Today in the history of the American comic strip: March 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.

 

3.12.1919: The word “malarkey” (spelled "millarky") makes its first known newspaper appearance, in George Herriman’s Mary’s Home From College. Tad Dorgan, would begin using the word in his cartoons three years later.

3.12.1951: Hank Ketcham launches Dennis the Menace as a daily strip. A Sunday page appeared a year later. Ketcham died in 2001, but others continued the comic, which remains in syndication.

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.