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126-634: George Matthew Adams (August 23, 1878 – October 29, 1962) was an American newspaper columnist and founder of the George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service, which syndicated comic strips and columns to newspapers for five decades. His own writings were circulated widely to The Gettysburg Times and many other newspapers. Born in Saline, Michigan , George Matthew Adams graduated from Ottawa University in Kansas. Employed by

252-488: A cigar , his last name being a homophone of "cigar" (pronounced SEE-gar). Comics historian Brian Walker stated: "Segar offered up a masterful blend of comedy, fantasy, satire and suspense in Thimble Theater Starring Popeye ". Owing to Popeye's increasingly high profile, Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular strips during the 1930s. A poll of adult comic strip readers in

378-552: A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips . In

504-428: A "standard" size", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a "transition" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide,

630-677: A Chicago advertising agency, he started operating the elevator and worked his way up to become a copywriter. In 1907, Adams borrowed money to rent and equip an office and launched the Adams Newspaper Service. Adams' syndicate was located at 8 West 40th Street in Manhattan. When Adams and Emporia Gazette publisher William Allen White met in Chicago in 1908, Adams hired White to write about political issues. Adams had copies of Walt Mason's light verse which he had clipped from

756-537: A better genre -neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life , but also on the front covers, such as the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement . In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines , with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages. Storytelling using

882-745: A dire situation. It did not stop there, as spinach could also give Popeye the skills and powers he needed, as in The Man on the Flying Trapeze , where it gave him acrobatic skills. This cartoon, incidentally was the only appearance of Olive Oyl's mother, Nana. In May 1942, Paramount Pictures assumed ownership of Fleischer Studios, fired the Fleischers and began reorganizing the studio, which they renamed Famous Studios . The early Famous-era shorts were often World War II-themed, featuring Popeye fighting Nazi Germans and Japanese soldiers, most notably

1008-478: A fickle attitude towards the sailor. Initially, Castor Oyl continued to come up with get-rich-quick schemes and enlisted Popeye in his misadventures. By the end of 1931, however, he settled down as a detective and later on bought a ranch out west. Castor's appearances have resultantly become sparser over time. As Castor faded from the strip, J. Wellington Wimpy , a soft-spoken and eloquent yet cowardly hamburger -loving moocher who would "gladly pay you Tuesday for

1134-587: A flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks , who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897—a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz . Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of

1260-405: A foundling baby in the mail whom he adopted and named Swee'Pea . Other regular characters introduced into the strip following its retool in 1930 were George W. Geezil , an irascible cobbler who spoke in a heavily affected accent and habitually attempted to murder or wish death upon Wimpy; Rough-House, the temperamental owner of a budget diner who served as a long-suffering foil to Wimpy; Eugene

1386-430: A full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II , the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during

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1512-533: A hamburger today" was introduced into the Sunday strip, in which he became a fixture by late 1932. After first appearing in the daily strip in March 1933, Wimpy became a full-time major character alongside Popeye and Olive. Thimble Theatre was renamed Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye in 1931. It was eventually renamed simply Popeye , the name under which the strip continues to run. In July 1933, Popeye received

1638-435: A handful of those cartoons had fallen into public domain and were found on numerous low budget VHS tapes and later DVDs. When Turner Entertainment acquired the cartoons in 1986, a long and laborious legal struggle with King Features kept the majority of the original Popeye shorts from official video releases for more than 20 years. King Features instead opted to release a DVD boxed set of the 1960s made-for-television Popeye

1764-428: A lighthearted adventure story as opposed to using typical comic strip style humor. The story also featured a more realistic art style and was edited by Bill Pearson, who also lettered and inked the story as well as the front cover. A second issue, by the same creative team, followed in 1988. The second issue introduced the idea that Bluto and Brutus were actually twin brothers and not the same person, an idea also used in

1890-493: A married couple with a son named Popeye Jr., who hates the taste of spinach, but eats it to boost his strength. Maurice LaMarche performed Popeye's voice as Mercer had died in 1984. The show lasted for one season. USA Network later picked up reruns of the series after CBS's cancellation. Additionally, the series aired on The Family Channel from 1994 until 1995. In 2004, Lionsgate produced an animated television special, Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy to coincide with

