B.C. (comic strip)

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B.C.
Author(s)	Johnny Hart
Website	Creators.com: B.C.
Current status / schedule	Running
Launch date	1958
Syndicate(s)	Creators Syndicate

B.C. is an American newspaper comic strip created in 1958, written and drawn by Johnny Hart until his death in 2007. Set in prehistoric times, it features a group of cavemen and anthropomorphic animals from various geologic eras. It is among the longest-running strips by its original creator, appearing daily in newspapers since February 17, 1958. Hart died on April 7, 2007 after suffering a stroke at his home in Nineveh, New York.^[1] Following his death, the strip continues under Hart's daughter Perri Hart and his grandson Mason Mastroianni (who were involved with the strip prior to his death), with contributions by Mick Mastroianni. It is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

[edit] Characters

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Human Characters:

• B.C., a caveman and a humble, naïve slob. On occasion B.C. would make nighttime rounds as his alter-ego, The Midnight Skulker.
• Peter, a philosopher, a self-styled genius and the first philosophical failure, founder of the Prehistoric Pessimists Society and the Column of Truth. Peter is patterned after Hart's friend and co-worker Peter Reuter from General Electric
• Clumsy Carp, a conservationist clumsy enough to trip over a shadow. Clumsy Carp was patterned after Hart's childhood friend, Jack Caprio.
• Curls, a master of sarcastic wit. Curls was patterned after Hart's friend from high school, Richard (Curly) Boland.
• Thor, inventor of the wheel, the well, the rake, the comb, many other things, and a lady's man. Thor was patterned after Hart's friend and co-worker from GE, Thornton Kinney.
• Wiley, a peg-legged, superstitious, unshaven, woman-fearing, water-hating, poet, and manager of the local baseball team, not to mention the first bartender. Wiley was patterned after his brother-in-law, Wiley Baxter, who lost his leg in World War II.
• Grog, a caveman's caveman; a teddy bear for the macho. A wild man with a one-word vocabulary and enough strength to knock the sun out of the sky using a golf ball.
• Fat Broad, a bossy cavewoman who enjoys clobbering snakes. A ubiquitous "straight person" with an unwavering devotion to the domination of men.
• Cute Chick, a cavewoman. A sex object in a world that had not yet discovered objectivity.

Animal Characters:

• The Early bird and the Early worm (who likes to sleep in while the early bird freezes his beak off waiting for him to emerge).
• The Woodpecker, Wiley's worst enemy.
• John the Tortoise and the Dookie Bird, inseparable friends.
• Maude, an ant with a smart-alec son, and a quarrelsome husband named Jake who is always threatening to run off with Shirley.
• The Queen Ant, an unfeeling and abusive dictator. Her name is Ida. Ida is featured on Hart's wife Bobby, whose given name is Ida and is featured every year on her birthday, December 3.
• Various other ants, including a schoolteacher and her students.
• The Anteater, eats ants with a "zot!" sound.
• The Purple-bellied dingwhopper, the last of its species.
• The Dinosaur.
• The Clams, talking clams with legs.
• The Snake, the Fat Broad's worst enemy.
• The Apteryx (kiwi), a "wingless bird with hairy feathers" (as he invariably introduces himself).
• Also, various odd inanimate characters, including a talking daisy and his friend, a rock.

[edit] Character inspiration

Hart was inspired to draw cavemen (and many other creatures) through the chance suggestion of one of his General Electric coworkers and took to the idea "because they are a combination of simplicity and the origin of ideas." The name for the strip was suggested by his wife, Bobby. "B.C." here refers to the calendar term "Before Christ" and is also used for the name of one of the characters.

The name of the comic is also a reference to Broome County, NY, where Hart was born. The county actually uses the B.C. characters on places such as their parks, transit lines, and some local restaurants, and the characters were also part of two of the logos for Binghamton, NY's minor league hockey teams.

Hart describes the title character as similar to himself, playing the "patsy". The other major characters — Peter, Wiley, Clumsy Carp, the Fat Broad, the Cute Chick, Curls, Thor, and Grog — were patterned after friends, a relative, and GE co-workers.^[2] The animal characters include dinosaurs, ants and an anteater, clams, a snake, a turtle and bird duo, and an apteryx ("a wingless bird with hairy feathers", as it constantly reminds the reader, presented in the strip as being the sole surviving specimen and hence aware of its being doomed to extinction). Dry humor, prose, shameless puns and wordplays, and devices such as Wiley's Dictionary (where common words are defined humorously with a twist, see Daffynition) make for some of the mix of material in B.C. Example: "Rock - to cause something or someone to swing or sway, by hitting them with it!" - from an early 1967 strip.

Peter also sometimes communicates with an unseen correspondent on the other side of the ocean, sending a message on a slab of rock that floats across the ocean and is replied to by sarcastic writing on a similar slab of rock.

Two other characters were recently added following an attempt by Peter to raft his way around the world: Anno Domini and Conahonty, who have the appearances and speech patterns of ethnic stereotypes of Italian-Americans and Native Americans, respectively.

[edit] Setting

Originally,the strip was very firmly set in prehistoric times, with the characters clearly living in an era untouched by modernity. Typical plotlines, for example, include B.C.'s friend Thor (inventor of the wheel and the comb) trying to discover a use for the wheel. Thor was also seen making calendars out of stone every December. Other characters attempt to harness fire or to discover an unexplored territory, like Peter trying to find the "new world" by crossing the ocean on a raft. Animals like the dinosaur think such thoughts as, "There's one consolation to becoming extinct-I'll go down in history as the first one to go down in history." Grog arrived in early 1966, emerging from an iceberg which melted to reveal what Clumsy Carp called a Prehistoric Man. As time went on the strip began to frequently mine humor from having the characters make explicit references to modern-day current events, inventions, and celebrities which started to blur the comic's supposed prehistoric setting and make it rife with intentional anachronisms. One of the comic's early out-of-context jokes, from June 22, 1967, was this one:

Peter: "I used to think sun revolved around the earth."

