Steve Roper and Mike Nomad - Analysis and Conclusion

Analysis and Conclusion

Aside from selected reprints in U.S. and foreign comic books, Steve Roper (under all its titles) stayed in the newspapers, where it had an especially strong appeal to male readers (Saunders, in Ridgeway interview). Particularly during its peak decades, it showed attractive photorealistic art and well-written stories with plot twists, suspense, danger, and touches of ironic wit and male "soap." Allen Saunders was known for his "sophisticated scripts with literate dialogue" (Browne Popular Culture Library 2007); his Steve Roper characters referred to art, literature, and music and often spoke in other languages (he had been a French professor before becoming a journalist). The action was tense and fast-paced with four stories per year, until it slowed down drastically after the 1979 reduction from three or four daily panels to just two. By the 1990s, a single conversation easily took an entire month of dailies. This change was reversed in December 2003 by Matera, recapturing some of the strip's original narrative pace, but by then it had lost its earlier quality and almost 90% of its newspapers.

Steve Roper explored human foibles and two men's responses to a variety of issues; and through the life story of Roper, it also showed two journalists' views (Allen and John Saunders) of changes in their profession over the course of the 20th Century. Roper and Nomad upheld a male code of honor in their work and personal lives, but unlike the idealized heroes of other adventure strips, they had well-developed, believable personalities with flaws, moods, and complex depths. They were good at what they did, but also miscalculated sometimes and dealt realistically with the consequences. Allen Saunders (1949 Brandenburg article) said his characters became "awfully real" to him, and in 1971 he quoted Milton Caniff as saying Nomad was "the most real character that ever appeared in a comic." Also unlike story strips that always reset to the same status quo, Roper and Nomad developed through their successes, losses, and changes in life over the years, and they gradually aged — from a cocky, adventurous Roper at 22 to both men in their sixties, seasoned and ready for a change.

They got one: an ending that fell back through past stories to return them to a key December 1986 talk of a voyage together, this time leading to a new outcome and retirement. The final strip (Sunday December 26, 2004) wordlessly showed Roper visiting his ex-wife's grave with a daughter whom she had borne in the hospital without telling him — and who was now likewise a journalist.