2016-545: A minor character yet arguably the protagonist of the strip by 1925. Castor and Olive's parents Cole and Nana Oyl also made frequent appearances beginning in the mid-1920s. By the late 1920s, the strip had likewise acquired a number of notable characters beyond the sphere of Ham Gravy and the Oyl family, including Castor Oyl's wife Cylinda (to whom he was married from 1926 to 1928), her wealthy, misanthropic father Mr. Lotts and Castor's fighting cockerel Blizzard, all of whom had exited

2142-418: A number of Popeye comic books, with his main series running continuously from 1948 to 1984 published in turn by Dell Comics , Gold Key Comics , King Comics , Charlton Comics , and back to Gold Key. The series was originally written and illustrated by Bud Sagendorf . In the series, Popeye became something of a crimefighter, thwarting evil organizations and Bluto's criminal activities. The new villains included

2268-488: A secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper , such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board , both drawn by Gene Ahern . During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at

2394-547: A sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry . Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth 's 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress , and single panels. The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"),

2520-417: A series of Sunday-format comics, a wide assortment of artists depicted the characters in their own styles in one comic each, including Alex Hallatt , Erica Henderson , Tom Neely, Roger Langridge , Larry deSouza, Robert Sikoryak , Jeffrey Brown , Jim Engel, Liniers , Jay Fosgitt, Carol Lay , and Randy Milholland. At the end of the year, Milholland's Cartoon Club comic was declared the number one comic of

2646-509: A series of animated cartoons released by Paramount Pictures . The first cartoon in the series was released in 1933, and Popeye cartoons remained a staple of Paramount's release schedule for nearly 25 years. William Costello was the original voice of Popeye, a voice that was replicated by later performers, such as Jack Mercer and even Mae Questel . Many of the Thimble Theatre characters, including Wimpy, Poopdeck Pappy, and Eugene

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2772-469: A series of books. Launched in the 1910s : Launched in the 1920s : Launched in the 1930s : Launched in the 1940s : Launched in the 1950s : Launched in the 1960s : Comic strip Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist . As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie , Bringing Up Father , Marmaduke , and Pearls Before Swine . In

2898-494: A series of episodic comic anecdotes depicting the daily life and dysfunctional romantic exploits of Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl. It could be classified as a gag-a-day comic during this period. In mid-1922, Segar began to increasingly engage in lengthier (often months-long) storylines; by the end of the following year, the strip had effectively changed fully into a comedy- adventure style focusing on Ham, Olive, and Olive's ambitious-but-myopic diminutive brother Castor Oyl , initially

3024-493: A similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during

3150-506: A single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters ' Mother Goose and Grimm . Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During

3276-574: A size of 17" × 37". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home , drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune , or with one strip on

3402-496: A tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times . When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II , because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip

3528-414: A trademark. In almost every Popeye cartoon, the sailor is invariably put into what seems like a hopeless situation, upon which (usually after a beating), a can of spinach becomes available, and Popeye quickly opens the can and consumes its contents. Upon swallowing the spinach, Popeye's physical strength immediately becomes superhuman, and he is easily able to save the day, and very often rescue Olive Oyl from

3654-518: A tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages , sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of

3780-470: A turban-wearing employee of the nemesis, Dr. Morbid Grimsby. On September 9, 1978, The All New Popeye Hour debuted on the CBS Saturday morning lineup. It was an hour-long animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions , which tried its best to retain the style of the original comic strip (Popeye returned to his original costume and Brutus to his original name of Bluto), while complying with

3906-554: A two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks , but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders , the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero . They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts

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4032-507: A wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model : cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. The decade of

4158-508: Is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams ' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets . Jimmy Hatlo 's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and

4284-528: Is instantly discernible. Sagendorf continued to use many obscure characters from the Segar years, especially O. G. Wotasnozzle and King Blozo. Sagendorf's new characters, such as the Thung, also had a very Segar-like quality. What set Sagendorf apart from Segar more than anything else was his sense of pacing. Where plotlines moved very quickly with Segar, it sometimes took an entire week of Sagendorf's daily strips for

