Johnny Hart, creator of the long-lasting syndicated comic strip B.C. died at the storyboard Saturday. He was 76 years old. Although in the later years, BC tended to have religious undertones, I remember reading BC book from the “Book Fair” as early as 4th or 5th grade. Many of Hart’s strips remain in my memory, some as my first experience with some more highbrow humor.
There was an ongoing series about a caveman at a dictionary that used to regularly make me chuckle. BC was never a lazy man’s comic and rarely took cheap shots or cracked cheap jokes. Sometimes, as a young kid, I wouldn’t even totally understand the words – I remember one where the rules of football are explained to someone, and he stands still, blank expression, through the play. When asked why, he delivers the punchline: “I’m still marvelling at the jargon.”
Mr. Hart, you will be missed.
Johnny was a GREAT guy! I really appreciate and admire his stand for the Lord. I feel blessed to have known him personally and also feel blessed that he endorsed my cartoon book GOOD MEDICINE (religious “FAR SIDE”-type cartoons)http://goodmedicinecartoons.tripod.com. Since he was a fellow Christian, I KNOW that he is with Jesus now in Paradise (ref. 1 John 5:13), since the Bible talks about a believer being present with the Lord when they are absent from the body (ref. 2 Cor. 5:8)! Please pray for his wife’s (Bobby) and family’s comfort at this time. He will be TRULY missed, but I look forward to the time when I can hang out with him in Heaven and reminisce about cartooning times here on earth. Johnny believed in what Jesus said in the Bible in John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I feel that upon entering Heaven, Jesus may have said to Johnny something similar to “Welcome Home, thy good and faithful servant!”
Loved B.C.! The strip you mention I almost had memorized at one time, because I too marveled at the jargon: ‘On the snap you throw a lateral pass to the wingback at the line of scrimmage. Off on three’ – or something very similar.
I just now googled “marveling at the jargon b.c.” but figured it was a very long shot. Thanks for posting this (and keeping it for ten years!)