Above: Charlotte Braun, a supporting character from Charles Schulz' PEANUTS strip. She first appeared on November 30, 1954. Her final appearance was on February 1, 1955. She was never to be seen again.
Comic strip characters that suddenly disappear without reason is the topic of The Mysterious Disappearance of Four Comic Book Characters at the Neatorama blog.
Despite the title, it's about 4 comic strip characters from PEANUTS, CALVIN & HOBBES, FOXTROT and GARFIELD that appeared and then, without cause, were seen no more.
A drawing by Schulz of Charlotte Braun getting "the ax" from a letter reprinted at the Hogan's Alley site.
There must be some more examples.
For instance, the grandma character from the early BARNABY strips by Crockett Johnson. She was literally cut out of those strips when they were reprinted in the 1940s and again in the Dover 1960s editions -- until Del Rey's 1980s paperbacks returned her.
Is Castor Oyl still in POPEYE?
And what about entire episodes of characters' lives that are referred to and never seen. For instance:
The Noodle Incident - CALVIN AND HOBBES
Let me know if you can think up more.
Kinda related: Unseen TV Characters
Wow, that's a really sad little drawing. Hmm... Disappearing characters...
ReplyDeleteHave Nermal or Arlene been seen in Garfield recently?
Didn't Dilbert originally have a boss without pointy hair?
Barney Google disappeared long ago, but the title "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith" is still the name of the strip.
I don't read Cathy that much, but the recent times I did I don't recall seeing Charlene. Was that her name? Cathy's curly haired friend?
I don't think Anno Domini or that other guy with him have been in B.C. for a while.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.
I remember Uncle Max from Calvin and Hobbes. I read something by Watterson that suggested that Max's interactions between Calvin's parents were too awkward, what with them not having names and everything.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Denise from Foxtrot disappeared. I only really read the strip from the collected books.
Not only did "Robotman" disappear from his own strip, his sidekick ("Monty") took it over and renamed it. And it went from cute to twisted along the way.
ReplyDeleteSchulz had a number of characters that disappeared over the years (there were two girls, 5 & 9?, who were given numbers by their father; they're the ones in purple dancing for all eternity in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"). Shermy pretty much vanished in the 60's too, along with Violet.
And then there's the question of how long does a character need to be gone before they're "gone." "Doonesbury" has over 150 characters and some of them (e.g., Clyde) haven't been seen for a while.
I actually read that comic this week and nothing else...no joke...I randomly pick up my Peanuts collection from that year and open it to a random page and read a strip then put it down...it gave me quite the laugh...it was her first appearance...
ReplyDeleteI can think of a bunch of these characters...a lot were from the stuff I mainly read like Batman and Superman in the newspaper...
There is a lot of them...mostly random gangsters...who all struck strange resemblances to Dick Tracy characters in the case of Batman...
I think the saddest was that the original Two Face (that I preferred) died in the daily comics and Alfred wasn't fat for very long...nor a detective...this isn't even referenced anymore!
Some great points here.
ReplyDeleteI'm just sorry that I don't have a copy of (or simply can't find my copy of) Del Rey's 1985 BARNABY book to scan to compare the grandma strips. Ah well.
In addition to missing characters, here is a great tradition of seminal events in popular culture characters' lives that are referred to, but we never get to see/read about them. A few that come to mind:
Bertie Wooster's article for Aunt Dahlia's Milady's Boudoir magazine titled "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing" -- referred to over and over again; but never shown
DOCTOR WHO's Time Wars
Sherlock Holmes' "Giant Rat of Sumatra"
I'm sure there's more.