History ChuckCunninghamSyndrome / ComicStrips

* Several early ''ComicStrip/OverTheHedge'' strips had characters who were never seen again. Among them were Verne's nephew, Plushie ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS also spelled "Plushy" in a few strips]]); a dog named Dotty, on whom RJ had a crush; Velma and Luby, who were {{Distaff Counterpart}}s to Verne and RJ; a beaver named Howard, and a paranoid mole named Carl.

* Alison Bechdel has frequently noted just how tough making ''ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor'' was, so it's not surprising that she just plain gave up on a number of characters:

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Garfield_characters#Lyman Lyman]] was a black-haired guy with a bushy moustache who was Odie's original owner, appearing a few months into the strip to move in with Jon. He later disappeared from the strip with no explanation. His dog Odie remained a regular, and is ostensibly owned by Jon.
** [[WordOfGod Rumor has it]] that you really don't want to look in Jon's basement ([[FlipFlopOfGod either that or Lyman died in the Peace Corps]]). Lyman's disappearance makes more sense when you realize that he was actually a holdover from ''ComicStrip/{{Jon}}'', Garfield's predecessor strip. ''Jon'', if the title didn't tip you off, focused on Jon Arbuckle as the protagonist rather than Garfield; Lyman therefore had a clearly defined role as Jon's best friend, while Garfield and "Spot" (the dog who later became Odie) were just house pets. After Garfield became a protagonist in his own right, he and Jon developed a progressively closer relationship until Lyman became redundant.
** ''VideoGame/GarfieldsScaryScavengerHunt'' on the official ''Garfield'' website features Lyman trapped in the dungeon, and in the shower (the sequel replaces him with Jon) of a HauntedHouse. After Lyman is fed a muffin, he mysteriously vanishes. He also runs the bookstore on the site.
** Decades after his final appearance in the comics, Lyman appeared in a four-part episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'', called, appropriately enough, "Long Lost Lyman".

* There was once a strip called ''Thimble Theater'', about a woman named Olive Oyl, her equally [[PunnyName punny named]] family, and her boyfriend Harold Hamgravy. Ten years in, it introduced a sailor named ComicStrip/{{Popeye}} who proved to be an EnsembleDarkHorse, and shortly after that most of Olive's original supporting cast disappeared.

** Jon's family (his parents, grandmother, and brother Doc Boy) were recurring characters in the 80s and 90s, usually through story arcs of Garfield and Jon going to visit the farm, to Garfield's displeasure. They also appeared in some of the animated specials, most prominently ''Garfield's Thanksgiving'' and ''A Garfield Christmas''. They were last seen in person in 2005, although there are occasional references to Jon's family members (usually through letters or holiday cards).

* Except for Taylor, every major supporting character in ''ComicStrip/BabyBlues'' introduced prior to the birth of Wren hasn't appeared in years: Mike and Yolanda, their daughters Keesha and Dziko, [[NoAccountingForTaste Bunny and Butch]], their three sons Bogart, Wendell John, and Wendell Jon (Bunny and the kids eventually returned in 2020), Daryl's parents Mac and Pauline, Wanda's parents Hugh and Maggie, Wanda's sister Rhonda, the pediatrician, and Daryl's co-workers. The main reason is that the three Macpherson children's stories now take up so much time and space that there simply isn't any opportunity to put more characters on the page (the same reason the creators said point-blank that Daryl and Wanda would never have a fourth child).

** After appearing in nine strips from late November 1954 to early February 1955, Charlotte vanished due to all the criticism she got for going too far in her cruelty. Unlike Shermy, Patty, and Violet – who at least were DemotedToExtra for a while – Charlotte never appeared again at all. Charlotte had a lot of potential, too; her full name was "Charlotte Braun", and, as that might suggest, she was created as a [[DistaffCounterpart female counterpoint]] to Charlie Brown. She was basically the opposite of him: abrasive instead of timid, over-confident instead of self-loathing, convinced the world owed her instead of convinced the world hated her. Schulz quickly learned that people liked Charlie Brown for the same reasons they hated Charlotte. He replied to one letter writer who asked him to take her out of the comic, "[[YouBastard I will remove her, but how do you feel about causing the death of an innocent child?]]" (the letter included a picture of Charlotte with an axe in her head). Ouch.

