When Comic Strip Facts Go Wrong or, Dubious Internet Truths
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The Washington Examiner (I know, I know) published an article this morning by Mark Judge titled “Celebrating Superman’s Jewishness.” The writer begins with people doubting Superman’s Jewishness:
Yet, in his origins, different names, and even his costume, Superman is a deeply Jewish creation. With a new Superman movie about to be released and American Jews suffering a terrible new wave of antisemitism, it’s a good time to celebrate Superman’s Jewishness — and the truth, justice, and American way he represents.
I recently spoke with Valerie Estelle Frankel, author of the book Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1945: Immigrants in the Golden Age. In her book, Frankel explores the Jewish origins of the comic book. Comic strips appeared in newspapers in the early 29th [sic] century, but in 1933, Charlie [sic] Gaines (born Max Ginsberg) had the idea to reprint the most popular newspaper comics in a booklet. It was a huge hit, and by 1939, comic books were selling 400,000 copies a month. Gaines and his assistant, Sheldon Mayer, were the original publishers [sic] of Superman.
That last paragraph took a few liberties with the facts, but it was the next sentence where I stopped reading:
Superman was created by two Jewish children from New York, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Everyone knows Superman was created by two kids from Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of those “common knowledge” things. The character was created in the first half of the early 1930s and first published in 1938. Wikipedia says Jerry Siegel landed in New York after World War II:
After the war, Siegel moved to New York.[18]
That [18] reference is The New York Times.
Joe Shuster, on the other hand, had his Joe Shuster Studio in Cleveland until 1943.
So I decided not to link to that Washington Examiner article – though I guess I did after all.
Anyway, that brings us to…
15 Comic Strips That Disappeared from Newspapers
Ace Vincent, at Go2Tutors (“Go2Tutors is the internet’s top destination for learning about anything and everything under the sun”), provides us with “a list of 15 comic strips that once graced newspaper pages but have since disappeared from daily circulation.”
It starts off reasonable enough listing Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Bloom County, Little Orphan Annie, and Pogo. But then it goes off the rails when Ace decides that Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Alley Oop, and Flash Gordon no longer appear in newspapers.
Samples via newspapers.com (mostly).
Flash Gordon, as far as I know, continues to run in The Washington Post. And the Jim Keefe reruns run in papers that carry it via the King Features Weekly Service.
Most egregiously is the inclusion of Peanuts on the list!
Schulz’s decision that no one else should continue the strip meant its end coincided with his passing, creating a poignant finale to comics’ most successful franchise.
As if you needed proof that Peanuts still runs in hundreds of newspapers:
I do give them a thumbs up for running that Steve Canyon comicback®™ cover! I loved seeing it.
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