For those of us sad at the loss of the once-plentiful adventure strips that used to appear in our newspapers - especially original ones not tied in to some licenced product - there was more saddening news to bear yesterday.
Nicky Saxx - possibly the only originated adventure strip still existing in a European newspaper - was cancelled. It's last three panels halted an adventure, leaving the strip's heroine lost somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
The artist of Saxx, Minck Oosterveer, is a friend of mine. Without him telling me about the death of this gloriously sexy adventurer he'd created many years ago with his writer colleague, Willem Ritstier, I'd never have known anything about it. News like it rarely reaches any comics trade periodicals or sites, whose only interest in newspaper strips now relates to honouring the past glories of such figures as Milton Caniff or Noel Sickles.
Go to the graveyard, folks. See them spinning there!

More on this and Minck at www.minckoosterveer.com

And Happy New Year To All Our Readers!