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Zombie Comic Strip Apocalypse

Published: May 12, 2026 1 minute 23 comments
The top portion of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comics page from April 2026 – all in rerun status

It is one thing that we comic strip fans are aware of the situation, but when newspaper editors, who are on the whole no more knowledgeable than the general newspaper reading public about comic strips, are taking notice it is a warning sign to the short form sequential art. Last week The Gloucester Daily Times used it at an excuse to do away with their daily comics page: “Another reason for discontinuing the comics is that many creators are simply recycling old strips.”

The trend among syndicated newspaper cartoonists seems to be retiring but continuing to keep their space on the comics pages by rerunning previous episodes of their comic strips. And the syndicates themselves are embracing the rerun movement rather than signing new comic strips to replace the old ones when they end, desperate to hold on to that newspaper space. (The last new comic strip from the Big 4 syndicates was Rosebuds in September of 2024.)

a section of an April 2026 Greenwich Times comics page – five of the seven comics are in rerun status

The shift to rerun comic strips most famously began with Peanuts in 2000 and the death of Schulz. I think it astounded the industry when there was a minimal number of newspapers that dropped the strip. Eight years later the popular For Better of For Worse began retelling (rerunning) the story of the Patterson family, again with a very acceptable circulation drop. Now it is a proven, profitable business model.

Creators Syndicate is the most obvious example. Of the 36 comic features on their page nearly half (16) are in rerun status: Agnes, Archie, Archie Spanish, Diamond Lil, Dog Eat Doug, Doodles, Liberty Meadows, Momma, One Big Happy, Rugrats, Scary Gary, Shrimp & Grits (dailies), Spectickles, The Meaning of Lila, Wee Pals, and Working It Out, with Rubes being reruns every Thursday through Saturday.

Andrews McMeel Syndication offers Cul de Sac, Doonesbury (daily), For Better or For Worse, Fred Basset, Get Fuzzy, Herman, Mutt and Jeff (!), Peanuts, and Uncle Art’s Funland. Baby Blues is currently on one week and off the following week as it transitions to all rerun. And Frank and Ernest reworks old strips into new comics.

Aside: Ripley’s Believe It or Not went with reruns this week (so far), unknown how permanent that will be.

Frank and Ernest by Thaves – November 25, 1972
Frank and Ernest by Thaves – May 11, 2026
The Family Circus by Bil Keane – May 18, 1987
The Family Circus by Bil and Jeff Keane – May 11, 2026

For King Features it is the very popular, widely circulated (1,000+ newspapers) Zits comic strip that has gone the daily rerun route with Sundays soon to follow. But they also offer reruns of Between Friends (daily), Bringing Up Father, Mandrake, Moose and Molly, Mutts, Popeye (dailies), Sam and Silo, The Katzenjammer Kids, and Tiger. Add The Family Circus reworking old gags with tweaks to bring it up-to-date.

Tribune Content Agency offers no reruns to newspapers.

Dozens of comic strips in rerun status with some being among the most popular (Peanuts, Zits, For Better or For Worse, Baby Blues, Mutts, Frank and Ernest being in over or near 1,000 newspapers). Newspapers are already demanding concessions in fees from syndicates to carry their strips, what will be the results when it becomes widely known that scores of the comics in their pages are no longer original material?

a portion of The Hamilton Spectator comics page from April 2026

feature image is a detail from Zombie Parents

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Comments 23

  1. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Watching reruns on TV was the only way to catch Star Trek or MASH. Millions of fans watch reruns of Friends or The Office. GOAwayComics runs Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows and a ton of other zombie comics on the site.

  2. The syndicates (and the authors, or their heirs) simply have a product to offer; it is not their fault if the newspapers would rather purchase predigested pap. The real fault lies with readers, who are all too happy to consume recycled material, rather than to risk reading new strips. The only way out of this vicious cycle would be for those risk-averse readers to complain, and demand that their newspapers eliminate the reruns. Unfortunately, as we all know, the probability of this happening is nil.

    P.S. Besides Peanuts, special mention should be made of “Calvin & Hobbes“, which for decades was the flagship property for the entire GoComics website. Even now (following the website relaunch), “Calvin & Hobbes” is still listed by GoComics as their second-most popular strip.

