The Better Half

For the play, see The Better Half (play).
For the tv show of the same name, see The Better Half (TV series).

The Better Half is the title of an American comic strip created by Bob Barnes. It follows the lives of a married couple, Stanley and Harriet Parker, and the usual annoyances couples have with one another after years of marriage. It was distributed by The Register and Tribune Syndicate and King Features Syndicate from 1956, and in 1958 won Barnes the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award. The strip ended on November 30, 2014 after a 58-year run.

James Coco and Lily Tomlin made a sitcom pilot based on the strip for ABC in the early 1970s, but no series was ever made.

Characters

Writers

Cartoonists who have worked on the strip include Bob Barnes (1956-1970), Ruth Barnes and [Rogers (1971-1979), Vinnie Vinson (1979-1982), and Randy Glasbergen (1982-2014). Between 1982 and 1992, Glasbergen wrote under the pseudonym "Jay Harris", so as not to confuse publishers who were familiar with his different style of humor and character design. As he was able to transform the characters to his own style, he began using his own name. In the process, Stanley became much shorter than Harriet and lost his scruffy mustache. "Harris" was his wife's maiden name.

Comparisons to The Lockhorns

The strip is seen by many as a much tamer version of The Lockhorns, which began later but is more widely syndicated. There are few differences:

References

See Also

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