Momma is an American comic strip by Mell Lazarus that ran from October 26, 1970, to July 10, 2016. Publication history Momma was Lazarus' second strip; he had been publishing the syndicated strip Miss Peach since 1957. Debuting on October 26, 1970, Momma was initially distributed by the Publishers-Hall Syndicate, and later was handled by Creators Syndicate and published in more than 400 newspapers worldwide. Creators Syndicate announced Momma's (and Mell Lazarus') death July 10, 2016, in a comic strip memorial that included other grieving comic strip characters. Characters and story The central character is Sonya Hobbs, an annoying, short, widowed, opinionated senior citizen mother with a controlling, nagging personality. Although Lazarus based the character on his own mother, when he showed it to her, she thought the character was based on his aunt, exclaiming, “You caught Aunt Helen to a tee!” "Momma" has three grown children: Thomas, her oldest, is employed, happily married to a woman named Tina and has a baby boy named Charles, b.k.a. "Chuckie". As far as Momma is concerned, her son's wife is a blonde bimbo who will never do anything for Thomas as properly as Momma can. Tina doesn't think too highly of Momma either, although it was shown that Tina's mother is still alive, it was never revealed if Thomas has a strained or excellent relationship with his mother-in-law. A running gag is that Tina is often seen playing tennis instead of tending to hearth and home, even in inclement weather. While talking with friends, Sonya sometimes admits that she nags her younger children as she did not do so with Thomas, letting him live his life until he married Tina. While Thomas is generally the most self-sufficient of her children, on occasion he has been seen begging his mother for handouts, albeit not to the extent of his siblings, suggesting his job is not as rewarding as Sonya would have hoped for her son. Francis, her middle child, a chronic and shameless slacker, is the single largest source of her exasperation. It suits him perfectly to sponge off her and sometimes other people, yet he cannot be bothered to lift a finger to help or to clean his own apartment. He has a single taste in women: airheads built and dressed rather provocatively. Francis is often shown as chronically unemployed, trying to look for loopholes in work contracts. Other times he is