4410-433: Is shorter. As of 2024, Thimble Theatre comic strips from 1919 through 1928 have entered the public domain, concluding seventeen days before Popeye's first appearance. Even after the strips enter the public domain, trademarks regarding Popeye remain with King Features, as trademarks do not expire unless they cease to be used, and King Features has used the trademark continuously since the character's debut. There have been

4536-626: The Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page." Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out." NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with

4662-485: The New York Journal on December 19, 1919. The paper's owner, William Randolph Hearst , also owned King Features Syndicate , which syndicated the strip. Thimble Theatre was intended as a replacement for Midget Movies by Ed Wheelan (Wheelan having recently resigned from King Features). While initially failing to attract a large audience, the strip nonetheless increasingly accumulated a modest following as

4788-461: The Gazette , and said, "I like this stuff. I'd like to syndicate it to other papers. Suppose I could?" White responded, "Sure. Give Uncle Walt about $ 18 a week, and he'll be tickled pink to do it for you." Adams did, and as Mason's Rippling Rhythms column increased in popularity, he eventually increased Mason's salary to $ 15,000 a year. The name of the Adams Newspaper Service was changed in 1916 to

4914-549: The Internet . Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams , creator of Dilbert , include an email address in each strip. Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston 's award-winning For Better or For Worse ,

5040-454: The Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures . These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and Fleischer Studios , which later became Paramount's own Famous Studios , continued production through 1957. Cartoons produced during World War II included Allied propaganda, as was common among cartoons of

5166-512: The Washington Star Syndicate . In the 1910s, Adams was selling Dr. Frank Crane's (1861–1928) popular Four Minute Essays . When he lost Crane to a competitor, he decided to write short inspirational essays himself while he traveled from city to city selling to newspapers. By the 1950s, Crane was all but forgotten, but Adams' short inspirational columns, titled Today's Talk , were in about 100 newspapers and also collected in

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5292-546: The editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal . Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics , and Tank McNamara often appears on

5418-471: The newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst . The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal ' s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced

5544-547: The 1920s continued. At the end of its first decade, the strip resultantly appeared in over a dozen newspapers and had acquired a corresponding Sunday strip (which had debuted on January 25, 1925, within the Hearst-owned New York American paper). Thimble Theatre's first main characters were the lanky, long-nosed slacker Harold Hamgravy (rapidly shortened to simply "Ham Gravy") and his scrappy, headstrong girlfriend Olive Oyl. In its earliest weeks,

5670-441: The 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the "funny pages" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup's first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that

5796-458: The 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for

5922-617: The 1942 short You're a Sap, Mr. Jap . In late 1943, the Popeye series began to be produced in Technicolor , beginning with Her Honor the Mare. Famous/Paramount continued producing the Popeye series until 1957, with Spooky Swabs being the last of the 125 Famous shorts in the series. Paramount then sold the Popeye film catalog to Associated Artists Productions , which was bought out by United Artists in 1958. Through various mergers,

6048-1055: The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers , which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode , Dan O'Neill , Gilbert Shelton , and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy , National Lampoon , and Pete Millar's CARtoons . Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books. Webcomics , also known as online comics and internet comics , are comics that are available to read on

6174-458: The 1970s and the cancellation of the daily strip in 1992 (in favor of reprints), the comic, now solely a Sunday strip, remains one of the longest-running strips in syndication today. Thimble Theatre had a number of topper strips on the Sunday page during its run; the main topper, Sappo , ran for 21 years, from February 28, 1926, to May 18, 1947. ( Sappo was a revival of an earlier Segar daily strip called The Five-Fifteen , aka Sappo

6300-413: The 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek , wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated;

6426-474: The 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy ), and Terry and

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6552-485: The 75th anniversary of Popeye. Billy West performed the voice of Popeye, describing the production as "the hardest job I ever did, ever" and the voice of Popeye as "like a buzzsaw on your throat". The uncut version was released on DVD on November 9, 2004; and was aired in a re-edited version on Fox on December 17, 2004, and again on December 30, 2005. Its style was influenced by the 1930s Fleischer cartoons, and featured Swee'Pea, Wimpy, Bluto, Olive Oyl, Poopdeck Pappy, and

