Today in the history of the American comic strip: May 23

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.

5.23.1915: After losing the legal right to use The Katzenjammer Kids name, Rudolph Dirks launches a new strip featuring the same characters. It is christened Hans and Fritz on this date, but anti-German sentiment prompts a name change to The Captain and the Kids in 1918. The Hearst papers ran a competing strip by Harold Knerr, using the strip’s original name.

5.23.1972: Rerun van Pelt, the younger brother of both Lucy and Linus van Pelt in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, is born.

5.23.1973:  Coulton Waugh dies. His 1947 book, The Comics, was the first comprehensive history and analysis of the medium.

5.23.1999: John Prentice, who took over the detective strip Rip Kirby following the death of creator Alex Raymond, dies. Prentice received a Newspaper Comic Strip award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1966 and again in 1967 and 1986.

5.23.2015: The National Cartoonists Society announces that Stephan Pastis has won the Newspaper Comic Strip award, for Pearls Before Swine. It was his third such honor. Pastis won the award in 2006 and 2003 as well.

Pearls Before Swine

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.