The Soap Opera, Jerry Robinson Style

Jerry Robinson (1/1/1922 - 12/7/2011) was no stranger to comics. He is best known as the artist of the Joker, villain to Batman. He was also inducted to the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004 (details found on Wikipedia, to be taken with a grain of salt).

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Notes taken from the following text:

Robinson, Jerry. "The Soap Opera." The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974. 174-180.

• Dealing with real problems both in comic strips and on TV reflected the change in the public's interests (p. 174)
• Mary Worth, started in 1932, was the first of the soap opera comic strips - though the strip changed hands in 1939 and again in 1942, she continued to address themes such as alcoholism, infidelity and a range of emotional issues women experience (p. 174-175)
• Allen Saunders took over for the original creator, Martha Orr; he believes the entertainment nature of the strip allows the readers to also learn about themselves (p. 175)
• Rex Morgan, MD was first published following a national poll by [at the time] Publishers Syndicate, which showed the public wanted "realistic adventure strips about conventional professions." (p. 176)