YMMV / Tumbleweeds

The comic strip

• Broken Base: The Poohawk tribe was this, both today and during the strip's run. Jim Davis, Ryan's assistant, confirmed that a lot of fan mail came from Native Americans, who openly admitted that the Poohawks were pretty funny. Most of the angry letters over the Poohawks came from white liberals.
• Cult Classic: Tumbleweeds never had the mass following of Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes or the mass merchandising of Garfield but it still has its fans.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Tumbleweeds had a small following in Australia. Some of the strips were reprinted in magazine sized collections from Beaumont Books.
  • It also had a following in Italy. Six books of strip collections were released there and Tumbleweeds was renamed Colt for the Italian market.
• Retroactive Recognition: T.K. Ryan employed an assistant from 1969 to 1978 to help out on Tumbleweeds. That assistant's name was Jim Davis.
• Values Dissonance: Both during its run and today, Tumbleweeds has courted controversy over the Poohawk tribe being an offensive depiction of Native Americans. Angry letters criticizing these stereotypes were sent to individual newspapers as well as the syndicate. One would have to wonder whether or not this comic strip could run nowadays.