Comic Strips Down

Many a managing editor worries more about his comic strips than his front page. Last week Philadelphia Bulletin Managing Editor Walter Lister gave the editors more to worry about. Said he: "Comics, once regarded as a specific for all circulation ills, are now the sick chicks of the newspaper business." The measure of a strip has long been 50% readership for a good comic, up to 80% for the best., e.g., Dick Tracy, Li'l Abner. But a recent survey in one major U.S. city showed that of 40 strips published, only 13 have 50% readership (v. 20 in 1950). Readership of all comics has declined there an average 15% since a 1950 survey.

One big reason, says Lister, is television, which has lured readers away from the newspapers' back pages. For example, in Dothan, Ala., which has no television reception, comic-strip readership is 68%; in Anniston, Ala., which can tune in on six TV stations, readership is down to 31%.

Next to newspapers, the best-read publications in the U.S. are comic books, the University of California's Bureau of Public Administration reported last week. Comic-book circulation exceeds a billion copies yearly, and the $100 million spent on them is 1) more than U.S. grade and high schools spend for books and 2) four times the book budgets of U.S. public libraries. Readers are not all children. Comic books are regularly read by 25% of high-school graduates, 16% of college graduates and 12% of U.S. teachers.

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