American
cartoonists and writers may not have invented the comic strip, but some
argue that the comics, as we know them today, are an American creation.
Clearly, the United States has played an outsize role in the
development of this underappreciated art form.
6.25.1874: Rose O’Neill, best known as the creator of The Kewpies, is born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She became the first published female cartoonist in the United States.
6.25.1914: Hilda Terry is born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She created the comic strip Teena (originally titled It’s a Girl’s Life), which ran from 1944 to 1964.
6.25.1944: George Herriman’s Krazy Kat ends its run. Introduced in 1913, it was one of the first comics to be widely praised by intellectuals.
6.25.1956: Bob Barnes unveils The Better Half, a strip about a married couple. The comic ran until 2014.
6.25.1979: Zeke Brenner makes his first appearance in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury. Former caretaker for Uncle Duke, he eventually married Joanie Caucus’ daughter, J. J. Caucus.
6.25.1979: Stan Lynde debuts Latigo, a strip about the son of a mountain man and a Crow Indian who serves in the Union Army during the Civil War, and later becomes a federal marshal.
6.25.1988: Scamp, a comic strip inspired by the 1955 animated movie Lady and the Tramp, is retired. The strip ran for more than 30 years.
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| Krazy Kat |
Most of the information listed here from one day to the next comes from two online sites -- Wikipedia, and Don Markstein's Toonopedia -- as well as 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, edited by Maurice Horn. Note
that my focus is on American newspaper comic strips (and the occasional
foreign strip that gained popularity in the United States). Thus, comic
books and exclusively online comics are not included here.
