Zombie strip

In the comic-strip business, a zombie strip (also known as a "legacy strip" ) is one whose creator has died (or retired), and yet continues to exist in publication. The strips are taken over by others, often relatives of the originator. Zombie comic strips are often criticized as lacking the "spark" that originally made the strip successful.

The usual reason for continuing a strip as a zombie is to keep the profitable business going. Both the creator's relatives and the strip's syndicate stand to make significant money. In the early days of comic strips, it was commonplace for a strip to be taken over by successors once the original cartoonist died; one of the earliest high-profile cartoonists to reject "zombie stripping" was George Herriman, who insisted that his strip "Krazy Kat" not be continued after his death. (Herriman, along with his strip, died in 1944.)

The practice of continuing a zombie comic strip is commonly criticized by cartoonists, particularly younger ones, including Bill Watterson and Stephan Pastis. Pastis addressed the issue in his strip, "Pearls Before Swine", in 2005. Mark Tatulli also commented on zombie strips in his strip "Liō" in 2010. Charles Schulz, author of "Peanuts", requested that his strip (which, in contrast to most comic strips today, he drew completely on his own with no assistants of any kind) not be continued by another cartoonist after his death; Schulz's family (as well as United Feature Syndicate, which published "Peanuts" during its original run) has honored his wishes. "Peanuts" instead is seen in reruns under the banner "Classic Peanuts." This has also been criticized by notable comic strip critics such as Josh Fruhlinger of the Comics Curmudgeon.

The principal criticism directed toward continuing a zombie strip is that the replacement cartoonist is seen as generally less funny or inspired than the creator ("still stumbling around decades after their original creators have retired or died" ), or that the new cartoonist does not have the same style of writing or understand the characters as well. The death of the cartoonist and the strip's succession into zombie status thus is akin to the concept of "marrying Irving" or "jumping the shark", in that the strip never returns to the quality or popularity it had during the run by the original cartoonist. An additional criticism is that continuing such strips prevents newer cartoonists from entering the business by filling newspaper space that might be devoted to new strips. However, in some cases, the new head cartoonist has often been the assistant of the former, as Dennis the Menace, after Hank Ketcham's retirement, was developed by his former assistants who have taken over. Often the new cartoonist has developed the strip over a few years.

Zombie strips include "Adam@home", "Andy Capp", "Blondie", "Dennis the Menace", "B.C.", "The Wizard of Id", "Frank and Ernest", "Hi and Lois", "Hägar the Horrible", "The Family Circus", "Shoe", "Spy vs. Spy", "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith", and "Ginger Meggs". Now-defunct strips that were zombies for a time before being discontinued include "Terry and the Pirates", "Little Orphan Annie", and "Brenda Starr".

Lying somewhere in a gray area are strips that still have an association with their original author but receive significant assistance from others. The most widely known example of this is the widely syndicated "Garfield," which was created and is still managed by Jim Davis but is currently written and drawn by the large staff of Davis's corporation, Paws, Inc.