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26-467: John Darling may refer to: John Darling (comic strip) , a comic strip published 1979 to 1990 John P. Darling (1815–1882), American politician from New York John Darling Sr. (1831–1916), politician in South Australia and businessman John Darling Jr. (1852–1914), politician in South Australia and company director John Darling ( Peter Pan ) ,

52-419: A 1997 Funky Winkerbean storyline celebrating that strip's 25th anniversary. Over the course of the storyline, Winkerbean character Les Moore wrote a book on Darling's murder ("Fallen Star") and solved the case. The murderer was revealed to be Peter Mossman, alias Plantman, an occasional character in the strip who reported on gardening and environmental issues. (Plantman had actually uttered the very last words in

78-685: A character in Peter Pan John Darling and Son , an Australian wheat merchant and flour milling company, formed by John Darling, Sr Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title John Darling . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Darling&oldid=1070687263 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

104-478: A collection of science fiction short stories originally published in Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction from 1940 to 1950. Compiled into a single publication by Gnome Press in 1950, the collection features a framing sequence in which the stories are told to a reporter by Dr. Susan Calvin , chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men , Inc. Changes necessary to fit

130-521: A fictional work is in All-Star Squadron #18 (February 1983) from DC Comics . The series was set on DC's Earth-Two , an alternate universe in which Golden Age comic characters age in real time. All-Star Squadron was set during World War II on Earth-Two; as it was in the past of an alternate universe, all its events had repercussions on the contemporary continuity of the DC multiverse. Each issue changed

156-521: A number of newspapers over the years, the syndicate decided the strip was simply no longer profitable, and allowed it to die. Batiuk, who had a contractual conflict with his syndicate ( King Features Syndicate ) over ownership of the character, stunned the strip's remaining readers by killing off Darling in the next-to-last strip. (The final strip featured other characters gathered around Darling's gravesite.) John Darling's murder (which had been depicted as being by an unknown assailant) stayed unsolved until

182-444: A prince of?" Other featured characters were Darling's co-workers at "Channel One", the TV station where he worked, including ratings-obsessed producer Reed Roberts ; clueless old-school anchor Charlie Lord ; shrewish reporter Brenda Harpy ; and insecure weatherman Phil . The strip also featured a large number of parodic appearances by celebrities (often being interviewed by Darling); this

208-572: A series' continuity. Later stories may contradict the previous ones or explicitly establish that they never happened. A notable example of subtractive retconning is the X-Men film series . After X-Men: The Last Stand faced criticism for abruptly killing off characters such as Cyclops and Jean Grey , its sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past , features the character Wolverine traveling back in time to 1973 to prevent an assassination that, if carried out, would lead to mutant extinction. The result of this

234-548: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Retconned Retroactive continuity , or retcon for short, is a literary device in which facts in the world of a fictional work that have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work that recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former. There are various motivations for applying retroactive continuity, including: Retcons are used by authors to increase their creative freedom, on

260-631: Is a new timeline where Jean and Cyclops never died. Retroactive continuity is similar to, but not the same as, plot inconsistencies introduced accidentally or through lack of concern for continuity; retconning, by comparison, is done deliberately. For example, the ongoing continuity contradictions on episodic TV series such as The Simpsons (in which the timeline of the family's history must be continually shifted forward to explain why they are not getting any older) reflects intentionally lost continuity, not genuine retcons. However, in series with generally tight continuity, retcons are sometimes created after

286-533: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages John Darling (comic strip) John Darling , a talk-show host, was originally a supporting character in Batiuk's strip Funky Winkerbean before being spun off into his own strip. Much of the strip's humor came from Darling's outsized ego, quirks, and frequent displays of ignorance; in one strip, he interviews musician Prince , asking him "Exactly which country are you

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312-432: Is so common in superhero comics that the term " comic book death " has been coined for it. An early example of this type of retcon is the return of Sherlock Holmes , whom writer Arthur Conan Doyle apparently killed off in " The Final Problem " in 1893, only to bring him back, in large part because of readers' responses, with " The Empty House " in 1903. The character Zorro was retconned early in his existence. In

338-502: Is suddenly announced that "Oceania was not after all in war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia and Eurasia was an ally" (Part Two, Ch. 9), there is an immediate intensive effort to change "all reports and records, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks and photographs" and make them all record a war with Eastasia rather than one with Eurasia. "Often it was enough to merely substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even

364-531: The John Darling strip, while standing next to Darling's headstone: "Goodbye, old friend.") While Darling himself was rarely mentioned in Funky Winkerbean in the years immediately following his 1990 demise, Darling's daughter Jessica appeared as a regular in the Funky Winkerbean strip until 2007, when the feature was retconned by moving the continuing story up several years. The book about Darling's murder

