Covington native Robert Franc Schulkers published the first adventure of the “Fair & Square Boys Club”– as told by Gregory Hawkins, the club “seckatary” – on Feb. 3, 1918, in the Enquirer.
At the height of its popularity, the newspaper serial and comic strip reached 10 million households and spawned 30 books; Cincinnati and NBC network radio shows; at least one movie; and local “Seckatary Hawkins” clubs around the world with more than one million members.
The Hawkins comic strip was launched on September 3, 1928, first featuring the stories of 1918-1920 under the title “Our Club.” Over the next six years, the comic strip replayed, in a new format, stories previously published in narrative form in the Enquirer, so that young readers could not only thrill to new adventures in story form on the Sunday page but, in the comics, catch up on exploits they may have missed. Initially illustrated by Joe Ebertz, the comics appeared every day but Sunday from 1928 to 1934.
