Gasoline Alley

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.