  3. What would happen if Gasoline Alley ever ends for good someday? Maybe the final story arc could be a funeral for the aging Walt Wallet (Phyllis Wallet passed away in 2005)?

    I also hope Garfield stays alive in comic strips when it turns 50 in 2028.

    1. You just caused me to imagine a comic strip featuring a dead cat.

  4. In all fairness, while most people are aware that Charles Shulz is long gone, most average people who aren’t D.D. have neither the memory or the desire to go looking for the original printings of most of these strips. And even if I believed that people could recall specific gag-aday strips or panels from five, ten or twenty years ago, for many of them, the reruns are of strips they never saw before. For example, my exposure to PEANUTS in The Milwaukee Journal began in 1969 because that’s when the Journal finally got Milwaukee ruled out of the Chicago circulation area, which had been enforced by the Tribune till then. Similarly, the Journal picked up FOR BETTER OR WORSE considerably after a lot of the country, so most of the early storylines were never seen then or later (because the Journal dropped the strip when Johnston started over from the beginning with occasional redrawing and new inserts). Not all strips are so memorable; ZITS, for example, hasn’t changed a whole lot from when it started in terms of look or content, so I doubt anyone even recognizes it’s no longer new. MUTTS is wonderful, new or old, and while I certainly feel bad for new cartoonists not getting their shot, I haven’t been all that impressed by many 21st century strips, as I’m guessing the talented artists are drawn to other media these days, and if I can’t look at the art with an appreciation of the technique involved, it doesn’t matter to me how well it’s written. Like it or not, I’d say your average reader likes to see strips they grew up with rather than have to grow to accept something new that doesn’t look well drawn or in a recognizable style. If this were not the case, the syndicates wouldn’t be going to reruns.

    1. With all due respect, there have been a LOT of impressive 21st century strips (Will Henry’s “Wallace the Brave,” the late great Richard Thompson’s “Cul de Sac”, Lincoln Peirce’s “Big Nat”, etc. etc.). Imagine how many more might be out there if it weren’t for the “zombies” sucking up all the air.

      1. And Tauhid Bondia’s strip Crabgrass. It’s set in the 1980s, though, and I don’t know how much appeal it has for The Kids These Days ™.

      2. “Big Nate” started in 1991 so it is technically a 20th century. One I believe is becoming a zombie strip or will cease syndication in the near future.

    2. Mike, I wouldn’t have taken you as a fan of the early 1970s Marvel policy of flooding the stands with reprints to lessen the availability of new creations in the spinner racks.

      1. Did D.C. and Archie and Harvey and Gold Key even do occassional reprints in their main comic books even in digests?

    3. With all due respect, to argue that it’s to some consumer benefit to rerun Peanuts for a century because archival Peanuts is somehow “difficult” to find or read is patently ridiculous. There must be over a hundred different collections and books of those comics that are top-selling on Amazon or any bookstore, an achievement which is also only available to a narrow few modern artists. In the 90s the door was still open to Bill Watterson and Gary Larson and we got timeless culturally significant comic strips from them. Syndicates need to get with the times already and open the door to fresh voices and artists. The past can be appreciated without shutting the doors on modern talent.

  5. The best cartoonists and illustrators always went where the money was best. Nowadays, the money is best in any job that isn’t cartooning or illustration.

    I think it’s clear that, as hard as corporations have tried, print newspapers won’t die. I believe that cartoonists could help strengthen newspapers by going back to the basics, doing local comics (and re-inventing them; Three-panel postage stamp comics have no impact).

    But then we get back to the money issue. So that is where the real creativity comes in. But if change happens, it will come from cartoonists.

  6. Newspapers who are griping about comic strip ‘reruns’ should be ashamed of themselves.

    Dropping the comics eliminates the moments a reader can easily slip into an imaginative world and away from the grind of human existence. There are people who read the comics everyday and others who may trip across one that makes them smile or see something differently.

    Rerunning comics is a great thing…..because they suddenly can be ‘new’ to someone. Beyond that the creative talent that cartoonists put into their comic strips is so often timeless. I enjoy reading ‘Bringing Up Father’ and getting a feeling of what the war years were like. I love reading vintage Popeye, Krazy Kat, etc …enjoying the adventures and getting a sense of how the cartoonist reflected the time in which they were created. I love rediscovering what Calvin is up to today or feeling the comfort of a Peanuts strip.

