Line #5 CreatorBreakdown/NewspaperComics


1	* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' cartoonist Bill Watterson had to take two sabbaticals and nearly quit producing the strip altogether after five years. One reason was the long, grueling fight with his syndicate ''not'' to merchandise his characters. The other reason was due to Watterson deciding to draw extra stories and poems for the book collections, including ''watercolor'' illustrations, in addition to continuing to still drawing the regular weekly strip.
2	* ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' manages to subvert this, though arguably not for the better. Author Lynn Johnston started going through a mess of personal problems late in the comic's run. Her reaction to this, oddly enough, was to start writing material considerably ''less'' inflammatory and dramatic than what had made her famous. Her marriage falling apart apparently greatly increased her desire to see two characters finally getting married without all the usual hang-ups weddings in Tropeville are generally known for.
3	** Then we got the [=ReFOOB=], which was mostly reprints of earlier strips, with art and dialogue changed to cast the alter ego of Lynn's ex-husband in a bad light, and making it look like (even moreso than the first-runs) Elly is living a bored, insufferable existence with an uncaring husband and bratty kids. This is especially distressing as it literally ''[[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight rewrites history]]'' with a joyless existence.
4	* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'' appears to be in one since it's been in a long spiral of depression ever since the main character's wife died of cancer (critics just replace the dialog with [[https://shortpacked.com/comic/cancer "Cancercancercancercancer"]]), to the point where the title character (who apparently isn't the main character) also has cancer, the charity set up in the name of the main character's dead wife gets stolen (it is later returned), and the ''high school drama class'' is performing the play ''Theatre/{{Wit}}'', which the PTA thinks is just too much (as do the critics). Oh, and a dead Iraq war vet isn't dead after all and returns just in time to learn that a loved one has died (probably of cancer) and that his wife has married another man.
5	** The creator's other strip, ''{{ComicStrip/Crankshaft}}'', went through a week-long breakdown after his father died: Flash-forwards show Crankshaft as pretty much catatonic, confined to a wheelchair and living in a nursing home. At least his nurse was nice and took him out to see a ballgame (that was rained out). [[FlashbackWithinAFlashback Flashbacks within the flash-forward]] show a much younger Crankshaft watching a ballgame (suggesting that he has retreated into memories of happier times, and is perhaps unaware of what is going on here and now). Since this is a strip where characters grow older, this has disturbing implications for Crankshaft. The ''next'' week featured Crankshaft being saved from a snake bite from his son-in-law's mother's yappy dog; it got better and so did the comic strip. It was eventually revealed that "future-Crankshaft" was actually someone else entirely, who eventually made another appearance. Misdirection or retcon? We may never know.
6	** Another Batuik strip, ''John Darling'' featured a shock ending where the title character was gunned down by an unknown assailant in the next to last episode; the final strip is his stunned colleagues crying silently around his grave. This was brought on by disputes over the rights to the strip with the syndicate, with the character [[TorchTheFranchiseAndRun killed off to keep him from falling into their hands]].
7	* ''ComicStrip/LilAbner'': Simply put, the times moved on and Al Capp couldn't. And when he did move, it tended to be in exactly the wrong direction. While the strip had always been in part a vehicle for social satire, Capp slowly became more ultra-conservative in the 1960s until almost every strip was openly griping about hippies, the civil rights movement and anti-war protestors.
8	* Spoofed in Jeff Kinney's novel ''{{Literature/Diary of a Wimpy Kid}}'', in which the quest for a new cartoonist for the middle school newspaper was due to this. ''Wacky Dawg'', according to the narrator, was originally a funny strip but the creator started using it to "handle his personal business" and was subsequently fired. The sample strip the reader sees has the eponymous dog, instead of saying something funny, asking the creator's girlfriend to forgive him for kissing one of her friends ''and'' reminding a guy who owes the creator money to pay up.
9	%% * The Argentinian cartoonist {{Creator/Quino}}, after making GallowsHumor strips to cope with the repressive rule of the Military Junta in the 70s and 80s, suffered from this in the 90s and early 2000s after Argentina suffered [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998-2002_Argentine_great_depression the worst economic crisis it had faced in its history]].
10	* John Callahan was a newspaper cartoonist who got in a drunken car wreck at the age of 21, the result of a lengthy struggle with abuse and alcoholism and left him paraplegic. He gets it all out in a series of cartoons titled ''Will The Real John Callahan Please Stand Up?''.

Context CreatorBreakdown / NewspaperComics