Captain Easy

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