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Buster Brown is a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault which is known for his association with the Brown Shoe Company. This mischievous young boy was loosely based on a boy near Outcault's home in Flushing, New York. Buster Brown, his sister Mary Jane, and his dog Tige were well known to the American public in the early 20th century. Tige is thought to be the first talking pet to appear in American comics, and, like that of many of his successors, his speech goes unnoticed by adults.
The comic strip began in the New York Herald on May 4, 1902. Outcault left for William Randolph Hearst's employ in 1906, and after a court battle, Outcault continued his strip, now nameless, in Hearst papers, while the Herald continued their own version of Buster Brown with other artists. The latter lasted until 1911 or so, and the former until at least 1921. |
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Before Buz Sawyer, Roy Crane wrote and drew Wash Tubbs a gag-a-day strip featuring the misadventures of the diminutive Washington Tubbs II beginning in 1924. It soon became one of the first adventure strips. On February 26, 1929, Crane introduced the soldier of fortune Captain Easy. In 1933 a Sunday Captain Easy strip was launched. Crane turned most of the art on the daily strip over to Leslie Turner to concentrate on the Sundays. The early Sundays featured some of Crane’s finest work.
In 1937 the NEA syndicate required all their Sunday strips to be designed to allow the dropping and rearrangement of panels to fit different formats. This greatly restricted Crane’s artwork and he turned the Sundays over to Turner returning to the dailies. In 1943, Crane left the NEA to create Buz Sawyer. Turner drew the dailies while Walt Scott handled the dailies. During World War II, the strip focused on Captain Easy who in the army, and the daily strip’s name was changed to Captain Easy to match the Sundays.
Mel Graf, Bill Crooks, Jim Lawrence and Mick Casale handled the strip later. The Sunday strip ended in the early 1980s; the daily continued until 1988.
Chris Welkin |
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Gasoline Alley was created by Frank King as one of several panels in the full page, black & white comic page 'Rectangles'. It first appeared on November 24, 1918. This makes it the second longest running comic strip in the US to 'The Katzemjammer Kids'. A daily panel was added on August 24, 1919. Originally the strip featured Walt Wallet and his friends Doc, Avery, and Bill and was centered on their automobiles. After a couple of years, Chicago Tribune editor, Joe Patterson, suggested the strip would have more appeal to women if a baby was added to the cast. So on Valentine's Day 1921, bachelor Walt Wallet found the baby Skeexiz abandoned on his doorstep.
A major innovation in Gasoline Alley was that King had his main characters age in real time. Walt turned 115 on January 5, 2015; Skeexiz is 104. Though Gasoline Alley was not teh first strip to do this, it was certainly the most influential. The strip is now mulch-generational. The latest addition to the family of which I am aware is Boog (born in 2004), the grandchild of Clovia, Skeexiz's daughter. Some of the minor characters like the trashmen, Joel and Rufus, are ageless as is the norm in comics.
In 1959 King's assistant, Dick Moores, took over the daily strip when King retired. Bill Perry had been doing the Sundays since 1951. The Sunday strip as well came to Moores in 1975. Since 1986, Moores' assistant Jim Scancarelli has been writing and drawing it. |
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Little Nemo is the main fictional character in a series of weekly comic strips by Winsor McCay (1871-1934) that appeared in the New York Herald and William Randolph Hearst's New York American newspapers from October 15, 1905 to April 23, 1911 and April 30, 1911 to 1913; respectively. The strip was first called Little Nemo in Slumberland and then In the Land of Wonderful Dreams when it changed papers. A brief revival of the title occurred from 1924-27. |
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(1936-1941)
Myra's adventures in the daily newspapers began Monday, Feb 10, 1936. The artist was Charles Coll. The writer was Ray Thompson, who had ghosted 'Somebody's Stenog' for A.E. Howard, and who would go on to create The 'Fleer Dubble-Bubble Kids'.
Myra sometimes went through the motions of a reasonably normal life, performing normal nursely duties and keeping company with her normal boyfriend, Jack Lane. But it was continually being interrupted by murderous patients, colleagues performing illicit experiments, stuff like that. She also went looking for trouble on occasion, traveling the world in pursuit of world conquerors and other super villains.
