Cartoonist Mary Kincaid has passed away.
Mary Elizabeth Kincaid (née Getz)
June 4, 1923 – September 14, 2022
Mary grew up in and around Toledo OH, and when she was ten her mother passed away of a heart condition. Luckily, she had a doting father with whom she was close until his death many years later. Although he was professionally an engineer on Great Lakes freighters and in steel and auto plants, Mary’s father was also a gifted sketch artist. He took his little girl to Saturday art classes at the Toledo Art Museum and instilled in her a life-long love of drawing.
Our Story Book on WWJ-TV, which broadcast when Mary’s first two children were toddlers. Host Jane Durelle would read a story while the camera focused at length on one story illustration after another, just like a storybook. Mary was one of the artists who drew these illustrations, mailing them to Detroit each week.
In the early 1960s she decided to create a newspaper comic strip in simple French based on Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Her strip started in The Ann Arbor News, was very successful, and was later carried by newspapers throughout the United States. She was featured in Time magazine in 1963 for this creation.
Mary subsequently branched out into other stories, then film strips and radio dramas, all designed to teach foreign languages to children.
Mary’s comic strip Contes Francais ran from 1962 – 1965.
Like Milton Caniff and Charles Schulz, Mary inspired others to create comic strips.
