Half a Crossover?

Here are yesterday's and today's Wizard of Id comic strips...

The Wizard being replaced by Curls from B.C. isn't that terribly surprising a notion. After all, both strips were originally created by Johnny Hart, and today both are made by Hart's grandsons Mason and Mick Mastroianni. (To be clear, both grandsons work on both strips jointly.) So there's obviously no issues developing a crossover, legally or creatively.

But here's thing: the crossover appears to be only one way. Here are this week's B.C. strips...

Nary a Wizard to be found!

If Wizard of Id had been a one-note gag on Monday, I wouldn't expect the Mastroianni brothers to do anything in B.C. as well. But they seem to be lining up for a week's worth of "Curls the caveman has suddenly replaced the Wizard" strips, so there's at least some thought going into a small story arc. But we don't see any reflection of that in B.C.

There's no law that says they have to show the crossover in both strips, of course, but I'm at a loss as to why you wouldn't. I mean, there's clearly joke and gag possibilities that would not normally be present, so wouldn't you want to take advantage of that creatively? Additionally, I expect the actual distribution of the two strips is virtually -- if not completely -- identical; that is, any newspaper that carries B.C. will almost certainly also carry Wizard of Id so it's not like you'd need an extended explanation in B.C. to narratively explain why a Wizard has suddenly popped up. If you're going to the effort to create a (presumably) week-long storyline out things, why not make it a bi-directional crossover? It would be more engaging both for the creators AND the audience, I think!

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