Today in the history of the American comic strip: February 12

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.

2.12.1917: Sidney Smith's The Gumps, a strip about a middle-class family, makes its debut. It remained in print for 42 years.

2.12.1943: A villain named Nifty Wreath makes his first appearance in Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Gould’s strip has featured a long list of colorful, often bizarre-looking, evildoers over the years.

2.12.1970: Judd Winick, whose strip Frumpy the Clown involved a chain-smoking, twice-divorced, grumpy clown who moves in with a family, is born on Long Island, New York.

2.12.1984: Lyman Young, the creator of Tim Tyler’s Luck, dies at 90. His younger brother, Chic Young, created Blondie.

2.12.2000: Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, dies in Santa Rosa, California, at 77. At its peak in the 1960s, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers and was translated into 21 languages.

Frumpy the Clown

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.