Today in the history of the American comic strip: April 15

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.

4.15.1890: The creator of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Billy DeBeck, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

4.15.1934: Blondie and Dagwood celebrate the birth of their first child, Alexander Bumstead, in the Blondie comic strip.
 

4.15.1946: Ed Dodd launches Mark Trail, an adventure strip with an ecological bent that remains in print.

4.15.1951: Wiley Miller, the creator of Non Sequitur, is born in Burbank, California. He was named 2013 Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society.

4.15.1968: Los Angeles school teacher Harriet Glickman writes to Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz urging him to introduce a black character in the strip. A correspondence followed, and Schulz added an African-American boy named Franklin in July 1968.
 

4.15.1978: Big Ben Bolt, which debuted in 1950, comes to an end. The title character was a boxer and, later on, a journalist.

4.15.2001: Johnny Hart’s B.C. triggers controversy when an Easter strip depicts the last words of Jesus and shows a menorah transforming into a cross.

4.15.2007: Brant Parker, who co-created The Wizard of Id with Johnny Hart and Crock with Bill Rechin, dies in Lynchburg, Virginia at 86.

4.15.2014: Dark Horse Books releases Alley Oop: The Complete Sundays Volume 1 (1934-1936), which is billed as the first in a series reprinting all of the strip’s Sunday pages.

Big Ben Bolt

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.