6678-524: The April 1937 issue of Fortune magazine voted Popeye their second-favorite comic strip (after Little Orphan Annie ). By 1938, Thimble Theatre was running in 500 newspapers, and over 600 licensed "Popeye" products were on sale. The success of the strip meant Segar was earning $ 100,000 a year at the time of his death. The strip continued after Segar's death in 1938 under a succession of artists and writers. Following an eventual name change to Popeye in

6804-481: The British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday , in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of "yellow journalism", by

6930-506: The CBS lineup in September 1983, the year before Jack Mercer's death. These cartoons have also been released on VHS and DVD. During the time these cartoons were in production, CBS aired The Popeye Valentine's Day Special – Sweethearts at Sea on February 14, 1979. Popeye briefly returned to CBS in 1987 for Popeye and Son , another Hanna-Barbera series, which featured Popeye and Olive as

7056-956: The Commuter , which ran from December 24, 1920, to February 17, 1925.) For seven weeks in 1936, Segar replaced Sappo with Pete and Pansy – For Kids Only (Sept 27 - Nov 8, 1936). There were also a series of topper panel strips that ran next to Sappo . Segar drew one of them, Popeye's Cartoon Club (April 8, 1934 – May 5, 1935). The rest were produced by Joe Musial and Bud Sagendorf : Wiggle Line Movie (September 11 – November 13, 1938), Wimpy's Zoo's Who (November 20, 1938 – December 1, 1940), Play-Store (December 8, 1940 – July 18, 1943), Popeye's Army and Navy (July 25 – September 12, 1943), Pinup Jeep (September 19, 1943 - April 2, 1944), and Me Life by Popeye (April 9, 1944-?). Following Segar's illness and eventual death in 1938 (with his final Thimble Theatre strip appearing October 2 of that year), numerous people were hired to draw and write

7182-904: The George Matthew Adams Service. Writers syndicated by Adams included Thornton Burgess , Edgar Guest and Robert Ripley . The syndicate also distributed single-panel cartoons, including some accompanied by jokes, backwoods homilies, light verse or Adams-style inspiration. Adams syndicated comic strips, including Billy DeBeck 's Finn an' Haddie , Percy Crosby 's The Clancy Kids , Edwina Dumm 's Cap Stubbs and Tippie , Ed Wheelan 's Minute Movies , and Robert Baldwin 's Freddy . In addition to sports cartoons by Lank Leonard , Adams syndicated Johnny Gruelle 's illustrated Raggedy Ann panels from 1934 to 1938. The uplifting Raggedy Ann verses emphasized forthrightness, honesty, kindness and thrift. He also syndicated Rebecca McCann's philosophical The Cheerful Cherub . Lloyd Jacquet

7308-681: The Jeep , a yellow, vaguely doglike animal from Africa with magical powers; the Sea Hag , a terrible pirate and the last witch on Earth; Alice the Goon , a monstrous creature who entered the strip as the Sea Hag's henchwoman and continued as Swee'Pea's babysitter ; the hapless, perpetually anxious King Blozo; Blozo's unintelligent lackey Oscar; Popeye's lecherous, scheming father Poopdeck Pappy ; and Toar, an ageless, dim-witted caveman. Segar's strip

7434-498: The Jeep, eventually made appearances in the Paramount cartoons, though Olive Oyl's extended family and Ham Gravy were absent. Thanks to the animated-short series, Popeye became even more of a sensation than he had been in comic strips, and by 1938, polls showed that the sailor was Hollywood's most popular cartoon character. Although Segar may have used spinach as a prop a few times, it was Max Fleischer who realized its potential as

7560-804: The Life of Buonaparte . His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger . Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann 's Poetical Magazine , in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of

7686-859: The NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie , held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield ' s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie ' s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams ( Dilbert ) traded strips with Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ). While

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7812-490: The Pirates , started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder . A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers ' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed

7938-456: The Popeye character became so popular that he was given a larger role by the following year, and the strip was taken up by many more newspapers as a result. Initial strips presented Olive as being less than impressed with Popeye, but she eventually left Ham to become Popeye's girlfriend in March 1930, precipitating Ham's exit as a regular weeks later. Over the years, however, she has often displayed

