Today in the history of the American comic strip: October 14

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.

10.14.1872: Comic strip writer Sol Ness, co-creator (with Wallace Carlson) of The Nebbs, a domestic strip, is born in Illinois.

10.14.1877: Grace Drayton is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the first and most successful female cartoonists, she created several newspaper strips, including Dolly Dimples, which launched in 1910.
 
10.14.1894: Poet E. E. Cummings is born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1946, when H. Holt & Co. published the first reprints of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat in book form, Cummings wrote a lengthy introduction, providing further evidence of the strip’s popularity among intellectuals.

10.14.1945:  Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br’er Rabbit begins its 27-year run. It featured various artists and writers over the years.

10.14.1993: Dogpatch, Arkansas, the final incarnation of a troubled amusement park launched in 1968 as a Li’l Abner theme park initially known as Dogwatch USA, closes its doors for good.

10.14.1996: Cartoonist Ferd Johnson dies at age 90. Although he did not create Moon Mullins (Frank Willard did), Johnson worked on the strip for 68 years.
 

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.