The Wizard of Id disappears, coughing and choking, in a puff of acrid smoke. Cathy enters a dressing room with an unflattering bathing suit never to be seen again.
Actually, it doesn’t have to be that way. Although some comic characters, like Marmaduke, will no longer be gracing the Times’ funny pages, they still have a place in cyberspace. As for the newcomers and comeback kings, you can acquaint yourselves with what’s been happening to them for at least the past two weeks on the Web. Often, sites deliver your favorite right to your e-mail inbox.
Besides a list of sites for the newly departed, the rejected and the incoming, we’ve also rediscovered some old neighbors like Geech and the Fusco Brothers. Not only that, we found friends such as Calvin and Hobbes, and Bloom County’s Opus and Milo, who bid their own farewell to the comic pages but who we can’t quite bring ourselves to say goodbye to.
Welcome Wagon
“Baby Blues”: www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/babyblue/about.htm
“Frank & Ernest”: www.unitedmedia.com/comics/franknernest
“Non Sequitur”: www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur
“Pickles”: www.unitedmedia.com/wash/pickles
“Six Chix”: www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/sixchix/about.htm
“Zits”: www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/zits/about.htm
Farewell to thee
“The Born Loser”: www.unitedmedia.com/comics/bornloser
“Cathy”: www.ucomics.com/cathy
“Marmaduke”: www.unitedmedia.com/comics/marmaduke
“Overboard”: www.ucomics.com/overboard
“Mary Worth”: www.king-online.com/main/view-comic.php3 ?content-name=Mary-Worth
“Wizard of Id”: www.unitedmedia.com/creators/wizardofid
Old friends
“Fusco Brothers”: www.ucomics.com/thefuscobrothers
“Geech”: www.unitedmedia.com/comics/geech
“Rhymes With Orange”: www.rhymeswithorange.com
Didn’t make the cut
“The Boondocks”: www.ucomics.com/boondocks
“Lola”: www.comicspage.com/lola
“Baldo”: www.ucomics.com/baldo
“Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet”: www.comicspage.com/helen/
Eternal favorites
“Bloom County”: While there’s no official Web site, any search engine will bring up numerous fan sites. A ring devoted to Berkeley Breathed’s strip is www.bomis.com/rings/bloomcounty
“Calvin and Hobbes”: www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes