A number of websites are now offering the opinion, sometimes in the form of outright pleas, that B.C. not be continued since Johnny Hart has passed away. Here's one such plea and here's another.
I largely disagree with this wish. If I were the person making the decision, I'd ask two questions, the first being what the creator wanted. This is never a mystery. Johnny Hart owned B.C. and could very easily have left instructions that it not be continued or, like Charles Schulz did with Peanuts, that it only be continued via reprints. Hart did not. Most cartoonists do not wish that. Imagine if your father had opened a successful restaurant. Would he want closed down when he died? I don't think it's ignoble, when you create something that's very lucrative, to want it to continue making money for your family and associates. You may also just like the idea of your creation living on and remaining current.
Which brings us to the second question: Can a strip still be produced that will have a value to readers? This is really the only other consideration that ought to matter — the quality of the finished product. If you scan message boards about comic strips, you'll see occasional messages from folks arguing that comic strip creators should never have assistants; that they should do it all by themselves or not do it at all. I have a certain self-interest here since I've ghost-written a couple of syndicated strips…but even before those jobs, I thought it was a phony argument. Most of the great newspaper strips have been to some extent the work of assistants or ghosts, including a few that claimed otherwise. So what? If the strip's good, it's good. If it's not, the fact that it was done by one person doesn't make it any better.
Nor does the fact that a strip is still done by its creator. I admire the fact that Mr. Schulz did it all by his lonesome for half a century but if at some point he'd decided he needed help, I wouldn't have thought less of him. Not as long as I still liked what he and that aide produced.
Johnny Hart's two strips have long featured the participation of other writers and other artists. If those folks can keep producing a strip of the same quality, I see no reason why it shouldn't get the same reception. Let the Free Market operate. I think Blondie, to name one, maintained the exact same level of quality after Chic Young passed away…and why not? Long before he died, he had a good crew — trained by him — writing and drawing it. After he left us, the strip was being produced by almost the same creative force as before. If it was unworthy of publication after its creator died, it was probably unworthy for ten or twenty years before.
It continued on, before and after Young's passing, because people liked it and editors perceived that people liked it. I don't see that his death affected that equation…or how Hart's will necessarily make people not want to read B.C. They might if it becomes less entertaining — but that would be true if Hart was still alive and his skills were declining. And in fact, that did happen a little while he was still at it. A number of key papers decided he'd lost his funny and dropped the feature.
That's how it works with strips and how it oughta work. I don't want newspapers or the Creators Syndicate to drop the new B.C. just because it will be done without Hart's participation. I just want the people doing the strip to make it as good as it ever was…and it's the readers who can and will decide if they've succeeded.