8064-448: The Popeye characters to fit the times. For instance, Popeye grows his own spinach and has replaced his corncob pipe with a bosun's whistle . Bluto no longer sports a beard and focuses his time on stealing Popeye's spinach rather than his girlfriend. Olive Oyl is shown as an inventor and engineer. The characters are drawn to appear younger than typically done, save Swea'pea, and no words are spoken, with all actions mimed. I'm Popeye

8190-579: The Sailor cartoons, to which it retained the rights, in 2004. In the meantime, home video rights to the Associated Artists Productions library were transferred from CBS/Fox Video to MGM/UA Home Video in 1986, and eventually to Warner Home Video in 1999. In 2006, Warner Home Video announced it would release all of the Popeye cartoons produced for theatrical release between 1933 and 1957 on DVD, restored and uncut. Three volumes were released between 2007 and 2008, covering all of

8316-483: The Sea Hag as its characters. On November 6, 2007, Lionsgate re-released Popeye's Voyage on DVD with redesigned cover art. On December 2, 2018, a Popeye web series named Popeye's Island Adventures produced by WildBrain subsidiary WildBrain Spark Studios premiered on the official Popeye YouTube channel. With intent on drawing in a younger, contemporary, international audience, the new series has updated

8442-545: The Sea Hag. Since King Features has exclusive rights to these Popeye cartoons, they have been released on home video, with 85 of them included in a 75th anniversary Popeye DVD boxed set in 2004. Popeye, Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea and Wimpy were featured prominently in the cartoon movie " Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter ", which debuted on October 7, 1972, as one of the episodes of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie . In this cartoon, Brutus also appears as

8568-555: The Thursday strips, which focus on Popeye and his extended family, while Tuesday strips focus on Olive and her own adventures. These were initially drawn by Shadia Amin, who was later replaced by Emi Burdge in October 2023. The two storylines run in parallel and occasionally intersect. In November 1932, King Features signed an agreement with Fleischer Studios to have Popeye and the other Thimble Theatre characters begin appearing in

8694-490: The United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. Making his first appearance in

8820-561: The World ), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, ( Garfield , Snoopy in Peanuts ), and some can converse with humans ( Bloom County , Calvin and Hobbes , Mutts , Citizen Dog , Buckles , Get Fuzzy , Pearls Before Swine , and Pooch Cafe ). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck . Gary Larson 's The Far Side

8946-685: The adventures of Winnie Winkle , Moon Mullins and Dondi , and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn't miss it.)" The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for

9072-551: The bank at the casino using the unbeatable good luck conferred by stroking the head feathers of Bernice the Whiffle Hen. Weeks later, on the trip back, Popeye was shot many times by Jack Snork, an undercover stooge of Fadewell's, but survived by rubbing Bernice's head. After the adventure's conclusion in June, Popeye left the strip, but, owing to reader reaction, he was brought back after an absence of only five weeks. Ultimately,

9198-504: The beginnings and ends of each cartoon, or in some cases, in their complete, uncut original theatrical versions direct from such prints that originally contained the front-and-end Paramount credits. The series aired 135 Popeye shorts over 45 episodes, until March 2004. The Popeye Show continued to air on Cartoon Network's spin-off network Boomerang . While many of the Paramount Popeye cartoons remained unavailable on video,

9324-509: The black-and-white cartoons produced from 1933 to 1943. In December 2018, a fourth volume featuring the first 14 color shorts from 1943 to 1945 was released on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner Home Video through the Warner Archive Collection . In 1960, King Features Syndicate commissioned a new series of cartoons titled Popeye the Sailor , but this time for television syndication. Al Brodax served as executive producer of

9450-523: The can along with the contents. Since the 1970s, Popeye is seldom depicted using his pipe to smoke tobacco. Popeye's exploits are also enhanced by a few recurring plot elements. One is the love triangle among Popeye, Olive Oyl , and Bluto (sometimes called Brutus), and Bluto's endless machinations to claim Olive at Popeye's expense. Another is his near-saintly perseverance in overcoming any obstacle to please Olive, who often (if temporarily) renounces Popeye for Bluto. Segar's Thimble Theatre debuted in

