Bless Johnny Hart (B.C. Cartoonist) (my title)

Santa Barbara News-Press ^ | 01/19/2003

[Inspectorette]

Please excuse this vanity post. I did a search for "B.C", Johnny Hart, and nothing came up.

Today's comic strip in the Sunday Santa Barbara News-Press is beautiful. I'm surprised it wasn't censored by this liberal rag. Johnny Hart is a great fan of our President.

[Support Free Republic]

The king and queen of the free ride
	Donate Here By Secure Server Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD

[Eaker]

You might want to post a link to the cartoon.

[Izzy Dunne]

Did it occur to you to post the cartoon?

Or at least a description?

[Harley109]

Willey's writing again under a tree in the strip: An evil from the bowels of Hell has seized our ship of state,
And broke upon its weary bow the cruel champage of hate.

They christened it with sinful accusations born of rage, Then shook their fists in history's face and wrote a brand new page.

God called a youthful man of force and placed him at the helm,
Whom we endorsed to steer a course that evil cannot whelm.

A superhuman task is laid before our dragon slayer,
So let's lift up our shining knight -with all our might- through prayer!

Johnny Hart

[BenLurkin]

St. George the Dragon Slayer:

[BenLurkin]

[Inspectorette]

I thought I did - I posted the source (S.B. News-Press), with the URL.

For some reason, when I previewed, it didn't appear. I went back, and tried again, and it still didn't appear. Please forgive me. I'm just not very talented at this sort of thing.

[Inspectorette]

Thank you. If I were not HTML-challenged, I'd have tried to post the entire strip.

[Inspectorette]

Beautiful picture - so true.

[Keith in Iowa]

[Keith in Iowa]

http://www.creators.com/0119/bc/bc0119g.gif

[PaulJ]

[Miss Marple]

How very nice! I am pinging a few friends who would appreciate this!

[Inspectorette]

Keith, thank you so much. This was so deeply moving. I cut it out and am going to post in my cubicle at work. I hope my fellow Freepers enjoy it as much as I did.

[Keith in Iowa]

I like the color version better :)

[kayak]

Wonderful!

[Dubya]

Good find and post.
Johnny Hart's B.C. has been popular with the public since the very beginning. But it wasn't always popular with editors. It was rejected by five syndicates before finding a home at The New York Herald Tribune. It finally debuted as a daily on Feb. 17, 1958, and as a Sunday on Oct. 19 of that year — and the first paperback collection of its episodes came out in 1958, too.

B.C. was the 27-year-old Hart's first foray into comics, but not his last. In 1964, he collaborated with Brant Parker on a second newspaper strip, The Wizard of Id, which has enjoyed similar popularity. For his work on both strips, Hart received the National Cartoonists' Society's prestigious Reuben Award in 1968.

The strip's premise is as simple as can be — contemporary humor in a fantasy setting that includes eyeglasses, cave people, dinosaurs, and other elements that don't quite mesh chronologically. The art style, like that of Charles Schulz's Peanuts, masks sophisticated minimalism with a casually scratchy veneer.

The cast includes B.C., the title character; Thor, inventor of the wheel; Curls, inventor of sarcasm; Peter, inventor of philosophy; Wiley, inventor of poetry; two women whose only names seem to be Fat Broad and Skinny Broad; Clumsy Carp, a klutz; Grog, a not-fully-evolved subhuman; and assorted ants, anteaters, clams, and dinosaurs.

B.C.'s circulation has risen steadily, and it now appears in about 1,300 newspapers. New collections of the strip appear at regular intervals. The characters have appeared in numerous TV commercials, and in one half-hour animated special on ABC. Millions of Americans recognize its characteristic sound effects, such as "Zot" (the sound made by an anteater capturing its prey) and "gronk" (the call of a dinosaur).

In recent years, Hart's strongly Christian point of view has been a prominent element of his work — which may seem odd, considering the strip's title, but anachronism has always been the name of the game in B.C. In any case, it seems to have sat well with his audience for quite a few years.

However, his strip appearing on Easter, 2001, which depicted a menorah being transformed into a cross, may have gone too far. It was denounced not just by Jewish groups, but also by Catholic and Protestant clergy, as demeaning to Jews. The protests were made after the Sunday comics had already been printed, so it was impossible for newspapers to simply pull the strip — but many seriously considered dropping it permanently in response.

Hart followed the attack a few weeks later by blasting the American Civil Liberties Union for its attempts to keep sectarian religion out of schools which are supported by the taxes of Americans of all faiths. This sort of religious orientation stands in sharp contrast to that of Latigo, Rick O'Shay and others with a strong Christian point of view, but which are not perceived as attacking other religions or attempting to establish government support for a single one. Only time will tell if the strip's popularity is significantly damaged by Hart's increasingly trenchant advocacy of his beliefs over all others.

[kayak]

Well, I see that while I was pinging you, you were pinging me ........ :-)

[dixiechick2000]

Thank you for posting the strip, KiI. It's beautiful!

Inspectorette, thanks for calling our attention to this. I haven't read the paper, yet.