So I’m browsing through the comic strips for Wednesday, and I notice something very strange going on in both the 11/04 Mary Worth strip, and the 11/04 Phantom strip. Slick!
Once in the mid-70s, Tank McNamara was visited by the Hulk, Spider-Man and Iron Man. (Spider-Man got his own strip a year or two later.)
Well, there is the infamous Archie / Punisher issue
Brian
Amalgam Comics. These included Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D; Lobo the Duck; Spider-Boy; Bat-Thing; Iron Lantern; Doctor Strangefate, and many other goofy combinations.
This thread is about comic strip crossovers, not comic book crossovers.
One of my favorites was the April Fools day in the 90s when, with no warning, a few dozen Strip creators switched strips.
I think I remember that one. Was it done just that one time?
Mary Worth, slouching towards Bethlehem.
I was beginning to fear a female Phantom, but Mary will straighten her out.
Mary has super powers all related to meddling, so this looks like a match made in heaven (and Mary knows *plenty *about matchmaking).
- In the Bandar tongue.
A number of the strips (especially Lio, and lately, the oddly revitalized Wizard of Id) have done crossovers/practical jokes/satires of each other. A Halloween one last Sunday had all of the characters attending a party at either Blondie’s or Hi and Lois’s, with the comment that it was the only day they could mix with regular folk.
As a still-devoted reader of the funnies, I find it… funny.
I know that not too long ago on Sally Forth the Forths were kvetching about not being invited to the Bumstead’s last Anniversary party.
Drabble was all scribbly that day and the characters were wondering what a comic creator would do if he couldn’t switch with another. They concluded that he would just draw it with his left hand instead of his right.
Pearls Before Swine frequently does strips involving the Family Circus kids.
And I don’t know if it counts as a crossover but PBS had a week of strips a couple years ago that were drawn by Bill Watterson.
Going way, way back…
Sgt Rock and The Viking Prince in Our Army at War.
[TVP, attacking a Tiger tank with a sword]: Men hiding in the monster’s belly! COWARDS! Come out and fight!
There was a famous inadvertent cross-over between Dennis the Menace and The Far Side, when the paper switched their captions (the Dennis the Menace comic now had Dennis saying something like “I see your tiny, fossilized skull sitting on a shelf” to an adult … 
".
For the past year or so, Little Orphan Annie has been an ongoing character on Dick Tracy. She’s friends with his granddaughter, Honeymoon.
I remember when the Far Side was next to Family Circus and the captions got switched. I think it was in the 80s? After that I always read them switched, for extra fun.
Sam’s Strip (a.k.a. Sam and Silo) frequently featured characters from other strips, usually King Features Syndicate strips.
Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy coordinated their gags with each other for a week a few years back. I think the characters stayed in their own strips, though.
Liberty Meadows has parodied other strips on numerous occasions, and often has Cathy show up to make the “Ack!” sound and look like a mess. I guarantee Cathy Guisewite isn’t in on the joke.
Probably the earliest crossover was between Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois in the 50s (Beetle is Lois’s brother). Nancy was originally a supporting character in Fritzi Ritz, but I forget whether she took over the strip or they were ever separate features. The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician have popped up in each others’ strips on occasion.