9576-443: The cartoons for King Features. Jack Mercer , Mae Questel , and Jackson Beck returned for this series, which was produced by a number of companies, including Jack Kinney Productions , Rembrandt Films , Larry Harmon Productions , Halas and Batchelor , and Paramount Cartoon Studios (formerly Famous Studios). The artwork was streamlined and simplified for the television budgets, and 220 cartoons were produced in only two years, with

9702-623: The characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley . The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom , Prince Valiant , Dick Tracy , Mary Worth , Modesty Blaise , Little Orphan Annie , Flash Gordon , and Tarzan . Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books , for example Superman , Batman , and The Amazing Spider-Man . A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal ( Marmaduke , The Angriest Dog in

9828-466: The characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids ). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate , ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from

9954-482: The comic strip on December 28, 2008, and April 5, 2009. In 1999, to celebrate Popeye's 70th anniversary, Ocean Comics revisited the franchise with a one-shot comic book, The Wedding of Popeye and Olive Oyl , written by Peter David . The comic book brought together a large portion of the casts of both the comic strip and the animated shorts, and Popeye and Olive Oyl were finally wed after decades of courtship. However, this marriage has not been reflected in all media since

10080-594: The comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards , clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun ' s Linda White recalled, "I followed

10206-445: The comic was published. In 2012, writer Roger Langridge teamed with cartoonists Bruce Ozella , Ken Wheaton, and Tom Neely (among others) to revive the spirit of Segar in a 12-issue comic book miniseries published by IDW Publishing . Critic PS Hayes in reviewing the series stated: Langridge writes a story with a lot of dialogue (compared to your average comic book) and it's all necessary, funny, and entertaining. Bruce Ozella draws

10332-468: The daily strip to Ralph Stein, who would continue to collaborate with Zaboly until both the daily and Sunday strips were taken over by Bud Sagendorf in 1959. Sagendorf wrote and drew the daily strip until 1986, and continued to write and draw the Sunday strip until his death in 1994. Sagendorf, who had been Segar's assistant, made a definite effort to retain much of Segar's classic style, although his art

10458-487: The death of his creator, Segar's comic strips (though not the various films, TV shows, theme music , and other media based on them) became public domain in most countries, but remain under copyright in the United States. Because Segar was an employee of King Features Syndicate when he created the Thimble Theatre strip, it is treated as a work for hire under U.S. copyright law. Works for hire are protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever

10584-577: The end of 1929, however, Popeye's strength had become a regularized fixture of his character, with spinach, by 1932, becoming the primary repository of his prowess. Swee'Pea is Popeye's ward in the comic strips, but his custody is inconsistent in cartoons. There is no absolute sense of continuity in the stories, although certain plot and presentation elements remain mostly constant, including purposeful contradictions in Popeye's capabilities. Popeye seems bereft of manners and uneducated, yet he often comes up with solutions to problems that seem insurmountable to

10710-525: The feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens , drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style. As newspapers have declined , the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union , wrote, "Comics are sort of the ' third rail ' of the newspaper." In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received

10836-402: The fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not

10962-400: The first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer , it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to

11088-429: The first set of them premiering in the autumn of 1960, and the last of them debuting during the 1961–1962 television season. For these cartoons, Bluto's name was changed to "Brutus", as King Features believed at the time that Paramount owned the rights to the name "Bluto". Many of the cartoons made by Paramount used plots and storylines taken directly from the comic strip sequences – as well as characters like King Blozo and

11214-571: The history of London. The Reuben , named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg , is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics , marking the comic-strip centennial. Today's strip artists, with the help of

11340-523: The late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories , as seen in Popeye , Captain Easy , Buck Rogers , Tarzan , and Terry and the Pirates . In the 1940s, soap-opera -continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because "comic" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be

11466-401: The late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp's repudiation of the counterculture. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who