390-417: The assumption that the changes are unimportant to the audience compared to the new story which can be told. Retcons can be diegetic or nondiegetic. For instance, by using time travel or parallel universes , an author may diegetically reintroduce a popular character they had previously killed off. More subtle and nondiegetic methods would be ignoring or expunging minor plot points to remove narrative elements

416-619: The author doesn't have interest in writing. Retcons are common in pulp fiction , and especially in comic books by long-established publishers such as DC and Marvel . The long history of popular titles and the number of writers who contribute stories can often create situations that demand clarification or revision. Retcons also appear in manga , soap operas , serial dramas , movie sequels, cartoons , professional wrestling angles , video games , radio series, and other forms of serial fiction . They are used in role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons . An early published use of

442-465: The best name for it a few months back: 'Retroactive Continuity'. Has kind of a ring to it, don't you think?" Retcons sometimes add information that seemingly contradicts previous information. This frequently takes the form of a character who was shown to have died but is later revealed to have somehow survived. This is a common practice in horror films , which may end with the death of a monster that goes on to appear in one or more sequels. The technique

468-455: The end of Season 8, to be still alive when actor Patrick Duffy wanted to return to the series. This season is sometimes referred to as the "Dream Season" and was referred to humorously in later TV series such as Family Guy as a "gas-leak year". Other series such as St. Elsewhere , Newhart , and Roseanne would notably employ the same technique. Unpopular stories are sometimes later ignored by publishers, and effectively erased from

494-499: The fact to explain continuity errors. Such was the case in The Flintstones , where Wilma Flintstone was mistakenly given two separate maiden names over the course of the series: "Pebble" and "Slaghoople". Though the term "retcon" did not yet exist when George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four , the totalitarian regime depicted in that book is involved in a constant, large-scale retconning of past records. For example, when it

520-410: The feature's final three weeks. His replacement was Gerry Shamray , whose first strip was dated March 3, 1985. John Darling wound down in 1990, as writer Batiuk by his own account was growing tired of the work it involved. Perhaps even more of a factor was that the strip was no longer financially remunerative, as it had been dropped by numerous newspapers. With John Darling having been dropped by

546-540: The history of the fictional world in which it was set. In the letters column , a reader remarked that the comic "must make you [the creators] feel at times as if you're painting yourself into a corner", and, "Your matching of Golden Age comics history with new plotlines has been an artistic (and I hope financial!) success." Writer Roy Thomas responded, "we like to think that an enthusiastic ALL-STAR booster at one of Adam Malin 's Creation Conventions in San Diego came up with

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572-559: The new version included the name of the company (originally the Finmark Robot Corporation), new, earlier references to the Three Laws of Robotics , and new interpolated scenes featuring Dr. Calvin herself. The TV series Dallas annulled its entire Season 9 as just the dream of another character, Pam Ewing . Writers did this to offer a supposedly plausible reason for the major character of Bobby Ewing , who had died onscreen at

598-426: The original 1919 novel, The Curse of Capistrano , Zorro ends his adventures by revealing his identity, a plot point that was carried over to the 1920 film adaptation The Mark of Zorro . In order to have further stories starring Zorro, author Johnston McCulley kept all the elements of his original story, but retroactively ignored its ending. One notable example is Isaac Asimov ’s 1950 fixup novel I, Robot ,

624-401: The phrase "retroactive continuity" is found in theologian E. Frank Tupper's 1973 book The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg : "Pannenberg's conception of retroactive continuity ultimately means that history flows fundamentally from the future into the past, that the future is not basically a product of the past." A printed use of "retroactive continuity" referring to the altering of history in

650-670: Was referenced again during a 2010 strip, and Jessica reappeared in 2011. By 2013, John was mentioned quite often, as a continuing Funky Winkerbean plotline had Jessica actively searching for information about the father she lost at a very young age. Phil the Forecaster also made very, very occasional appearances in Funky Winkerbean , reappearing most recently in 2021 as he retired from his weather forecasting job at Channel One after over 40 years. Several minor characters in Funky Winkerbean' s other spin-off strip Crankshaft have also worked at Channel One. This comic strip –related article

676-473: Was such a feature of the strip that numerous newspapers carried John Darling on their TV page, rather than the comics page. Sunday strips generally included two panels of "TV Trivia" content otherwise unrelated to the strip as a whole. John Darling debuted in March 1979 in 22 newspapers. The strip's original artist was Tom Armstrong , who left in 1985 for his own creation, Marvin , though he did return to draw

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