A Good Long Laugh Newspaper Comics Have Been Entertaining Us For 100 Years

Maybe it’s the first newspaper comic of all time, but - leapin’ lizards, Sandy - this thing is barely recognizable as a comic strip at all.

It’s “Hogan’s Alley,” which celebrated its 100th birthday in May.

This weekly panel, also known as “The Yellow Kid,” was a chaotic depiction of life in a New York tenement alley, crowded with goats and dogs and tough-looking Irish kids. At the center of it all was a goofy-looking bald doofus with ears to rival Prince Charles’. His catch-phrase was “Keep de change.”

This kid, who looks like a precursor to Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Newman, usually had some dialogue written on his gown, such as: “Me and Li has made a big hit wit each oter. Say! He tinks I’m a Chinaman. Don’t say a woid. I’m goin ter give a yellow tea for him. I know my Q.”

What’s that again?

It doesn’t make much sense now, but at the time, 1895, this Richard Outcault panel was a tremendous hit. Today, it is recognized as the beginning of the art form that eventually gave us “Krazy Kat,” “Pogo”, “Li’l Abner” and “Calvin and Hobbes.”

Crude as it was, “Hogan’s Alley” contained the rudiments of the genre: narrative told through pictures, continuing characters and dialogue within the pictures.

And color, too. One day in 1896, a New York World printer decided to experiment with the color yellow by coloring the kid’s gown. Which is why the kid, and the strip, soon were universally known as “The Yellow Kid.”

Within months, the comic became a prime weapon in newspaper circulation wars. Recognizing this, William Randolph Hearst snatched Outcault and “The Yellow Kid” for his New York Morning Journal in 1896.

“Suddenly, comics were very important to all of the papers,” said Art Wood, director and curator of the National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art in Washington, D.C. “That’s why Joseph Pulitzer and Hearst battled so hard for these artists.

“Mr. Hearst just loved the comics. The artists he liked - he just picked them up and paid them more.”

The next year, a new feature called “The Katzenjammer Kids” put the “strip” into the comic strip. Artist Rudolph Dirks, borrowing from a German feature called “Max Und Moritz,” invented two diabolically rotten little kids named Hans and Fritz. He called them “The Katzenjammer Kids.”

For the first time, a comic was presented as a series of narrative panels, as opposed to a single big panel. “The Yellow Kid” followed suit within a year.

A great deal of the humor in both of these strips came from imitating the fractured speech of immigrants. Hans and Fritz put the word “nix” into the American vocabulary.

However, other comic strip artists soon proved that the comic strip could be sophisticated and even sublime.

In 1905, Winsor McCay created an Oz-like world of magic, grandiose architecture and dream symbols in a hugely popular strip called “Little Nemo.”

“In treatment and style, McCay’s work is related to the best art nouveau,” according to “A History of the Comic Strip” by Maurice Horn and others. “… He belongs within the great intellectual and aesthetic current leading from Brueghel to the surrealists.”

Wow. All of this in the Sunday paper.

Then in 1910, George Herriman invented a very frustrated cat named Krazy, who was in love with a mouse named Ignatz. “Krazy Kat” was full of strange symbols, upside-down buildings, rocks that suddenly become battleships, and strange celestial objects. This was surrealism to rival Salvador Dali.

“The great thing about Herriman’s work is he did his own thing,” said Wood. “And Hearst never held him back.”

Meanwhile, the first decade of the century spawned many strips whose ambitions were more in the realm of entertainment than art. Many of them became fixtures in American culture: “The Happy Hooligan” (1900), “Alphonse and Gaston” (1902), “Buster Brown” (also by Outcault, 1902), “Foxy Grandpa” (1900), “Hairbreadth Harry” (1906), and “Mutt and Jeff” (1907).

“Mutt and Jeff” earned the distinction of being the first daily comic strip. Soon, daily strips were a fixture in almost every American newspaper.

The next few decades spawned even more names that remain familiar today: “Bringing Up Father” (1913), “Toonerville Trolley” (1915), “Barney Google” (1919), “Moon Mullins” (1923), “Gasoline Alley” (1919), “Popeye” (from the strip “Thimble Theater,” 1919), “Blondie” (1930) and “Little Orphan Annie” 1924).

