Motley's Crew

Motley's Crew was an American newspaper comic strip by Ben Templeton and Tom Forman with satirical social commentary.

With readership spread among 250 newspapers in the United States alone, the comic strip acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans during its 23 years of operation. The comic strip in general was about a blue-collar worker named Mike Motley and his wife Mabel Motley. Truman Motley (Mike and Mabel's son) eventually fell in love and married a woman named Tacoma. From that marriage came two sons. Mabel's older brother Abel was often collaborating with his wife Buffy. Her role in creating a rivalry between Abel and his brother-in-law Mike is muted by the fact that he respected Abel and his wife just a little bit. As a part of his wife's family unit, Mike had to face Abel and Buffy whether he liked it or not.

According to a 1997 comics poll conducted by the New York Daily News, Motley's Crew was elected as the 28th most favorite comic strip among readers and visitors to the official Internet site. The comic strip was considered to be more popular than B.C. (still in publication) but less popular than Broom-Hilda (still in publication). However, it also voted as the 30th least favorite comic strip in the same poll; indicating that more people liked the Motley's Crew comic strip than hated it. Templeton and Forman created the comic in 1976. It was first syndicated by what is known today as Tribune Media Services on September 6 of that year. Templeton and Forman were working together on it until Forman's death in 1996. After Forman's death, Templeton continued alone. It continued until January 1, 2000.

The final week's strips dealt with the cast trying to cope with the possible effects of the Y2K bug. Earl had the computers in the factory "bug proofed" but for the year 3000. Mike had to fix the computers so they were ready for the year 2000 instead. On the first day of the year 2000, the final comic strip ever to be printed presented long-time fans and casual readers with a sign with the words "This space for rent." This concept was similar to Sam Malone closing the Cheers bar permanently after the final episode of Cheers.

Since then, Motley's Crew comic strips have been sought by collectors of contemporary comic strips. Archived comic strips can be viewed at on Google News Archives by simply typing in the name of the comic strip. However, not all issues of the Motley's Crew comic strip are available to view on the Google News because they stopped scanning old newspapers in May 2011.