Today in the history of the American comic strip: May 11

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.

5.11.1945: Femme fatale Breathless Mahoney makes her first appearance in Dick Tracy.

5.11.1985: Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, dies at 84 in Woodstock, Illinois. He wrote and drew the strip from 1931 to 1977.

5.11.2009: Between Friends, a strip launched by Sandra Bell-Lundy in 1990, begins a week-long series in which Susan, one of the characters, becomes addicted to Facebook.

5.11.2020: Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum makes an appearance in Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm, repeating the line he made famous in 1970, for the first Earth Day: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Mother Goose and Grimm

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.