* ''ComicStrip/GilThorp'' and his wife used to have a couple of kids. They rarely appeared in the strip, since it was focused on Gil's job, and they were too young to be at Milford High themselves, but they used to appear on the annual Christmas card strip. Then in 2009, they didn't, and they've never appeared or been mentioned since, even when storylines ''do'' involve Gil's home life.

* ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters in a historical perspective, but makes no effort to retain them all.

** A mailman Garfield constantly harasses, given the name "Herman Post" in ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow''. A recurring setup from the 80s was Garfield attacking the mailman, and the mailman's occasional attempts to fight back. He disappeared sometime in the 2000s, as a result of more comics taking place solely inside the Arbuckle household.

* ''[[ComicStrip/SnuffySmith Barney Google]]''. The star of his own comic strip from its creation in 1919, he gradually faded out in the 1950s and hasn't been seen in over half a century… but STILL gets top billing in the ArtifactTitle of the strip, ''Barney Google and Snuffy Smith''. Most people just know the strip as ''Snuffy Smith'' nowadays, as newspapers don't print the full title (it only appears in the drop-panel for Sunday strips). Oddly, the comic also went through a stretch where it was titled ''Barney Google and Spark Plug'', the latter being a racehorse who was ''also'' dropped in the transition to Snuffy Smith. Though Barney Google did return in 2012 as a short cameo.

** [[WordOfGod Rumor has it]] that you really don't want to look in Jon's basement ([[FlipFlopOfGod either that or Lyman died in the Peace Corps]]). Lyman's disappearance makes more sense when you realize that he was actually a holdover from ''ComicStrip/{{Jon}}'', Garfield's predecessor strip. ''Jon'', if the title didn't tip you off, focused on Jon Arbuckle as the protagonist rather than Garfield; Lyman therefore had a clearly defined role as Jon's best friend, while Garfield and "Spot" (the dog who later became Odie) were just house pets. After Garfield became a protagonist in his own right, he and Jon developed a progressive closer relationship until Lyman became redundant.

** [[WordOfGod Rumor has it]] that you really don't want to look in Jon's basement ([[FlipFlopOfGod either that or Lyman died in the Peace Corps]]). What seems to be most likely is that Jim Davis created Lyman so that Jon would have a human friend, a sort of sounding board. As Garfield evolved into a more human-like character and began taking over that role, Lyman became redundant.

** Peter's girlfriend, Denise Russo, whom he met in the first year of the comic strip, suddenly disappeared in the middle of the 2000s (a couple of years before it went Sundays-only), but he didn't seem to break up with her (one could say it happened off screen, but at the same time we never see Peter trying to date any other girls). Peter and Paige's friends, Steve and Nicole, also got largely phased out over time, but both of them were {{satellite character}}s who almost never interacted with anyone else anyway.

* In ''ComicStrip/TheAmazingSpiderMan'', Maria Lopez was a professional rival and potential romantic interest for J. Jonah Jameson. After a reboot storyline that was later retconned into a dream sequence, Maria had vanished without explanation and has never been seen since.

* As ''ComicStrip/{{Retail}}'' had an habit of [[PutOnABus putting characters on a bus]] once they no longer have their purpose, it's inevitable that a few characters disappear without explanations. Those include Victor (an elderly employee who appeared in the strip's first year), "Crazy Hat Lady", and "Creepy Guy" (latter's disappearance is [[http://retailcomic.com/comics/april-4-2015/ lampshaded in this strip]]). While most ''employees'' don't qualify as they have a reason for leaving, there's the strange case of Lana, who last appeared in the strip 555558in 2013, and never officially gave notice or got fired, leaving her disappearance unexplained.

* The german comicstrip ''ComicStrip/VaterUndSohn'' centers around the eponymous father and son. However, in the first few strips, the mother also shows up - only to quickly be dropped and never to be mentioned again.

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Garfield_characters#Lyman Lyman]] was a black-haired guy with a bushy moustache who was Odie's original owner. He later disappeared from the strip with no explanation. His dog Odie remained a regular, and is ostensibly owned by Jon.

