Prince Valiant and the Rise and Fall of Adventure Comic Strips

Prince Valiant was one of a number of adventure strips, bigger in size and bigger in scope.

by Rich Watson

Between the time when audiences first relied on daily newspapers and the rise of the internet, there was an age undreamed of in comic strips. And unto this, Prince Valiant: destined to take his place among the epic characters presented every Sunday. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. 

Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!

“For Better or For Worse” Was Born From A Pregnancy—Literally

The cartoonist’s growing family—and subsequent problems in raising it—were the basis for this popular comic strip.

by Rich Watson 

For almost thirty years, For Better or For Worse was a sitcom-like comic strip about the ups and downs of a middle-class Canadian family. It won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award and was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1994.

The strip grew out of the family experiences of its creator, Lynn Johnston—especially when she first had kids.

#popculture84: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Debuts Amidst a New Wave of Independent Comics

Turtle power! The original incarnation of the heroes in a half shell was in a creator-owned comic book that took off in a big way.

by Rich Watson 

The eighties saw a wave of independently-produced comic books hit the market, created by entrepreneurial artists of wildly varying talent. Many went unnoticed against the likes of Spider-Man and Superman.

One that launched in 1984 was an odd martial arts book with a cumbersome title—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It became a juggernaut.

#popculture55: EC Comics’ “Mad” Becomes a Magazine

The sophisticated humor comic from the most diverse comics publisher of the 50s took off when they catered to the magazine industry.

by Rich Watson 

I didn’t buy Mad Magazine as often as I did regular comic books, but when I read it, I thought it was hilarious, of course. The fold-in pictures on the back cover (a second image made from the first by folding it in on itself) struck me as clever and inventive and I always wondered how they did it.

Mad was created during a time when comics were under great public scrutiny. They adopted a magazine format in 1955.

They never looked back.