You can find more of her in the Dell section inside of The Comics, Crackajack Funnies, Dell Four Color and Red Ryder Comics. |
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Napoleon and his owner Uncle Elby first appeared in Clifford McBride’s pantomime comic that was usually printed in various newspapers’ Sunday magazine. Napoleon was a large and clumsy, but extremely clever dog of undermined breed. His playfulness led to all kinds of misadventures, but he was just as apt to save a child or protect a small defenseless animal. Many of the strips were pantomime; as McBride explained in the first strip, there’ll be little conversation. I hate lettering.â€
That first Napoleon daily strip appeared on June 6, 1932. It was distributed by LaFave Newspaper Features a minor syndicate. A Sunday strip was added in 1933. Napoleon moved to the McNaught Syndicate enabling it to reach a wider audience. In the late 1940’s McBride was ill and many strips were created by pasting panels of old strips together and rewording them. Much of the art was also handled by McBride’s assistant, Roger Armstrong. After McBride’s death in 1951, his second wife Margot wrote the strip with art by Armstrong.
The strip switched syndicates again in 1952, this time to Mirror Enterprises Syndicate. Joseph Messerli took over the art at this point. He was followed by Ed Nofziger. The Sunday strip ended in 1955; the daily continued until 1960. In 1970, the strip was revived by Margot McBride and artist Foster Moore. It was distributed by a fourth syndicate, Al Smith Service. |
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First Appeared: 1921
Creator: Gene Ahern
This daily panel was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association. The creator was Gene Ahern, a former sports cartoonist and art school instructor. Practically every episode takes place within the walls of Martha Hoople's rooming establishment.
It spawned a few media spin-offs, such as a short-lived radio show, beginning June 23, 1942, with Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd) in the title role, Patsy Moran as Martha and Conrad Binyon as Alvin; a Big Little Book called Major Hoople & His Horse; a rock band called "Major Hoople's Boarding House, which started in 1967; and even a bed & breakfast called "Major Hoople's Guest Home" (the name of which has since been changed).
Others have made more of a multi-media splash, this one lasted nearly six decades (ending on March 29, 1981) — not quite up there with comics' most long-lived successes, but a very, very respectable run.
-Don Markstein's Toonopedia |
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Out Our Way was a daily comic panel created by J. R. (James Robert) Williams (1887-1957) and syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association starting on March 20, 1922. It was an umbrella title for several alternating series which centered on small-town and working-class folk. The series changed over the years, but the most prominent were The Bull of the Woods (machine shop), Curly and gang (modern cowboys), The Willets (a family), Worry Wart (another family though mostly just a younger and older brother), and the U.S. Cavalry. A Sunday page was added later; this featured just the Willet family and was drawn by Neg Cochran and George Scarbo.
At its height, Out Our Way appeared in more than 700 papers and was read by millions. It is often described as the most clipped and posted newspaper strip ever (at least back in the day when posted meant stuck to something. The strip continued until 1977, twenty years after Williams' death. |
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First Appeared: 1912
Creator: Cliff Sterrett
Under the name Positive Polly, the strip started on Dec. 4, 1912, in the Hearst chain of newspapers. Polly became the template for Boots & Her Buddies, Fritzi Ritz and a host of other strips about pretty girls and their flirty adventures.
Sterrett wrote and drew Polly both daily and Sunday, hitting his stride in the 1920s with innovative storylines and highly stylistic, cubist-inspired art. In the 1930s, he had trouble with arthritis, and was forced to pass the dailies on to assistants. Without Sterrett, the daily Polly ground to a halt in the 1940s. The Sunday continued; but it, too, suffered when, after World War II, Sterrett no longer had a whole page for his stunning artwork. The strip lost papers at a steady rate, and ended on Sunday, June 15, 1958. Sterrett then retired. He died six years later.
-Don Markstein's Toonopedia |
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Vignettes of Life is a weekly pseudo comic strip by Frank Godwin who is better known for his work on Connie and Rusty Riley. He also drew some Wonder Woman stories. It's not exactly a comic strip, but exactly as it says vignettes. It often appeared in the newspaper magazines rather than with the comics. It was syndicated by the Philadelphia Ledger, printed in color or in smaller newspapers in black and white. |
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War on Crime was a daily comic strip from the Ledger Syndicate out of Philadelphia. It was scripted by out of FBI files by staff crime reporter Rex Collier who had won the approval of J. Edgar Hoover for his favorable reporting on the FBI. The artwork was handled for the first year by Kemp Sterrett who was replaced by Jimmy Thompson. The stories were fast paced and soon Collier had run through the big timers like Dillinger and Baby-Face Nelson. The later stories featured lesser-knowns like Glen Applegate. The strip ran for less than two years from May 18, 1936 to January 22, 1938. DCM has the complete series of ten stories. There never was a Sunday strip. The later EC comic of the same name is not related. |
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Classic Newspaper Comic Strips
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