Comics that end with the dead of its creator

[Atoon]

What comics ends (don't get more continuity) along with the dead of its creator? Apart of Peanuts.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Technically, Peanuts didn't end with the death of Charles Schulz, either, since the last strip was announced ahead of time. The fact that Schulz passed on the day before the last strip ran was a bit of cosmic irony, but due to lead-times of daily comic strips, the last strips had to have been finished well in advance.

It is a good question, though, and there aren't any comic strips or books that are jumping to mind immediately. Anybody else have any ideas?

-- Ed/Ace

[Lord Dalek]

The Spirit?

[Steven C]

What comics ends (don't get more continuity) along with the dead of its creator? Apart of Peanuts.
I just laughed when I read the title...

[randomguy]

The Spirit?Although Will Eisner was still quite active when he passed away, The Spirit, aside from occassional tributes, short stories and crossovers was pretty much over.

Honestly, I can't think of any comic that fits this criteria.

[Mad Monkey 7]

Although Will Eisner was still quite active when he passed away, The Spirit, aside from occassional tributes, short stories and crossovers was pretty much over.

Honestly, I can't think of any comic that fits this criteria.
I though DC has a couple of The Spirit projects in the work including The Spirit/Batman.

[Geezil]

Honestly, I can't think of any comic that fits this criteria.
If I'm reading the original question correctly (and I'm not quite sure of that), Krazy Kat by George Herriman was one such newspaper strip.

[Atoon]

Tintin, anyone?

[randomguy]

I suppose Tintin would qualify. As far as I know, the Herge estate has steered away from publishing new Tintin material, so I suppose it meets the qualifications.


I though DC has a couple of The Spirit projects in the work including The Spirit/Batman.They do, but the actual The Spirit strip ended decades ago. Like I said, Eisner would revisit the character occassionally, but the strip itself was over. It's unlikely that Eisner would have done much more Spirit material even if he had had the time.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,


I though DC has a couple of The Spirit projects in the work including The Spirit/Batman.
Eisner owned the Spirit, and would trot him out occasionally (mostly for the tributes and such that randomguy mentions). The new Spirit stuff was set up with his blessing (had to, since he/his estate owned the character) but not his involvement.

-- Ed/Ace

[James Meeley]

Honestly, I can't think of any comic that fits this criteria.
I think that speaks to two very important points:

1) That it is the CREATIONS which are what captures the minds of people, not the creators behind them.

2) That the allure of said creations will always attract others to pick up the baton, even if the creator falls.

It will probably always be hard to find creations that have any kind of value to go completely silent. But I also think that's a good thing. If I created something, it would feel good to know that it would still live on without me. :)

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,


1) That it is the CREATIONS which are what captures the minds of people, not the creators behind them.

2) That the allure of said creations will always attract others to pick up the baton, even if the creator falls.

It will probably always be hard to find creations that have any kind of value to go completely silent. But I also think that's a good thing. If I created something, it would feel good to know that it would still live on without me. :) If nothing else, I think the successes of Joss Whedon/Buffy, Gene Roddenberry/Star Trek, J.R.R. Tolkien/Middle-Earth, and George Lucas/Star Wars demonstrate that creators can capture mindset as much as creations. Lucas is especially illuminating in that regard, since there are people who think that Gary Kurtz (producer for the first 2 movies, and noticeably absent in the later ones) had as much or more to do with the success of Star Wars as anyone else.

As for the second point you make, Woody Allen said, "I don't want to be immortal through my work. I want to be immortal through not dying," and I think that quote serves to illustrate two very different ways for a creation to endure past the lifetime of its creator. Writers from Homer to to Shakespeare to Hemingway have all created works that have lived on after their deaths, but that immortality does not mean that anyone is rushing to write sequels to The Odyssey or The Tempest or The Sun Also Rises. If anything, popular reaction to the sequels to works like Casablanca and Gone with the Wind demonstrate that someone else picking up the baton is often perceived as actively insulting to the legacy instead of honoring it, regardless of the writer's intentions.

Comic books are possibly unique among forms of fiction, in that the most enduring creations have had many hands in their history, which is the "immortality through not dying" that Allen refers to. When most people think of Batman, odds are good that Frank Miller, Denny O'Neil, or Adam West/William Dozier had as much or more impact on that mental image than anything Bob Kane or Bill Finger did. I can't think of any other medium, other than maybe long-running TV soaps, where a creator not only doesn't get some degree of "ownership" over the created, but that it's actually expected that someone else will pick up wherever you left off.

(EDIT: I should clarify...some characters, like Tarzan and James Bond, have strayed very far afield from their original creators, but they are very much the exception and not the rule in popular fiction.)

Comic strips live in a sort of halfway zone between the average comic book and regular ones. There have been a number of father-to-son handoffs in long-running comic strips (Blondie (http://www.toonopedia.com/blondie.htm) and Hagar the Horrible (http://www.toonopedia.com/hagar.htm) are both handled by their respective creators' sons). However, nobody would dare attempt to resurrect Peanuts,for instance, no matter how much they loved the original strips.

BTW, Geezil is right in citing Krazy Kat (http://www.toonopedia.com/krazy.htm), which was cancelled in 1944 after the death of its creator, although the syndicate apparently still tried to keep the strip going. However, the article I linked to on Don Markstein's Toonopedia says this was the first time it happened, suggesting that there were others.

-- Ed/Ace