[Andrew999]

Trapped in the black hole of copyright law and trademark control, I wonder how many decent newspaper strips we have - at least in practice - lost from view.

Jeff Hawke springs to mind. More adult than Dan Dare with a sly sense of humour, the art was terrific - but the last reprint of even one of the strips I'm aware of was in 2008.

The editors of the Express clearly have no idea how to exploit a brand - where are the Jeff Hawke animated series, movies, action figures and the such like - and why is the strip no longer published?

But thinking of Jeff Hawke made me wonder are there other strips out there that are sinking into obscurity - too young for the public domain, too trapped in trademark - anyone remember Romeo Brown, Scarth or The Seekers (not the folk group :>)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawke

https://www.knightfeatures.com/cartoon-library/2015/12/7/jeff-hawke-dkt6e

[The Australian Panther]

Andrew,

As Far as I know, the only non-humor strips still extant are the King Features strips, Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant. Maybe Tarzan. The most interesting is the Phantom.
What someone should do is make a Newspaper Syndicate an offer to do a comic strip section as a separate insert into a Newspaper, like Will Eisner's Spirit. Get it sponsored by a big advertiser.
But Newspapers are dying and not likely to try anything new - or old.
These strips too,like most else today, are also available [New] on-line.
Cheers!     

[paw broon]

I think Panther has it right.  Papers are, if not dying, then in retreat.  Which is a shame. I still like to buy a paper and have something physical to hold and read.
I thoroughly enjoy a number of newspaper strips, including the ones listed here - although I've never been a Tarzan fan and for all Prince Valiant in its heyday was beautiful to look at, it always seemed a bit boring.  For a historical, I prefer Eric De Noorman by the excellent Hans G Kresse.
That's by the way. There was a follow up to Jeff Hawke, Lance McLane, published in the Daily Record.  Unfortunately, it wasn't  a raging success.
Other action strips that I loved reading - and thanks to ADCCC, I was able to access examples    -  were Tug Transom by Peter O'Donnell and Alfred Sindall: Paul Temple arguably written by Francis Durbrige and drawn by Sindall then John McNamara.
Didn't Garth make a comeback recently with colour reprints?

[profh0011]

To me, newspapers have been dying a slow death since at least 1980.

I feel it started when editors decided advertising revenue was more important than content.  So they kept cutting the size of the comics section, making it smaller and smaller and smaller, so they could squeeze more and more advertising in.

This never made any sense to me.  People used to buy newspapers every day of the week, often JUST to get the comics!  I can't imagine anyone in their right mind BUYING a newspaper JUST to get advertisements.



Movie listings, maybe.. but since I can look those up online, not anymore.

And 20 years ago, I used to get a FREE paper called PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY, apparently paid for entirely by advertisers, which I used to see what bands were playing live music in which bars that weekend.

[SuperScrounge]

What someone should do is make a Newspaper Syndicate an offer to do a comic strip section as a separate insert into a Newspaper, like Will Eisner's Spirit.

I believe a group of webcomics tried doing something like that maybe 15 years ago?