11592-595: The late 1970s. The Gold Key series was illustrated by Wildman and scripted by Bill Pearson , with some issues written by Nick Cuti . Popeye also had his own manga series published by Shōnen Gahōsha , written and drawn by Robotan and Marude Dameo creator Kenji Morita, which ran from 1961 to 1965. In 1988, Ocean Comics released the Popeye Special written by Ron Fortier with art by Ben Dunn . The story presented Popeye's origin story, including his given name of "Ugly Kidd" and attempted to tell more of

11718-403: The late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world's first comic strip. It satirised

11844-505: The members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst , whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism , and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all

11970-425: The mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels. Popeye Popeye the Sailor is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar . The character first appeared on January 17, 1929, in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre . The strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, but

12096-622: The modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of

12222-462: The nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal . The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon . Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since

12348-504: The numerous Misermite dwarfs, who were all identical. Popeye appeared in the British TV Comic becoming the cover story in 1960 with stories written and drawn by "Chick" Henderson. Bluto was referred to as Brutus and was Popeye's only nemesis throughout the entire run. A variety of artists have created Popeye comic book stories since then; for example, George Wildman drew Popeye stories for Charlton Comics from 1969 until

12474-520: The one-eyed sailor quickly became the lead character, and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the 1930s. Following Segar's death in 1938, Thimble Theatre (later renamed Popeye ) was continued by several writers and artists, most notably Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf . The strip continues to appear in first-run installments on Sundays, written and drawn by R. K. Milholland . The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories. In 1933, Max Fleischer adapted

12600-418: The original 1940s–1950s Sagendorf Popeye comic books under the title of Classic Popeye . In November 2022, the publication of a new manga -inspired series called Eye Lie Popeye by Marcus Williams was announced, the series will be published in 2024 by Massive Publishing. In January 2019, in celebration of its 90 years of character, King Feature Syndicate launched the webcomic Popeye's Cartoon Club . In

12726-452: The perfect Popeye. Not only Popeye, but Popeye's whole world. Everything looks like it should, cartoony and goofy. Plus, he brings an unusual amount of detail to something that doesn't really need it. You'll swear that you're looking at an old Whitman Comics issue of Popeye, only it's better. Ozella is a great storyteller and even though the issue is jam packed with dialog, the panels never look cramped at all. In late 2012, IDW began reprinting

12852-685: The picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror , an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome . The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in

12978-400: The plot to be advanced even a small amount. From 1986 to 1992, the daily strip was written and drawn by Bobby London , who, after some controversy, was fired from the strip for a story that could be taken to satirize abortion . London's strips put Popeye and his friends in updated situations, but kept the spirit of Segar's original. One classic storyline, titled "The Return of Bluto", showed

13104-456: The police or the scientific community. He has displayed Sherlock Holmes -like investigative prowess, scientific ingenuity, and successful diplomatic arguments. In the animated cartoons his pipe also proves to be highly versatile. Among other things, it has served as a cutting torch, jet engine, propeller, periscope, musical instrument, and a whistle with which he produces his trademark toot. He also eats spinach through his pipe, sometimes sucking in

13230-615: The political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created

13356-401: The prevailing content restrictions on violence. In addition to providing many of the cartoon scripts, Mercer continued to voice Popeye, while Marilyn Schreffler and Allan Melvin became the new voices of Olive Oyl and Bluto, respectively. The All New Popeye Hour ran on CBS until September 1981, when it was cut to a half-hour and retitled The Popeye and Olive Comedy Show . It was removed from

13482-439: The reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at

13608-494: The rights are currently controlled by Warner Bros. Discovery . In 2001, Cartoon Network , under the supervision of animation historian Jerry Beck , created a new incarnation of The Popeye Show . The show aired the Fleischer and Famous Studios Popeye shorts in versions approximating their original theatrical releases by editing copies of the original opening and closing credits (taken or recreated from various sources) onto

13734-512: The sailor battling every version of the bearded bully from the comic strip, comic books, and animated films. The Sunday edition of the comic strip was drawn by Hy Eisman from 1994 to 2022. Following Eisman's retirement, the Sunday strip was taken over by R. K. Milholland , who had previously contributed Popeye cartoons to the web-only feature Popeye's Cartoon Club in 2019 and 2020. The daily strip has featured reruns of Sagendorf's strips since London's firing. On January 1, 2009, 70 years since

