RIP Tank McNamara co-creator Jeff Millar

Jeff Millar, the co-creator of the comic strip “Tank McNamara,” has passed away at age 70, according to a report from his syndicate, Universal UClick.

Millar died Friday morning in the Houston, Texas, area.  The sports humor strip began in 1974 with artist Bill Hinds.   The plan is for the strip to continue with co-creator Hinds at the helm, according to an e-mail from Universal Uclick.

“When Jeff as writer and Bill Hinds as artist began TANK MCNAMARA in 1974, the strip accurately reflected the growing national obsession with sports and accompanying tsunami of money at all levels,” said Lee Salem, Universal Uclick president, in a news release. “Jeff’s amazed and skeptical eye has provided a welcome counterweight to our sports culture over the past 38 years, a remarkable achievement in the comic strip world. His writing and deft satire will be missed. But even more, we will miss him. His was a wonderful talent, displayed in other media as well, and he relished the grand variety of people and of life.”

Millar was also a film critic, humor columnist and playwright.

Nearly 15 years of TANK MCNAMARA comic strip archives can be read online on its GoComics page.

- Matt Price