Last week, Matt Groening quietly put an end to Life in Hell, the weekly comic strip he'd written and drawn for 32 years.

Today, Groening's best known for creating The Simpsons, which in addition to being TV's longest-running scripted prime time series — 23 seasons and a movie, with no end in sight unless and until Fox gets tired of ponying up the equivalent of a small island nation's GNP 22 times a year to retain the services of Hank Azaria and/or his jar-preserved head — is inarguably his greatest contribution to popular culture, not to mention Rupert Murdoch's. But The Simpsons didn't really become The Simpsons until it passed from Groening's hands. As an institution, it belongs as much to the storied lineup of writers, producers, actors, and animators who've kept it alive and (countless Worst Episodes Ever notwithstanding) reasonably funny for more than two decades as it does to Groening.