Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Today in the history of the American comic strip: February 20


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.

2.20.1950: Big Ben Bolt, a boxing comic, debuts as a daily strip. Elliot Caplin wrote it and John Cullen Murphy drew it. The cartoon ran for 28 years.

2.20.2000: Elliot Caplin, co-creator (with Stan Drake) of The Heart of Juliet Jones and the writer on Big Ben Bolt, dies in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at 86. Caplin was the younger brother of Al Capp, creator of Li'l Abner.


The Heart of Juliet Jones
  
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.

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