JOHNNY
HART
1931-2007 |
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“Johnny was one of the smartest and funniest
persons I’ve ever known, he was generally regarded
as one of the best cartoonists we’ve ever had, he
was totally original. ‘B.C.’ broke ground and led
the way for a number of imitators, none of which
ever came close.” |
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-Mell Lazarus, creator of the “Momma” and “Miss
Peach” comic strips |
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JOHNNY HART DIES...Newspaper
comic strip cartoonist Johnny Hart
recently completed treatment for
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma but died at
his drawing table after a stroke at his home in
Nineveh, New York on Saturday April
7th, 2007. According to his wife: “He
died at his storyboard.” Hart was
best known as the creator of the
award-winning joke-a-day comic strip
“B.C. and was also the
co-creator of the daily strip “Wizard
of Id” which he co-created with Brant
Parker and has been distributed since
November 9, 1964.
Hart was raised in a casually
religious family, but he attended
Christian Sunday School regularly and
was fascinated by the Bible from a
young age. His formal education ended
with his graduation from
Union-Endicott High School. While there he
met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist
who became an influence and
later co-creator with Hart of the
“Wizard of Id” comic strip. After
graduation Hart enlisted in the
Air Force and began
producing cartoons for the Pacific
version of Stars and Stripes while he
served in Korea. During a military
assignment that took him to Georgia,
he met and married Bobby. The couple
lived on a small Georgia farm, where
the artist sold his first free-lance
cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post
after his discharge in 1954. He took
a position in the art department at
General Electric while continuing to
sell free lance cartoons to magazines
such as Colliers and True. During his
two years at G.E. Hart began reading
"Peanuts" by Charles Schulz. Schulz's
work inspired him to attempt a comic
strip of his own.
Hart's “B.C.” (which referenced the
age "Before Christ" and also is the
name of Hart's naive cave-dwelling
protagonist) began national
daily newspapers appearances on
February 17, 1958. The strip was
populated by prehistoric cavemen,
ants, dinosaurs, turtles, clams, etc. and
it
eventually appeared in over
1,300 newspapers, with an audience of
100 million, according to its
distributor Creators
Syndicate Inc.
The strip’s freewheeling humor, hip
sensibilities and
observational commentary quickly put
“B.C.” on a level with other comic
strips like "Peanuts" during
the 1960’s. However Hart’s hip
cavemen began to be looked on as tame
as pop culture became edgier over the
ongoing years.
In 1977 there was a marked
awakening in Hart's spirituality,
which he attributed to a conversation
with a father-son
team of contractors who installed a
satellite dish at his home. He and his wife began attending the Presbyterian
Church in Nineveh, New York and ever
since Hart increasingly incorporated
Christian themes and ideals into both his
strips. Some
newspapers refused to print any of
his strips
with overtly religious themes or, as
with the Los Angeles Times, relegated
them to the religious section of the
newspaper.
Besides his wife, Mr. Hart is
survived by two daughters, Patti and
Perri. Like may comic strips "B.C." and
"Wizard of Id" will live on past the
death of it's creator. Family members
have helped Hart with the strips for
years, and they have a large computer
archive of Hart's drawings from which
to access and the strip will continue
for the foreseeable future. |
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COMIC
NEWSBYTES... |
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MARVEL NEWSBYTES: |
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THE HOUSE OF IDEAS,
all
the latest on Spidey, the FF, Icon, Dabel, Marvel's Merry Mutants and
more. |
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DC NEWSBYTES: |
 AT
THE ORIGINAL UNIVERSE,
all the latest on Batman, Superman,
DCU, Vertigo, Wildstorm, CMX and
more. |
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INDY NEWSBYTES: |
 IN
THE WORLD OF INDIES,
all the latest on Image, Dark Horse,
IDW, Top Cow, Avatar and dozens of
other independent publishers.
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WRESTLING NEWSBYTES... |
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WWE NEWSBYTES: |
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IN SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT,
news on what's happening on Raw, Smackdown, ECW and the
rest of the World Wrestling Federation. |
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GAMING NEWSBYTES... |
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CCG/CMG NEWSBYTES: |
 CARD
& MINIATURE GAMES,
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others. |
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table top game in-between. |
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MISCELLANEOUS
NEWSBYTES... |
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IN MEMORIUM:
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 OBITUARIES,
no one's
getting out alive and so when someone
of note to us passes on, we
memorialize them here. |
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A PERSONAL NOTE |
 I
grew up reading B.C. in the Sun
Times. The Times was always in the
house and the realization that new
comics were in there everyday was
what first drew me to stick my nose
into the smelly newsprint.
B.C. was at the top of the funnies
page and so it always got my
attention first (quickly followed by
Nancy) and it's appearance everyday
was somehow very reassuring back in
the 60's. Even though the strip was
about cartoon cavemen I knew there
was something very "adult" about the
situational humor the characters
would find themselves in everyday. I
"got" what Hart was saying about social
relationships and group dynamics
everyday in the strip even though at
that time I had no clue as to what
those terms meant and my
understanding was rudimentary. B.C., Mad Magazine
and Rowan & Martin's Laugh In all
helped me to understand the world of
humor was larger and more expansive
than Bozo or the Flying Nun. All
three traded in satire, parody and
social commentary concerning events
of the day.
As the years went by I "grew out of"
all three of these influences however
because B.C. was in the Times
everyday I would take the time to
occasionally read it. When I became
an adult and began to appreciate
comics as an art form I picked up
some of the paperback collections of
Hart's B.C. Like "Peanuts" and many
other daily strips I appreciated how
Harts characters took on a
personality of their own with just a
few simple line strokes. I also began
to realize his pre-historic world was
populated with a "pantheon" of
characters who all had unique
personalities and each served an
important role in the strips social
dynamic.
I did some quick math when I heard of
Hart's death, B.C. has been in
existence for 49 years (a year longer
than me!). At a rate of 6 strips per
week that means there have been over
15.000 daily black and white
adventures of B.C.
since the strip first debuted in
February 1958. Assuming color Sunday
strips ran for the same length of
time that would mean there are
somewhere in the neighborhood of
2,500 produced. That's a lot of
material based on a handful of cavemen
&
women, an ant hill, a turtle with an
albatrosses on it's back, walking
clams ("CLAMS GOT LEGS!") various
dinosaur's and a group of other
supporting characters.
It is always pointed out that Star
Trek got away with telling the
stories it did, when it did because it was Science
Fiction. The setting made the message
go down smoother. Hart never tackled
any "great issues" with B.C. but the
human commentary he did make in
every strip went down smoother
because it was done with a bunch of
humorous cave people who acted more
like us than actual Neanderthals.
It's message was greater than the sum
of it's parts. Putting the B.C.
universe together, making it spin
over 17,000 times, and having an idea
in every strip was the true genius
behind Johnny Hart.
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All
Books/Characters/Individuals pictured herein are © Copyright 2007
by their respective owners.
No rights given or implied
by Alternate Reality, Incorporated.
News © 2007 Alternate Reality, Inc. |
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