John Darling

John Darling is an American comic strip, created by Tom Batiuk, a spin-off of his earlier comic strip Funky Winkerbean. John Darling appeared from March 25, 1979, to August 4, 1990. Storyline and characters John Darling, a talk-show host, was originally a supporting character in Batiuk's strip Funky Winkerbean before being spun off into his own strip. Much of the strip's humor came from Darling's outsized ego, quirks, and frequent displays of ignorance; in one strip, he interviews musician Prince, asking him "Exactly which country are you a prince of?" Other featured characters were Darling's co-workers at "Channel One", the TV station where he worked, including ratings-obsessed producer Reed Roberts; clueless old-school anchor Charlie Lord; shrewish reporter Brenda Harpy; and insecure weatherman Phil. The strip also featured a large number of parodic appearances by celebrities (often being interviewed by Darling); this was such a feature of the strip that numerous newspapers carried John Darling on their TV page, rather than the comics page. Sunday strips generally included two panels of "TV Trivia" content otherwise unrelated to the strip as a whole. History John Darling debuted in March 1979 in 22 newspapers. The strip's original artist was Tom Armstrong, who left in 1985 for his own creation, Marvin, though he did return to draw the feature's final three weeks. His replacement was Gerry Shamray, whose first strip was dated March 3, 1985.