“Little Orphan Annie,” created by Harold Gray in 1924, became the first comic strip to dabble in politics - in Gray’s case, conservative. The tradition of political commentary in the funny papers was picked up by Al Capp in “Li’l Abner,” Walt Kelly in “Pogo” and Garry Trudeau in “Doonesbury.”

“Hairbreadth Harry” (1906) kicked off another style of comic strip, the adventure strip. These strips didn’t go for gags or jokes. They were more like movie-serial cliffhangers, and they came into their own during the Depression.

The most successful of these were “Tarzan” (1929), “Buck Rogers” (1929), “Flash Gordon” (1934), “Jungle Jim” (1934), “Secret Agent X-9” (1934) and “Terry and the Pirates” (1934).

The biggest of all, however, was “Dick Tracy” (1931). Soon all of America was conversant with two-way wrist radios and Pruneface.

In a category nearly all of its own was “Prince Valiant” (1937) by Hal Foster. It combined medieval adventure stories with drawings that were almost classical in scope and style.

“Awesome as a work of illustration and fiction,” says “The World Encyclopedia of Comics,” edited by Horn.

The 1940s saw an influx of war stories, for obvious reasons. There was “G.I. Joe” (1942), “The Sad Sack” (1942) “Male Call” (1942) and “Buz Sawyer” (1943).

Even such already existing characters as Joe Palooka and Jungle Jim joined the armed forces. Dick Tracy and Agent X-9 started taking on enemy spies.

Melodrama came into its own in the ‘40s, beginning with “Brenda Starr” and “Mary Worth,” both from 1940. Other strip-operas included “Rex Morgan, MD” (1948), “Judge Parker” (1952), “The Heart of Juliet Jones” (1953) and “Apartment 3-G” (1962).

Here’s a typical plot line from “The Heart of Juliet Jones”: “At Eddie Hearn’s reluctant suggestion, Julie has accepted Skipper Jarvis’ engagement ring.”

Meanwhile, “Steve Canyon” (1947) became the perfect Cold War hero.

“Li’l Abner” and “Pogo” tackled the Cold War in their own ways, at least in allegory. “Pogo” depicted Sen. Joe McCarthy as a jackal.

Charles Schulz ushered in a new era of comics in 1950 with “Peanuts,” probably the most successful comic strip of all time. Schulz combined childlike characters with surprisingly sophisticated philosophizing. By the mid-1960s, Snoopy and Charlie Brown were part of American mythology.

Garry Trudeau became the first baby boomers’ cartoonist with “Doonesbury” (1970). Gary Larson’s wickedly funny “The Far Side” (1980) ushered in a new kind of black humor.

But Larson retired last year, and today, “Peanuts” and “Doonesbury” still rule the comics, along with “Garfield,” “Blondie,” “For Better or For Worse” and “Calvin and Hobbes,” by Bill Watterson.

“I think Bill Watterson is a genius,” flatly declares Wood of the National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art.

Wood, who has been collecting comics since he was 12, said there is no dearth of talent today, only a dearth of space.

“The comics are as popular as ever,” he said. “But they’re so reduced in size, they are hard to read.

“In the early days, they would run all the way across the top of the page. On Sunday, one comic strip would take up a full page.”

Amazingly, some of the earliest strips survive even today.

“Bringing Up Father” is still in syndication after 82 years, and “Gasoline Alley” is still alive after 77 years, although both have gone through numerous artists. “Barney Google” has been around for 76 years, and for the past 53 of those years, it has been drawn by the same man, Fred Lasswell.

But the longevity king of them all is “The Katzenjammer Kids.” For 98 straight years, Hans and Fritz have been playing those pranks on Mama and the Captain.

In fact, due to a copyright wrangle, the strip was actually two strips for many decades - one called “The Captain and the Kids” and the other retaining the original name. “The Katzenjammer Kids” remains in syndication as a Sunday strip by Hy Eismann.