B.C.: "What does it revolve around?"

Peter: "The United States!"

Another early example: near Christmas time, the apteryx dressed as Santa Claus and modified his usual spiel: "I'm an ApterClaus, a wingless toymonger with batteries not included!"

References to Christianity (see "Religious aspect" below), anachronistic given the strip's supposed setting and the implications of its title, would become increasingly frequent during Hart's later years of working on the strip.

According to one theory—put forth most notably by Washington Post columnist and comics critic Gene Weingarten—B.C. is set not in the past but in a dystopic, post-apocalyptic future. This theory makes the anachronisms more easily understood as references to an ancient civilization (i.e., our present one) that the characters dimly comprehend.

[edit] Religious aspect

Following a renewal of Hart's Christian faith in 1977, the strip increasingly incorporated religious, social, and political commentary and continued to do so until Hart's death in 2007. In interviews, Hart referred to his strip as a "ministry" intended to mix religious themes with "secular humor".^[2] Though other strips such as The Family Circus and Hart's own The Wizard of Id have included Christian themes, B.C. strips were pulled from comics pages on several occasions due to editorial perception of religious favoritism or overt proselytizing. Easter strips in 1996 and 2001, for example, prompted editorial reaction from a handful of U.S. newspapers, chiefly the Los Angeles Times and written and oral responses from Jewish and Muslim groups. The American Jewish Committee termed the Easter 2001 strip, which depicted the last words of Jesus Christ and a menorah transforming into a cross, "religiously offensive" and "shameful."^[3] The Los Angeles Times consequently relegated strips which its editorial staff deemed objectionable to the religion pages, instead of the regular comics pages.^[4]

[edit] Examples of religious themes in comic strips

B.C. strip from August 18, 2006, illustrating Hart's frequent out-of-context humor as well as incorporation of religious themes.

B.C. strip from April 15, 2001, which generated controversy among some Jewish groups.

[edit] Other controversy

The B.C. strip on December 7, 2006, attracted criticism for defining infamy as "a word seldom used after Toyota sales topped 2 million." The day was the 65th anniversary of the Japanese military's attack on Pearl Harbor, and the punchline of the strip refers to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Infamy Speech" which requested from Congress a declaration of war against Japan.

The day's strip was pulled from at least one newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News. The paper's managing editor, Brett Thacker, said the comic was "more than just a feeble attempt at being topical, it's a regressive and insensitive statement about one of the worst days in American history… [Hart's comic represented] an old way of thinking. The preceding generations lived through that horrible era—I can certainly appreciate their sacrifice. The world has changed, and much to our benefit. Unfortunately, some people haven't."^[5]

On July 21, 2009, the strip presented a gag that involved the suggestion of animal abuse. John Hart Studios received angry responses from readers and replaced the strip on their website and issued an apology.^[6][7]

[edit] Other media

The strip has been collected in various paperback and hardcover books over the years.

The characters were featured in two animated television specials. B.C.: The First Thanksgiving first aired on NBC in 1973, was directed by Abe Levitow, and featured the voice talents of Daws Butler (as B.C. and Clumsy), Don Messick as Peter and Thor, Bob Holt as Wiley and Grog, and Joanie Sommers as Fat Broad and Cute Chick. B.C.: A Special Christmas was produced in 1981, and starred the comedy team of Bob and Ray as the voices of Peter and Wiley, respectively.

The characters also appeared in animated commercials for Monroe shocks in the late 1980s.

B.C. was turned into two video games for the ColecoVision home video game system and the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 home computers: B.C.'s Quest for Tires and B.C. 2: Grog's Revenge.

Clumsy Carp was present at the 75th anniversary party of the comic strip Blondie.

The strip was referred to in an unflattering light in an episode of Family Guy. Stewie Griffin says that he is going to do to his archnemesis what B.C. does to comedy on a daily basis.

Francesco Marciuliano's webcomic Medium Large once spoofed B.C. with a strip in which Clumsy notes that "Easter is this Sunday", to which Peter asks whether they're "even pretending to be cavemen anymore".

[edit] Johnny Hart's Hometown

Influences from B.C. are found throughout Johnny Hart's home of Broome County, New York. A PGA Tour event, The B.C. Open, took place every summer in Endicott, New York through 2005 (the final scheduled B.C. Open in 2006 was disrupted by flooding, prompting a change of venue to the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in central New York state). The county parks department features a green dinosaur, and a caveman riding a wheel graces every B.C. Transit bus. In the past, Hart has also left his mark on the logos of the Broome Dusters and B.C. Icemen hockey teams.

[edit] Awards

B.C.'s awards include:

• Best Humor Strip in America, National Cartoonist Society, 1967
• The Reuben, Cartoonist of the Year, National Cartoonist Society, 1968
• The Yellow Kid Award, International Congress of Comics, 1970
• Adamson Award, Swedish Museum of Comic Art, 1975
• The Seger Award, King Features, 1981
• Best Newspaper Comic Strip, National Cartoonist Society, 1989

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• John Hart Studios - official site for John Hart Studios
• Creators.com: B.C. - official site from Creators Syndicate
• NCS Awards
• Toonopedia entry on B.C.