19-402: Murat Bernard " Chic " Young (January 9, 1901 – March 14, 1973) was an American cartoonist who created the comic strip Blondie . His 1919 William McKinley High School Yearbook cites his nickname as Chicken , source of his familiar pen name and signature. According to King Features Syndicate , Young had a daily readership of 52 million. Stan Drake , who drew Blondie in
38-839: A pulmonary embolism on March 14, 1973, at the Apollo Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida , at the age of 72. He had been in ill health for some time, remaining near his home in Clearwater Beach, Florida . Chic Young received the National Cartoonists Society 's Reuben Award for Blondie in 1948, only one of many awards. Cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators / artists in that they produce both
57-648: The Tim Tyler's Luck comic strip for King Features. It was Lyman who spurred Chic to constantly draw. Chic Young grew up in a German-Lutheran neighborhood on the south side of St. Louis . After graduating from high school in St. Louis, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a stenographer while taking night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago . In 1921, he learned that the Newspaper Enterprise Association
76-478: The Bell Syndicate began distributing on July 15, 1922. It ran for only four months but landed him a job in the art department of King Features Syndicate , mainly as an assistant to cartoonist Jack Callahan , adopting his drawing and storytelling styles. In 1924, he began Dumb Dora , about brunette Dora who "wasn't as dumb as she looked." In 1927, Young married professional harpist Athel Lindorff (d. 1979). In
95-648: The Republican elephant . Comic strips received widespread distribution to mainstream newspapers by syndicates . Calum MacKenzie, in his preface to the exhibition catalog, The Scottish Cartoonists (Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, 1979) defined the selection criteria: Many strips were the work of two people although only one signature was displayed. Shortly after Frank Willard began Moon Mullins in 1923, he hired Ferd Johnson as his assistant. For decades, Johnson received no credit. Willard and Johnson traveled about Florida , Maine, Los Angeles , and Mexico, drawing
114-495: The 18th century, poked fun at contemporary politics and customs; illustrations in such style are often referred to as "Hogarthian". Following the work of Hogarth, editorial/political cartoons began to develop in England in the latter part of the 18th century under the direction of its great exponents, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson , both from London. Gillray explored the use of the medium for lampooning and caricature , calling
133-501: The 1980s and 1990s, stated that Young "has to go down in history as one of the geniuses of the industry." Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young began drawing with the encouragement of his mother, who was an artist. Although his father James was a shoe salesman who didn't think much of artists, all of the children in the family were creative: Walter was a painter, daughter Jamar entered the commercial art field and Lyman , Chic's older brother, drew
152-606: The NEA art department, Young worked near cartoonist Gene Ahern , and the two often played pranks on each other. When a call came from King Features' J. Gortatowski offering an annual salary of $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 171,000 in 2023), Young thought it was a prank and turned down the job. Looking for work later, he applied to Gortatowski and learned the call was legitimate. After six months in Cleveland, Young left for New York where he created another female flapper strip, Beautiful Bab , which
171-751: The king ( George III ), prime ministers and generals to account, and has been referred to as the father of the political cartoon. While never a professional cartoonist, Benjamin Franklin is credited with the first cartoon published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754: Join, or Die , depicting the American colonies as segments of a snake. In the 19th century, professional cartoonists such as Thomas Nast , whose work appeared in Harper's Weekly , introduced other familiar American political symbols, such as
190-585: The literary and graphic components of the work as part of their practice. Cartoonists may work in a variety of formats, including booklets , comic strips , comic books , editorial cartoons , graphic novels , manuals , gag cartoons , storyboards , posters , shirts , books , advertisements , greeting cards , magazines , newspapers , webcomics , and video game packaging . A cartoonist's discipline encompasses both authorial and drafting disciplines (see interdisciplinary arts ). The terms "comics illustrator", "comics artist", or "comic book artist" refer to
209-562: The most popular comic strip in America, gaining even more readers when Blondie and Dagwood married in 1933, followed by the 1934 birth of Baby Dumpling (later known as Alexander). When his first son, Wayne, died of diphtheria in 1937, Young took a year's hiatus; the experience made it difficult for him to draw Baby Dumpling. After Young and his wife spent a year traveling in Europe, he began Blondie once again, quelling rumors that he might not return to
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#1732868898368228-475: The picture-making portion of the discipline of cartooning (see illustrator ). While every "cartoonist" might be considered a "comics illustrator", "comics artist", or a "comic book artist", not every "comics illustrator", "comics artist", or a "comic book artist" is a "cartoonist". Ambiguity might arise when illustrators and writers share each other's duties in authoring a work. The English satirist and editorial cartoonist William Hogarth , who emerged in
247-467: The popular Blondie film series for Columbia Pictures . In the early 1950s, the entire family vacationed in Paris, and a few years later, they moved to Florida, prompting his comment, "We reside on a little island off the west coast of Florida, where the porpoises and pelicans entertain me while I work on the strip. Hobbies? Oh, fishing, golf, very amateurish Oriental cooking and such nonsense." Young died of
266-503: The spring of 1930, after six years of Dumb Dora' s increasing popularity, Young requested more money and strip ownership. This action led to changes, and Paul Fung took over Dumb Dora in April 1930 when Young dropped it to create a new strip. In the summer of 1930, working in his studio in Great Neck, Long Island , Young created Blondie . When it debuted September 8, 1930, it quickly became
285-763: The strip Colonel Potterby and the Duchess , which ran as a topper strip on the Blondie page from 1935 through 1963. Young worked with several assistants, including Alex Raymond and Ray McGill. Alex Raymond's younger brother, Jim Raymond, who began as Young's assistant in 1935, took over all the art in 1950 when Young's eyesight began to fail. As of June 2021, Blondie is written by Chic Young's son, Dean Young , and illustrated by John Marshall . Living in suburban New Rochelle, New York , Chic and Athel had two other children, Dean Young and Jeanne. In 1939, Young relocated his family to California to be more closely involved with
304-478: The strip while living in hotels, apartments and farmhouses. At its peak of popularity during the 1940s and 1950s, the strip ran in 350 newspapers. According to Johnson, he had been doing the strip solo for at least a decade before Willard's death in 1958: "They put my name on it then. I had been doing it about 10 years before that because Willard had heart attacks and strokes and all that stuff. The minute my name went on that thing and his name went off, 25 papers dropped
323-435: The strip. With films, radio, television and products, the strip became a licensing and media bonanza that made Young a wealthy man. During his lifetime, he produced more than 15,000 Blondie strips. Described by former King Features president Joseph Connelly as "the greatest story teller of his kind since the immortal Charles Dickens ," Young at his peak received more fan mail than any other cartoonist. His other works include
342-570: The strip. That shows you that, although I had been doing it ten years, the name means a lot." Societies and organizations Societies and organizations Dean Young (cartoonist) Dean Wayne Young (born July 2, 1938) is the head writer of the popular comic strip Blondie , which he inherited from his father Chic Young , who died in 1973. Since then, Dean Young has collaborated on Blondie with several artists: Jim Raymond (1973–1981), Mike Gersher (1981–1984), Stan Drake (1984–1997) and Denis Lebrun (1997–2005). Since 2005, Blondie
361-414: Was seeking an artist to do a comic strip about an attractive young woman. He headed for Cleveland and earned a weekly salary of $ 22 (equivalent to $ 380 in 2023) while drawing The Affairs of Jane about a struggling film actress who dreamed of graduating from low-budget pictures to stardom. The short-lived strip, which began in 1921 on Halloween, came to a conclusion five months later on March 18, 1922. In
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