“The Yellow Kid,” alas, didn’t last as long. Outcault dropped it after three years to concentrate on “Buster Brown,” thus sparing the world from 100 years of “Keep de change.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 9 Photos (1 color) Graphic: Comics

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. FUNNIES PHRASES Here are a few phrases that originated in comic strips and have now entered the American lexicon: Dagwood sandwich - An enormous sandwich, named for the kind that Dagwood made in “Blondie.” Prince Valiant haircut - A bowl-cut, like the one worn by the prince. Sadie Hawkins Dance - A girl-ask-boy dance, named after the infamous Sadie Hawkins Day in “Lil Abner” in which women catch men for marriage. Wimpy burger - A hamburger, named after the character J. Wellington Wimpy in “Popeye” who was always eating hamburgers. Rube Goldberg contraption - An elaborate, complicated invention, named for the fanciful drawings of Rube Goldberg. Alley Oop - A basketball dunk play, named after the tree-swinging Neanderthal in the comic strip of the same name. An Alphonse and Gaston act - Characterized by excessive politeness, as in when two people refuse to enter an elevator first. Named after the 1902 comic strip “Alphonse and Gaston,” starring two ridiculously polite Frenchmen. Yellow journalism - Sensationalist journalism, so-named because the Hearst papers carried “The Yellow Kid.”

2. A LOOK AT S-R COMICS OVER THE DECADES Here are the comic strips that were running in The Spokesman-Review at the beginning of each decade: 1900 - None. 1910 - The Newlyweds, Stepbrothers, Mr. Meanto, Yens, The Bad Dream That Made Bill a Better Boy, Ophelia and Her Slate, Pups, Rhymo the Monk, Well I’ll Wait A Little While, Dolby’s Double. 1920 - Gasoline Alley, Bringing Up Father, Oh Man, If It Isn’t One Thing It’s Another, Mr. Dubb. 1930 - Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, The Gumps, Winnie Winkle, Ella Cinders, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Harold Teen, Smitty, Teddy Jack and Mary, Moon Mullins. 1940 - Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, The Gumps, Winnie Winkle, Ella Cinders, Blondie, Dick Tracy, Li’l Abner, Terry and the Pirates, Moon Mullins, Chief Wahoo, Ned Brant, Jane Arden, Growing Pains, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Tarzan, The Captain and The Kids, Hawkshaw the Detective, Harold Teen, Smitty, Herby, Dill and Daffy, Jingles, Them Days Is Gone Forever, Maw Green, Tiny Tim, Sweeney and Son, Kitty Higgins. 1950 - Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, The Gumps, Winnie Winkle, Ella Cinders, Blondie, Dick Tracy, Li’l Abner, Terry and the Pirates, Penny, Barnaby, Jane Arden, Rex Morgan M.D., Steve Roper, Bobby Sox, Off the Record, They’ll Do It Every Time, Tarzan, Abbie and Slats, Cousin Juniper, Smitty, Harold Teen, Nancy. 1960 - Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, Winnie Winkle, Blondie, Dick Tracy, Li’l Abner, Terry and the Pirates, Peanuts, Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Dondi, Smilin’ Jack, Steve Roper, Rex Morgan M.D., Tarzan, The Captain and the Kids, Emmy Lou, Dennis the Menace, Col. Potterby and the Duchess, Off the Record, Bobby Sox, The Ryatts, Guess Who, Nancy. 1970 - Gasoline Alley, Little Orphan Annie, Winnie Winkle, Dick Tracy, Li’l Abner, Terry and the Pirates, Peanuts, Bobby Sox, The Girls, Batman, Rex Morgan M.D., Judge Parker, Dondi, The Ryatts, Steve Roper, Wizard of Id, Children’s Tales, Emmy Lou, Dennis the Menace, Tarzan, Mary Worth, Nancy. 1980 - Gasoline Alley, Winnie Winkle, Peanuts, The Far Side, Beetle Bailey, John Darling, Hagar the Horrible, Hi and Lois, Sam and Silo, For Better or For Worse, Wizard of Id, Funky Winkerbean, The Ryatts, Catfish, Rex Morgan M.D., Andy Capp, Herman, Dennis the Menace, Mary Worth. 1990 - Gasoline Alley, Peanuts, Blondie, Adam, For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury, Funky Winkerbean, Hi and Lois, Garfield, Sally Forth, Marvin, Hagar the Horrible, When I Was Short, Cathy, Beetle Bailey, Calvin and Hobbes, Wizard of Id, B.C., Herman, The Far Side, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus, Shoe, Ernie, Mother Goose and Grimm, Outland, Ziggy. Jim Kershner