Today in the history of the American comic strip: May 2

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.

5.2.1885: Lee Wright Stanley is born in Topeka, Kansas. In 1923, he introduced The Old Home Town, featuring small-town and hillbilly-type characters. It ran until 1966.
 

5.2.1928: Corky Wallet is born to Walt and Phyllis Wallet in Gasoline Alley, a strip whose characters age with time. He married Hope Hassel on Oct. 1, 1949.

5.2.1929: Tad Dorgan, the creator of Judge Rummy, dies in Great Neck, New York, at 52. The strip, which featured an anthropomorphic dog named Alexander Rumhauser, ran from 1910 to 1922.

5.2.1936: Tom Forman is born in Detroit, Michigan. He and Ben Templeton created the satirical strip Motley’s Crew, which ran from 1976 to 2000.

5.2.1954: The Heart of Juliet Jones, a collaboration of Stan Drake and Elliot Caplin, which debuted in 1953 as a daily strip, adds a Sunday page.

5.2.1955: Jerry Scott, co-creator of Baby Blues and Zits, is born in South Bend, Indiana. He was named 2001 Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society.

5.2.1959: Scott Stantis, who cooked up The Buckets and Prickly City, is born in San Diego, California. Stantis also is known as an editorial cartoonist.

5.2.1965. The strip originally launched by Dudley Fisher in 1938 as Right Around Home, which later underwent name, format and focus changes, is canceled 27 years after its debut.

5.2.1981: Star Hawks, a science fiction strip that Ron Goulart and Gil Kane unveiled in 1977, ends its four-year run.

5.2.1982: Short Ribs, which Frank O’Neal introduced in 1958, draws to a close after 24 years in print. The gag-a-day comic had no regular characters.

Prickly City

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.