** ''[[http://www.garfield.com/fungames/scavengerhunt/scavengerhunt.html Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt]]'' on the official Web site features Lyman trapped in the dungeon, and in the shower (the sequel replaces him with Jon) of a HauntedHouse. After Lyman is fed a muffin, he mysteriously vanishes. He also runs the bookstore on the site.
** ''Garfield'' has, in fact, become steadily less reliant on its supporting cast overall, a far cry from the days of the 1980s and '90s when Jon and Garfield were depicted as having fairly active lives outside of the home. Characters such as Jon's family, Irma at the diner, and Garfield's girlfriend, Arlene, have all steadily phased into near-obscurity. Even Odie's appearances are now noteworthy events. The spiders Garfield harasses (and vice versa) have strangely emerged as the strip's most dominant supporting characters in the 2000s. For several years a running setup was that they almost never left the house, and showing the nonsense they got up to out of boredom.
** Decades after his final appearance in the comics, Lyman appeared in a four-part episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'', called, appropriately enough, "Long Lost Lyman".

* As ''ComicStrip/{{Retail}}'' has a habit of [[PutOnABus putting characters on a bus]] once they no longer have their purpose, it's inevitable that a few characters disappear without explanations. Those include Victor (an elderly employee who appeared in the strip's first year), "Crazy Hat Lady", and "Creepy Guy" (latter's disappearance is [[http://retailcomic.com/comics/april-4-2015/ lampshaded in this strip]]). While most ''employees'' don't qualify as they have a reason for leaving, there's the strange case of Lana, who hasn't appeared in a strip since 2013, and never officially gave notice or got fired, leaving her disappearance unexplained.

** Two minor characters introduced in December 1987 were Cody, a dim-witted and aggressive young dog, and Blue, a calmer cat who tried to serve as Cody's voice of reason. By mid-1988, both characters disappeared entirely, with the strip ending in May 1989. The reason why has never been stated, but it's commonly theorized it may have had something to do with the then-impending release of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'': as this show animated both ''Garfield'' and ''Orson's Farm'' (the strip's international name), it might have been considered confusing to have two very different cats and dogs appearing between the two comics. Cody vanished after the September 13 1988 strip, having made 35 appearances, whilst Blue vanished after the March 28th, 1988 strip, with only 12 appearances to her name.

* Except for Taylor, every major supporting character in ''ComicStrip/BabyBlues'' introduced prior to the birth of Wren hasn't appeared in years: Mike, Yolanda, their daughters Keesha and Dziko, Bunny, Butch, their three sons Bogart, Wendell John, and Wendell Jon, Daryl's parents Mac and Pauline, Wanda's parents Hugh and Maggie, Wanda's sister Rhonda, the pediatrician, and Daryl's co-workers. The main reason is that the three Macpherson children's stories now take up so much time and space that there simply isn't any opportunity to put more characters on the page (the same reason the creators said point-blank that Daryl and Wanda would never have a fourth child).

** Decades after his final appearance in the comics, Lyman appeared in a four-part episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'', called, appropriately enough, "Long Lost Lyman". Of course, since the series isn't canon to the strip, Lyman's disappearance in the latter still remains officially unexplained.

** And once the strip became Sundays-only in 2007, pretty much all of the supporting cast either disappeared or made smaller appearances, leaving just the titular Fox family, along with Jason's BlackBestFriend Marcus and Eileen Jacobson.

** [[WordOfGod Rumor has it]] that you really don't want to look in Jon's basement ([[FlipFlopOfGod either that or Lyman died in the Peace Corps]]). The ''actual'' explanation is that Jim Davis created Lyman so that Jon would have a human friend, a sort of sounding board. As Garfield evolved into a more human-like character and began taking over that role, Lyman became redundant.

** The mystery was ''finally'' solved on a four-part episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'', called "Long Lost Lyman". However, due to the fact that the show is not really linked to the comics themselves, this probably is not canon to the strip.

** You might notice a pattern here--the strip had a lot of crabby girls over the years, but all of them eventually vanished except for Lucy. She just filled the role better than the others.

** Roy debuted in the strip's first summer camp arc in 1965, where he was befriended by Charlie Brown. From there he would appear periodically, usually in other summer camp strips, before being written out in 1984. His most lasing contribution to the strip came when he introduced his neighbor Peppermint Patty to Charlie Brown in 1966, setting her up as a main character and establishing a second neighborhood "on the other side of town" (which was also home to Franklin and Marcie) that the other characters would occasionally visit.

* ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey''

* In ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'', Beetle had a steady girlfriend named Bunny, and they had been together as the comic progressed all the way up until the turn of the century, when Bunny vanished without any explanation. It took a few years but Beetle got a new girlfriend, the famous Miss Buxley.
** Before he joined the Army, Beetle's girlfriend was Buzz. In 2010, a strip revealed that she was now dating his old friend Bill, another character who disappeared when it switched from college humor to military humor.