The Better Half

The Better Half is an American comic strip created by Bob Barnes. It follows the lives of a married couple, Stanley and Harriet Parker, and the usual annoyances couples have with one another, or the events around them, after years of marriage. In 1958, the strip won Barnes the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award. James Coco and Lily Tomlin made a sitcom pilot based on the strip for ABC in the early 1970s, but no series was ever made. Publication history The Better Half was distributed by the Register and Tribune Syndicate in 1956–1986 and King Features Syndicate from 1986 to 2014. Creator Bob Barnes produced the panel from its debut on June 25, 1956, until his death in 1970. His wife Ruth Barnes and illustrator Dick Rogers continued the strip until September 30, 1979. It then passed to Vinnie Vinson (October 1, 1979 to October 3, 1982) and Randy Glasbergen (October 10, 1982 to November 30, 2014).