Birth of The Bumstead: America's longest running comic

It was the summer of 1930. The country was in the first year of what became known as the Great Depression, and folks were already nostalgic for the carefree party-filled days and nights of the 1920s.

That was when 29-year-old cartoonist Chic Young began working on a daily comic strip about a carefree young “flapper” named Blondie Boopadoop and her boyfriend, Dagwood Bumstead, the son of a rich railroad tycoon.

“Blondie” was launched Sept. 8, 1930 — 95 years ago next Monday. And it’s still appearing daily in newspapers nationwide.

'Chicken', The Comic Strip Creator

Murat Bernard Young was born in Chicago in 1901 but raised in St. Louis. His high school classmates nicknamed him “Chicken,” so he fell into the habit of signing his work “Chic Young.”

After high school, he moved back to Chicago and worked as a stenographer while taking night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He took a job in 1921 at the Newspaper Enterprise Association writing and drawing a comic strip about an attractive young woman who was struggling to break into the film business and the array of men she attracted.

This was part of a trend in the roarin’ ’20s: comic strips and fictional stories about “flappers.” Young drew “The Affairs of Jane” for only five months before it was canceled. The next year, he moved to New York, where another supplier of newspaper content, the Bell Syndicate, hired him to create another “flapper” strip he called “Beautiful Bab.”

Chic Young, St. Louis Walk of Fame.

This strip, too, was short-lived, lasting only nine months. But it brought Young to the attention of King Features Syndicate, a larger organization that supplied higher-quality content. In 1924, Young began yet another comic strip he called “Dumb Dora.” The gimmick: Dora “wasn’t as dumb as she looked.”

“Dumb Dora” was an enormous success. Five years later, Young approached the syndicate asking for more money and ownership of the comic strip. King Features declined and assigned another artist to the strip. But it offered to consider other features Young might create.

Young stopped work on “Dumb Dora” on April 27, 1930. On Sept. 8, King launched his latest “flapper” offering he called “Blondie.”

King went all in with a marketing campaign for Young’s new strip. It sent editors an announcement of the engagement of Dagwood Bumstead to Blondie Boopadoop. A few days later, it sent a letter, supposedly from Dagwood’s father’s attorney, denying the engagment.

A few days after that, editors received a tiny cardboard suitcase full of paper doll clothes and a handwritten note from Blondie explaining yes, she was engaged to Dagwood.

Then came the final mailing: a paper doll of the Blondie character. Wearing nothing but lingerie and with a note: “Please, Mr. Editor, put some clothes on me quick!”

“Blondie” launched on Sept. 8, 1930. It was picked up a week later by William Randolph Hearst’s New York American.

More Than Nine Decades of Marriage

In the beginning “Blondie” covered many of the “flapper” that, by that time, with which Young was so familiar. She liked to dance and to party. She was engaged to Dagwood, whose wealthy parents did not approve of their relationship. And any time Dagwood turned his back, she found herself surrounded by admiring men.

But out there in the real world, the Great Depression was taking hold. Good times were becoming a distant memory. Young longed to make a change. He tried writing Dagwood out of the strip but readers objected.

The first "Blondie" comic strip: Sept. 8, 1930. Photo from King Features.

A couple years into the strip, it occured to him: have Dagwood marry Blondie. Dagwood’s parents would disinherit him and he’d have to get a job and work for a living. This would turn the focus of Young’s strip to everyday, middle-class household matters and perhaps make it more relatable for newspaper readers.

Dagwood and Blondie were married in the strip on Feb. 17, 1933. At that point, Blondie lost many of her Boopadoop qualities and settled into the role of a housewife. And Dagwood was left to struggle with everyday tasks such as commuting to work, keeping his irritable boss happy, being a responsible father for his children ... and, of course, not smacking into the mailman.

Columbia Pictures

By 1938, “Blondie” was so successful that King Features licensed the strip to Columbia Pictures for a series of live-action films starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake. They’d end up making 28 “Blondie” movies before 1950.

“Blondie” has continued to evolve with the times. In 1991, Blondie launched a catering business with her neighbor, Tootsie. In 2018, Dagwood briefly worked for them but was fired for sampling too much of their food.

America's Longest-Running Comic Strips

Some strips are actual horizontal strips. Some are actually comic panels (Think “Dennis the Menace” or “Family Circle”). Some focus on serious storytelling and others go for knee-slappin’ joke-of-the-day material.

Whatever the content, though, comic strips are, for many of us, a highlight of your daily newspaper. They give you something to hunt for and to enjoy every morning. And back in the day, they were “talkers” — the things you discussed with friends: “Hey! Did you see today’s ‘Blondie’?”

The current trend in comic strips is for creators to own their work and to retire the strip when they retire. But in some cases, syndicates own the strips and hire replacement writers and artists.

King Features

Chic Young died in 1973. “Blondie” is now written by his son, Dean Young.