It’s tough for a stripper just starting out. As embarrassing as yearbook photos, comic strip creators often make an overlooked first strip that shows the cartoonist’s art and humor in its primordial stage (like these 10 Dinosaur Comics Written By Twitter). Check out the footnote strips that these famous cartoonists wish we’d forgotten about.
7. “Gnorm Gnat” by Jim Davis
Five years before creating the lasagna-inhaling fat cat Garfield, Jim Davis drew a strip about bugs for an Indiana newspaper in the 70s. He couldn’t get it picked up by a syndicate, so Davis killed the main character by having a giant foot crush him. Mike Peters, the creator of Mother Goose and Grimm says, “Gnorm Gnat has gone down in cartoon folklore as a most fortunate failure. Can you imagine a bright orange gnat on every car window? … A big fat gnat saying ‘I hate Tuesdays.’” Yes, I can imagine it in my nightmares. (Image via Garfield Fan Club)
6. “Li’l Folks” by Charles M. Schulz
Perhaps the oddest thing about Li’l Folks, the precursor to “Peanuts” from the late 40s, is how childlike the children are. They talk about mud pies and tricycles – it would take years before Schulz’s kids evolved into philosophical mini-adults. Schultz quit the strip for his hometown paper, “St. Paul Pioneer Press,” after two years, because he wanted more than $10 per strip. Yeah, Schultz was worth just a little more than 10 bucks a strip. (Image via AskArt)
5. “The Academia Waltz” by Berkeley Breathed
Breathed recently created a treasury of “Bloom County” comics, but hesitated to include examples of his first strip, drawn from 1978-79 for his college paper, “The Daily Texan.” In an interview with the “LA Times,” he calls “Academia Waltz” “embarrassing, offensive and juvenile.” Breathed sounds as neurotic about these strips as Opus the Penguin is about his less-than-masculine figure. (Image via GoComics)
4. “Dumb Dora” by Chic Young
Dumb Dora is the first strip created by “Blondie” cartoonist Chic Young, drawn from 1924-30. After reading this strip, I just wanna say the words “Tea Hound” over and over again. Tea Hound, Tea Hound, Tea Hound, Tea Hound, Tea Hound. Tea Hound. Thank you. …Tea Hound. (Image via Wikipedia)
3. “Nature’s Way” By Gary Larson
Larson began cartooning to try and get out of a job at a retail music store. Unfortunately, his first strip, “Nature’s Way,” netted him three dollars per cartoon when published in “The Sumner News Review” in the late 70s. Not enough to quit his day job. Later, the “San Francisco Chronicle” would syndicate his strip and call it “The Far Side.” On the name change, Larson says, “they could have called it ‘Revenge of the Zucchini People’ for all I cared.”
2. “Bull Tales” by Garry Trudeau
Before he became a famous political cartoonist, Trudeau drew a comic about football for the “Yale Daily News” in the late 60s. When he submitted the strip to the paper’s editor, the editor said, “They’re all right. We publish pretty much anything.” What started as a strip about football quickly transitioned into a satirical comic and two short years later was picked up for syndication as “Doonsbury.” (Image via Slate)
1. “Silly Philly” by Bil Keane
Some would argue that “Family Circus” is an embarrassment within itself (Uh-Oh, I think Jeffy actually DID knock over the vase!), but Keane’s first strip was about the statue of teenage William Penn coming to life and acting silly in Philadelphia. Or Silly in Philly. Or… ugh, you get the idea. Did I mention it ran for 13 years? (Image via Family Circus)
Comedy.com has ravaged your Sunday Funnies. Check out these 10 early strips from Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. Also, no one parodies Garfield, Blondie and Peanuts better than comic book legend R. Sikoryak.
This article was written by Geoffrey Golden, who has never successfully kicked a football. ARGH!
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