Comic history Comic strips

1957 Newspaper Comics and Creators Self-Profiles

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D. D. Degg August 24, 2019 1 minute 1 comment

Way back in 1957 the people involved with newspaper comic strips were celebrating the 60th anniversary of their craft. Yeah, they were a couple years off. These days it is 1895, not 1897, that is generally celebrated as the birth year of newspaper comics (though newspaper comics had appeared earlier than 1895).

Anyway…

In 1957 a few comic strip cartoonists got together and created some Sunday extravaganzas for newspapers. These sideshows profiled the cartoonists and their creations then appearing in newspapers, with a little how-to added. (Let’s see if you can draw Juliet Jones as well as Stan Drake.)

Consider this a companion post to our earlier Comic Strip Autobiographies.

note: Rod Beck discovered these in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune of October 6 to December 8, 1957. Rod grabbed the shots from black and white microfilm so some areas of the strips, originally presented in the newspaper’s color comics section, are a little muddy.

I somehow missed getting the Hank Ketcham/Dennis the Menace edition,
if I can get Mr. Beck to help us retrieve it I will add it here.

Update August 27

And Rod comes through in the clutch!

Bonus – here’s the Hank Ketcham half-page in context:

Speaking of Rod Beck –– a tip of the hat!

If you enjoy this sort of thing try joining the Daily Dose Yahoo Group, where Rod posted these.