25 Years (or so) of Cornered by Mike Baldwin

GoComics is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cornered, the comic panel by Mike Baldwin.

The first Cornered panel on GoComics is dated September 1, 1997 which would be twenty-five years, but Andrews McMeel Syndication (then known as Universal Press Syndicate) started distributing the panel on November 16, 1997 after Mike had started it nineteen months earlier.

As Mike noted in the comments section ten years ago:

This is the first Cornered cartoon that Universal Press Syndicate (as it was called at the time) distributed.November 16th 1997. Cornered had been self syndicated and running daily since April 1st 1996. I gave Universal a couple of months worth prior to launch so the “new” cartoon could be seen by clients.This was almost 15 years ago now. How time flies!

Mike self-syndicated the Cornered panel to Canadian newspapers before UPS picked it up, We aren’t finding that April 1, 1996 panel but here’s one from the first week that appeared in the Calgary Herald.  

Back to GoComics salute to Cornered – they interviewed cartoonist Mike Baldwin. Excerpts:

What is one thing readers don’t know about Cornered?

A: Cornered was the first daily newspaper cartoon that was offered in full color and colored by the cartoonist offered by a major syndicate. I’m 100% absolutely pretty sure that’s true.

What is one thing readers don’t know about Cornered?

A: Cornered was the first daily newspaper cartoon that was offered in full color and colored by the cartoonist offered by a major syndicate. I’m 100% absolutely pretty sure that’s true.

I picked a few of my personal favorites, see: Catch Up with Cornered.