Johnny Hart, R.I.P.

Johnny Hart, who created the comic strips B.C. and The Wizard of Id, and who drew the former has died at the age of 76. This press obit does not cite a cause, nor does it tell much about his two highly successful newspaper strips.

For the record, B.C. started on February 17, 1958 and was a slow but steady success. Later, he launched The Wizard of Id, which was drawn by Brant Parker. That strip started on November 9, 1964. They were both very clever strips that attained high circulation figures…though I always took issue with some of Hart's loftier claims in that regard. He and his syndicate took to claiming at one point that the two strips' combined circulations made him the most widely-read author on the planet. That's a ridiculous claim, though he got some reporters to believe it…and then later cited them as authorities who confirmed it to be so.

Having said all that, I must say that I have a shelf full of B.C. and Wizard of Id paperback collections and they're strips that often made me laugh out loud. I also have two originals of the latter on my wall, not so much for the drawing but because there was something enormously fun about the feature and the characters in it.  There were times when his religious-themed strips seemed to suggest contempt and intolerance for those who did not share his views.  But when he was funny, which was often, he was funnier than just about anyone.