On Strips: Stephen Bentley?

Among the newspaper strips I regularly read is Stephen Bentley's Herb & Jamaal. It's not my favorite, but it's entertaining in its way. But I was struck by a sense of deja vu when I read today's strip...

For whatever reason(s), I remembered that joke being used before. And I looked a little more carefully to see that the strip indeed carries a 2009 copyright notice. Scanning back, all of his strips this week have been from 2009.

Comic strip re-runs are not unheard of, of course. Both Bill Watterson and Gary Larson famously took extended sabaticals from their strips back in the 1980s, allowing both to re-run old strips during that time. Peanuts naturally has been old material since Charles Schulz died. And more recently, Get Fuzzy, Doonesbury and Foxtrot moved to Sundays-only with re-print material running throughout the week. The announcements accompanying these (and other) instances of re-running old strips varied, but there was generally some acknowledgement of the change in new content.

As far as I'm aware or can find, I haven't heard anything about Bentley or Herb & Jamaal. Is this a case of the syndicate trying to slide in some old strips and hoping no one will notice while Bentley takes some time off, or did something unexpected happen that is preventing Bentley from drawing for some period? I can't seem to find any contact information on him online to find out for myself. Anyone know if anything has happened?

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