socioeconomics, and sexual orientation, among
other issues.
Further Reading
Mohr, Jay.Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches
of “Saturday Night Live.”New York: Hyperion,
- An inside look at the comedians onSaturday
Night Liveduring 1993-1995, when the author
worked for the show.
Shydner, Ritch, and Mark Schiff, comps.I Killed:
True Stories on the Road from America’s Top Comics.
New York: Crown, 2006. Contains anecdotes by
comedians like Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld.
Sometimes vulgar, the book offers insight into the
on- and backstage lives of comedians.
Tracy, Kathleen.Jerr y Seinfeld: The Entire Domain.
Secaucus, N.J.: Carol, 1998. A biography of the co-
median including his career as stand-up come-
dian and the history of the sitcomSeinfeld.
Jane L. Ball
See also Allen, Woody; Cable television; Carrey,
Jim; DeGeneres, Ellen; Film in the United States;In
Living Color; Late night television; Rock, Chris;Sein-
feld; Television.
Comic strips
Definition Sequential narrative cartoon drawings,
often published in newspapers, in periodicals,
and on the World Wide Web
Newspaper comic strips in the 1990’s dwindled in cultural
importance as shrinking newspaper space led to smaller
and fewer strips being published. Comic-strip audiences ex-
panded with a move to publication on the World Wide Web
beginning mid-decade.
The daily newspaper comic-strip section remained
one of the most conservative areas of American pop-
ular culture in the 1990’s. The retrenchment caused
by newspapers going out of business and the survi-
vors cutting back on the space devoted to strips
made the comics page very difficult to break into.
The conservatism of the comics’s aging audience
played a role as well, as attempts to remove old strips
to make way for new met with protests from fans.
Continuity-heavy “soap opera” strips such as Gil
ThorpandMar y Worthand humor stalwarts such as
Hi and LoisandMommacontinued to run as they had
for decades, while attracting little attention outside
their fan base.
There were some changes during the decade.
One of the most beloved American comic strips, Bill
Watterson’sCalvin and Hobbes, ended in 1995 as
Watterson disappeared from the comics scene en-
tirely. Gary Larson’s widely admired single-panelThe
Far Sideended the same year, giving the impression
that a golden age was ending. The failing health of
Charles M. Schulz, creator ofPeanuts, forced him to
move from a four-panel to a three- or one-panel for-
mat, and he announced his retirement on Decem-
ber 14, 1999. Some events in strips were minor cul-
tural phenomena, such as the 1995 death of Farley
the dog in Lynn Johnston’s Canadian domestic
drama,For Better or For Worse.
The comic strip to achieve the most meteoric
success in the 1990’s was Scott Adams’sDilbert, first
published on April 16, 1989. Beginning as a fantasy
strip centering on software engineer Dilbert and
his megalomaniacal talking dog Dogbert,Dilbert214 Comic strips The Nineties in America
Dilbertcreator Scott Adams holds an ink drawing of his popular
character.(AP/Wide World Photos)