Conchy was a critically acclaimed but only modestly successful American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 that ran from 1970 to 1977. Set on a desert island with a group of beachcombers as the main characters, the strip addressed serious issues of its time.

James Childress (April 13, 1941-January 22, 1977) created Conchy in the early 1960s as an homage to his love of beachcombing

Beachcombing

Beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time.A beachcomber is someone who "combs" the beach, and the intertidal zone in general, looking for things of value, interest or utility....

. By 1962, Childress was pitching the strip to syndicates

Print syndication

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

 with no results. Eventually, he started marketing it directly to newspapers under the business name Corinthian Features. Through this, Conchy began its newspaper run on March 2, 1970.

By 1974, Conchy was appearing in 26 papers, finally attracting a syndicate's interest, from Field Enterprises

Field Enterprises

Field Enterprises was a private holding company founded on August 31, 1944, by Marshall Field III and others whose main asset was the Chicago Sun. That same year the company acquired the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books....

, who signed Childress up that year. His client list increased to over 150 papers.

Books

During this time, Tempo Books published three collections of Conchy dailies: Conchy, Man of the Now, Conchy on the Half-Shell and Conchy, Living in Tomorrow's Past. Brant Parker, creator of The Wizard of Id

The Wizard of Id

The Wizard of Id is a daily newspaper comic strip created by American cartoonists Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Beginning in 1964, the strip follows the antics of a large cast of characters in a shabby medieval kingdom called "Id". From time to time, the king refers to his subjects as "Idiots"...

, provided a forward to Childress's first book, calling him a born cartoonist: "This book is just another step on his way to the top."

Conchy consisted of both typical gag strips and strips about serious subjects like nuclear proliferation, political corruption and death. These ruminations were usually courtesy of either Conchy or Oom Paul, as both characters were highly individual thinkers.

Field Enterprises wanted Childress to content himself with simpler gags rather than his frequent serious musings. When Childress refused, Field Enterprises severed its partnership with him in 1976, and Childress returned to self-syndication. Despite an initial dip immediately after this, Conchys newspaper circulation soon reached an all-time high, achieving modest commercial success.

Facing family and financial difficulties in addition to a custody battle with his ex-wife, Childress committed suicide in 1977. The daily run ended on February 5, 1977, and the last Sunday strip

Sunday strip

A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...

 was published March 13, 1977. (Sunday)

Mark Evanier

Mark Evanier

Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...

 and Sergio Aragonés

Sergio Aragonés

Sergio Aragonés Domenech is a cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer....

 are among comics professionals who feel Conchy deserves wider attention today. Evanier wrote in his blog on December 29, 2005, "I'd like to see someone do a big book that collected the entirety of Conchy, a short-lived but wonderful newspaper strip." The next day he noted that Aragonés concurred.

Characters and story

• Oom Paul - A pipe-smoking, somewhat cynical individual who self-assuredly assumes the position as mentor to the small island clan
• Bug - A rugged-looking but gentle individual who enjoys life to the fullest simply because he never gives much serious thought to anything
• Patch and Duff - A pair of twin troublemakers who live in a cave
• Conchy - Pronounced "con-chee" (referring to conch
  Conch
  A conch is a common name which is applied to a number of different species of medium-sized to large sea snails or their shells, generally those which are large and have a high spire and a siphonal canal....
  
  es) - an Everyman beachcomber
• Sea urchin - Philosopher of the tide pools, thoughtful but quiet
• The islanders - The original residents of Conchy's island, the islanders co-exist peacefully with the beachcombers, but they are constantly plagued with a neverending hot- and cold-running war with the inhabitants of the neighboring East Island
• The king - The ruler of Conchy's island and cousin to the king in The Wizard of Id