strips went into the harder to follow 2x2 layout.
Robin Malone, Bob Lubbers, none listed
Ebb and Flo, Paul Sellers, United Features Syndicate
1968:
1968 was a big year on this front as on so many others. Despite the lack of general connection to the overall zeitgeist on the comics page at the time, it was a year that signaled a move from some older material to some that, despite the fact that it feels old now was somewhat groundbreaking at the time. There were four departures, starting with Laredo Crockett, which ended mid-storyline in January when Bob Schoenke died unexpectedly. Following that, Robin Malone left in February, Captain Easy (which had been there since the beginning in 1950) left in October along with Tizzy.
Tumbleweeds, Tom Ryan's lovable Western ensemble strip, replaced Laredo Crockett in early February. Family Circus, about which the best thing you can probably say is that it's been remarkably consistent for over 50 years, debuted off the comics page in July; when Captain Easy and Robin Malone left, that left Family Circus as the last off-page pure comics material left.
Family Circus, Bil
Keane, Register & Tribune Syndicate
Tumbleweeds, Tom K. Ryan,
none listed
1969:
There were no changes in 1969.
Last Updated: February 26, 2023