Mutt and Jeff, recognized as the first regularly published daily comic strip >see Allan Hotz’s comment below<, ended after 75 years on June 26, 1983. Above are the last daily (June 25, 1983) and the last Sunday (June 26, 1983) strips from the Charlotte Observer which carried the strip to the end, by then being […]
After a decade as a struggling cartoonist, minus a couple years as a World War I doughboy, Frank Willard found his meal ticket with a “vulgar” character in the tradition of Mutt and Jeff and, more explicitly, Barney Google (which Willard had spent some time assisting on during those earlier ten years). Moon Mullins debuted […]
Vincent D. Faletti began cartooning while serving in the Armed Forces during World War 2. Returning home to Michigan he continued cartooning for the Saginaw News by creating the weekly Saga of Saginaw from 1946-47. He continued as a freelance cartoonist contributing to The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, American Redbook, Ladies’ Home […]
In the last year of Dan O’Neill’s Odd Bodkins for Chronicle Features O’Neill had met Bobby London and others who would make up the famous Air Pirates. According to Brian Doherty in DIrty Pictures Bobby had been “working with O’Neill on the final months of Odd Bodkins,” which would be the late Summer and Fall […]
It wasn’t the first aviation comic strip – Tailspin Tommy (1928), Skyroads (1929, which had Zack Mosley art assist), Scorchy Smith (1930), and Brick Bradford (earlier in 1933) all beat Smilin’ Jack into newspapers – though it was the longest lasting and last of those to come out of The Adventurous Decade (Brick Bradford having […]
By 1948 Frank Godwin (b. 1889) had spent a good 40 years as a respected and requested illustrator for newspapers, magazines, books, and advertisers. Beginning in 1924 (Vignettes of Life) he became an impressive presence on newspaper comics pages, creating a famous twelve year run illustrating Connie (1929-1941). After Connie he gave up the grind […]
The original December 12, 2022 item: The Katzenjammer Kids first appeared December 12, 1897. Above: the first issue of The Katzenjammer Kids The comic strip was created by Rudolph Dirks and New York Journal editor Rudolph Block. Various cartoonists (Harold Knerr, Oscar Hitt, Doc Winner, Joe Musial, Mike Senich, Angelo DeCesare, Hy Eisman) continued it’s […]
Hogan’s Alley was a famous (now and then) Sunday comic that began in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. It was created by Richard Felton Outcault and continued by George Benjamin Luks. It ran from May 5, 1895 to December 5, 1897. Here is the last Hogan’s Alley that ran 125 years ago today (from Pulitzer’s […]
One hundred years ago saw the debut of Smitty by Walter Berndt. From Don Markstein’s Toonopedia: [Berndt] sold Bill the Office Boy to The New York World, but didn’t last long there, due to what might euphemistically be called “creative differences” with his boss. But the same strip, presented to Captain Joseph Patterson, editor of […]
A First and Last Entry Tad Burness was 30 and an aspiring cartoonist. According to Tad via Jalopnik: “In 1962, I was trying to sell a variety of comic features to newspaper syndicates, and as a bonus item I developed a once-a-week panel about old cars which I called Auto Album. Most editors weren’t interested […]
Famed Texas editorial cartoonist Etta Hulme (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram 1972 – 2008) drew a comic strip for her newspaper for a month and a half in 1980. Before we get to the 1980 comic strip let’s note that the “comeback” mentioned in the above promo was a reference to a Jerry Flemmens humor column […]