It’s pretty much a guarantee that when a middle-shelf newspaper cartoonist dies, a child will pick up the strip where they left off and the strip will live on much as before. (This doesn’t apply to the true greats, like Schulz or Larson, and the really bottom-of-the-drawer ones don’t get syndicated widely enough for anyone to bother picking up what they leave.) It’s happened to B.C., Blondie, and Apartment 3-G, and it’s going to happen to Family Circus and, apparently, Crock. I think I’ve demonstrated it happens in syndicated newspaper comics land well enough to survive a round of nitpicking, so can anyone prove me a fool by listing a dozen or so other media where it’s common enough to not be surprising?
*(This brings up something else: Crock is one big, decades-old, decades-long reference to Beau Geste, a film from either 1966, which was nine years ago when the strip was launched, or from the Holy Year of 1939. You can probably be forgiven for not caring, but can you name another running pop culture reference that’s been preserved in amber to this extent?)
Right. I do know that. Also, The Katzenjammer Kids is still being made and syndicated (oldest syndicated newspaper cartoon, originated in 1897, according to Wikipedia) but it doesn’t appear to have been passed down along family lines.
So I take it from the paucity of replies that this really is a ‘feature’ mostly unique to syndicated newspaper comics?
The radio character Senator Claghorn was on the air for less than five years in the '40s, but his derivative Foghorn Leghorn remains an active WB property today.
It seems to me that newspaper comics are in somewhat of a special circumstance, as art goes, in that they represent a franchise which can be continually extended. A novel is expected to stand alone, and even if it has sequels, the series can be expected to end sooner or later, usually after only a few books (something like Pratchett’s Discworld might be an exception, but it’s not really a “series” in the usual sense). A comic strip, though, continues indefinitely. If a novel author, or a composer, or a painter, dies, there’s not really much of a mantle for their kids to pick up, but with comics, there is.
It happens in business/trade, where a father will hand down the family business to his children. But I can’t think of any other art form that fits. Maybe comic-stripping is an art form that’s uniquely suited to be run like a family business?
Shaara and Herbert were who I came in to mention. (Did Heinlein have kids?)
Alexandre Dumas, Jr., was also a writer but actually wrote in different genre (more playwright than novelist). I expect Christopher Rice to take over the family horror franchise- possibly the same characters if his own don’t sell- when Anne expires.
Stephen King’s son actually used a pseudonym for his novel so as not to be compared to his father.
Not in my opinion. CJRT is a pretty thorough editor of his father’s writings, but it’s always quite clear which writing is JRRT’s and which are CJRT’s editorial comments.
Todd McCaffrey is evidently taking over the Dragonriders of Pern series from mother Anne McCaffrey.
I gave up on the series long ago, but the titles seem to keep coming out.
I think that newspaper comic strips are unique in that after a point it is possible to just crank them out, re-using the same handful of jokes over and over. For some reason people get irate when the comics page drops Family Circus or Marmaduke.
Ernest Hemingway’s sons tried to finish some of his writings, I recall reading (and hearing, on the Mr. Show commentary track - apparently the hilarious Roar of the Lion sketch was inspired by a passage from Hemingway’s son, describing how one “feels the roar of the lion in his scrotum.”)
On Frasier Eddie was played by two dog actors; Moose for the first 7 seasons and after he retired his son, Enzo, took over for the last 4 seasons. Enzo was bred for the specific purpose of taking over his father’s role in the event the show became a long runner.
Another example (if you’re willing to loosely define “art forms”) is the Dear Abby column, started by Pauline Phillips and continued by her daughter. And the daughter of Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) was also an advice columnist, although under the name Dear Prudence.
(I remember seeing a mention from Dan Savage about how lucrative the advice column business is, and how he plans to continue in it to his grave. So perhaps that explains why the daughters of Dear Abby and Ann Landers continued in the business.)
Dewey Finn: There’s something about newspapers, isn’t there? I suppose they have the right mix of income, friendliness to small operations, and nearly psychotic aversion to change of any form to keep the same thing going for generations.
Interesting examples from non-newspaper media, but they all seem like isolated specific examples as opposed to general rules.
Biffy the Elephant Shrew: I suppose now’s my chance to say something terrible about Pogo, but I do think it was great and I must simply admit ignorance.
Brian Henson is really a good example. He took over for his Dad and did a really good job. I thought he even voiced Kermit at one point, but apparently I’m wrong about that(Wiki says different).
