Johnny Hart, Cartoonist, 1931-2007: R.I.P.

via Washington Post.

Johnny Hart, the creator of the comic strip B.C. and co-creator of The Wizard of Id, died of a stroke while working at his drawing table. He was 76.

Hart became a born-again Christian late in life and began using religious elements in B.C., causing various newspapers to drop the strip, move it from the comics page or selectively censor it.

My home newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, tried to drop the strip, saying it was "unpopular." After an outraged campaign of letter-writing and emails, the strip was reinstated. The editors tried a couple of times again to get rid of it by asking readers to vote for most popular strips, but B.C. foiled them by scoring in the top ten each time.