Talk About Your Unsatisfying Finales, Or, The End of Robin Malone

I was looking through the comics sections in some old newspapers, and came across the final strips of Bob Lubbers' cult-ish strip "Robin Malone,", a short-lived late '60s strip about the soap-opera adventures of an improbably hot woman, like Mary Worth drawn in Li'l Abner style.

Anyway, on Sunday, March 8, 1970, "Robin Malone" presented its last, inconclusive Sunday page. But there were three more daily strips left in its run after that, and here they are:

March 9, 1970



March 10, 1970



March 11, 1970



The next day, the papers carried a note saying to look for a new strip where "Robin Malone" had once been. One paper at least told its readers exactly what had happened:



Another paper ran the final strip without the "end of Robin Malone" caption, suggesting that it was not intended to be the final strip, and the caption was tacked on when the syndicate pulled the plug. This may actually be a case where the conclusive ending may be worse than the inconclusive ending. Who wants to be told that the story ends that way?