    Discovering the newer comics is an adventure that often turns into more moments to treasure daily.

    The smiles, the joy, the inquisitiveness, the education I’ve gotten from the comics is without limit. May our comic strip friends never be tossed aside in favor of more reality.

    1. I completely disagree with this sentiment. Newspapers are losing readership every day, partially because people under a certain age demographic are simply not interested in the rerun comics like the ones you mentioned. I love Krazy Kat too, because I love comics. But that comic is 100 years old, it’s a piece of archival comic history. You say here that it could be a new experience to someone, sure. But couldn’t some new, active artist make work that’s new for everybody? I don’t think it’s fair for the younger generations to be expected to play with all the same toys you played with growing up. Tastes change, art and humor progresses. It’s not disrespectful when a movie plays in theaters for a month, and is cycled out for new movies. That’s just time passing. If we were still running movies every day that came out in the 70s, it would be holding up spaces for new movies to be shown. The same thing is what’s happening in comics. The Shulz estate simply doesn’t need more money or cultural influence, they’re completely maxed out! There are talented, imaginative, ALIVE artists today who might introduce you to some of your favorite new comics – if the syndicates were open to it.

    2. I know in 2014 the New York Post dropped its comics page but the New York Daily News never picked up any of the dropped New York Post comics page comics.

      I wonder if the New York Daily News still carries reruns of Zits and One Big Happy 7 days a week in its comics.

      1. Yes, The New York Daily News, as of a month ago, still carries Zits and One Big Happy – also Mutts.

  7. There was some guy on the “MeTv fans” FB page griping because they put “Golden Girls” in what was the “Hogan’s Heroes” time slot, even though the show had already cycled back to the pilot episode at least 3 times. Not mention that “Golden Girls” was too new of a show for MeTV—despite the fact that the kids who grew up watching it are starting to receive their AARP cards now.

    I’m trying to support my own hometown paper, but in the end these are the folks who still buy physical newspapers (and have the time to write angry letters when they don’t like a change.) The potential audience for new stuff has moved on, I think in part because of new technology and in part because they weren’t really welcome in the “older” spaces. It’s sad but it’s a tale old as time.

  8. There are levels of legacy strips.
    There’s the pure reruns. Very few are worth continuing. Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts, and Cul de Sac, probably, but even they are running out.
    There’s a lot of pure reruns that should just be shot, like Mandrake.
    There’s the ones that have found good new artists who both write & draw. Nancy, Phantom, Thatababy, maybe Mark Trail.
    There’s the ones that just pretend enough to keep the money coming in. Family Circus, everything from Walker/Browne humor LLC, Archie, etc.
    There’s the inexplicable Mary Worth & Rex Morgan.
    There’s ones where the new team just fails, like Gil Thorp.
    What we don’t have are new strips with good writing and art that doesn’t hurt your eyes.

    1. I know after the comic strip Redeye ceased in 2008 the local Illinois paper The Daily Herald – based in Arlington Heights, Illinois – carried reruns with current year copyright in its Sunday comics until November 2019 when Beetle Bailey took the Redeye place.

      The only rerun strip currently in its Sunday Daily Herald comics is Creators’ Agnes.

  9. ‘Recycling’ sounds like their excuse to save some $$$.

    But if it’s not, well there’s always my little no-zombie strip ready to serve 7 days a week.

    Aaand that’s enough tooting my own horn for today.

  10. Zombie strips àre one of the reasons I stopped taking the local paper as well as the boosterism of the local polluters. Local politics and community activities skew MAGA with neovictorian puritanism as the only correct belief system.

  11. Off topic to ZOMBIE COMIC STRIPS but to major city rival newspapers: Why can’t the Chicago Sun-Times dropped from its Sunday comics Grand Avenue because the other major Chicago newspaper called the Chicago Tribune carries Grand Avenue in its comics pages 7 days a week. I still wish the Chicago Sun-Times dropped Grand Avenue from its Sunday comics section because of this situation that never listened since March 2023!

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