13860-413: The second panel revealing the truth of the situation. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as "the funny papers", shortened to "the funnies"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie , filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page . Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried

13986-504: The sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston 's For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip's supporting characters, came out of the closet. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts

14112-468: The strip Max and Moritz , about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"). In the story's final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by

14238-422: The strip by the close of 1928 (although Cylinda would eventually maritally reunite with Castor under R. K. Milholland 's authorship almost a century later). Popeye first appeared in the strip on January 17, 1929, as a minor character. He was initially hired by Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy to crew a ship for a voyage to Dice Island, the location of a casino owned by the crooked gambler Fadewell. Castor intended to break

14364-407: The strip featured the duo, alongside a rotating cast of primarily one-shot characters, acting out various stories and scenarios in a parodic theatrical style (hence the strip's name). As its first year progressed, however, numerous elements of this premise would be relinquished (including the recurring character "Willie Wormwood", introduced as a parody of melodrama villainy), soon rendering the strip

14490-460: The strip. Tom Sims, the son of a Coosa River channel-boat captain, acted as the writer for Thimble Theatre beginning in August 1938 and established the Popeye the Sailorman spin-off. Doc Winner , who had previously filled in for Segar between January and May 1938, initially acted as Sims' artist, with Bela Zaboly succeeding him by December 1939. In 1954, Sims relinquished writing duties on

14616-451: The strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman 's Krazy Kat . An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore , may be printed on

14742-513: The time. These cartoon shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by its sister company Warner Bros. Over the years, Popeye has also appeared in comic books, television cartoons, video games, hundreds of advertisements, peripheral products ranging from spinach to candy cigarettes , and the 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman and starring Robin Williams as Popeye. Charles M. Schulz said, "I think Popeye

14868-505: The way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms—as animals, vegetables, and minerals. The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury . Al Capp's Li'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by

14994-466: The year on King Features' website, Comics Kingdom. From February through April 2020, Cartoon Club ran an additional five comics by Milholland, which was followed by an extended run from May 28 through July 6, 2020, making Milholland the first person to write a daily-update Popeye comic for King Features since 1994. In August 2022, a new twice-weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) webcomic titled Olive & Popeye debuted. Milholland writes and draws

15120-514: Was a perfect comic strip, consistent in drawing and humor". In 2002, TV Guide ranked Popeye number 20 on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list. The person believed to have inspired Popeye was Polish born Frank "Rocky" Fiegel, a tough laborer from Chester, Illinois who was always getting in fights. It was believed he could have been a professional boxer. However, he also gave out candy and treats to children, including E.C. Segar, who remembered Fiegel when he created Popeye. Fiegel

15246-525: Was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era . At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm

15372-437: Was described as "[j]ust like the fictional spinach-loving mariner ... a one-eyed, pipe-smoking curmudgeon with a jutting chin." Popeye's story and characterization vary depending on the medium. In his debut storyline, Popeye's superhumanly proportioned strength and endurance stemmed from the "luck" he acquired by rubbing the feathers of the head of Bernice, a "whiffle hen", thus enabling him to survive fifteen gunshot wounds. By

15498-506: Was quite different from the theatrical cartoons that followed. The stories were more complex (often spanning months or even years), with a heavier emphasis on verbal comedy and many characters that never appeared in the cartoons (among them King Blozo, Toar, and Rough-House). Spinach usage, a trait introduced in July 1931, was comparatively infrequent, and Bluto appeared in only one story arc. Segar signed some of his early Popeye comic strips with

15624-669: Was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating

15750-502: Was the syndicate's art director from c. 1936 to 1937, shortly before leaving to found Funnies, Inc. The syndicate's long-time manager was Giordano Bruno Pascale. Adams's syndicate peaked in the 1920s and 1930s, eventually fading as its founder aged. In the company's latter years, the president and general manager was Harry E. Elmlark. Adams died in 1962; the remaining features were sold to The Washington Star Company in May 1965, thus forming

15876-561: Was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens , chickens, cows, worms , amoebas , and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur . Bob Thaves 's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved

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