Today in the history of the American comic strip: January 31

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.

1.31.1936: Grace Drayton dies at 58. One of the first and most successful female cartoonists, she created several newspaper strips, including Dolly Dimples, which launched in 1910.

1.31.1954: In Peanuts, Snoopy's doghouse is revealed to be larger on the inside than on the outside.

1.31.1988: A resurrected Betty Boop strip, first with Felix the Cat in the cast and then without him, comes to an end less than four years after it began.

1.31.1989: Bob Dunn, who worked on Jimmy Hatlo’s Little Iodine and They’ll Do It Every Time, dies in Summit, New Jersey. He was 80 years old.

1.31.2000: Prolific comics artist Gil Kane dies in Miami, Florida, at 73. He and Ron Goulart launched Star Hawks, a science fiction strip, in 1977. It ran until 1981.
 
1.31.2012: The Library of American Comics publishes Steve Canyon Volume 1: 1947-1948, marking the start of a series of reprints of Milton Caniff’s strip.
 

Betty Boop

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.