Scathach80 wrote:
Actually, since comic strips tended to move away from serialized adventure tales to gag strips, while comic books have tended to serialized adventures, comic strips seem less influenced by comic books. Max Allan Collins notes that long-running adventure newspaper strips that started after the 1940's other than Modesty Blaise seem quite rare.
Sure, it's been alleged that when television became a mass medium in the 1950s, that brought an end to the prevalence of story strips in the papers.  It's my perception, though, that while comic books were slower to take advantage of continued stories than comic strips, over time comic books showed that they could be much more novel-like in their use of expanded narrative. 

The 1970s and 1980s was the last time the syndicates made a real push toward marketing new or revamped story strips in a big way: STAR WARS, STAR TREK, SUPER FRIENDS, LONE RANGER.  All of them perished within (I would guess) about 5-6 years.  In the 90s the revamped TERRY AND THE PIRATES lasted only 2 years.

Of course, nowadays there's some doubt as to whether newspapers, much less the strips, can survive.  I have no idea as to whether online comic strips prosper, but I get the impression that most of them are short gag strips.