Archives - The History of King Features Syndicate, Part Two

Introduction to King Features

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King Features History

1:30T-Mobile.com for details. Hello. It's your friendly neighborhood host, JT Wheatley, back for another episode of the History of Comic Books podcast. This time with part two of the history of King Features, the king of comic strips. When we last left off in the first episode, we detailed what the origin of King Features and the William Randolph Hearst, and how it came about to really setting up a new standard in comic strips. And this time we're continuing with the conclusion, as King Features takes us into the modern day. Among the many other artists that King Features started signing around the 1930s was Gene Inhern,

2:01who joined King Features in 1936 after leaving the NEA in an annual salary of $35,000 a year, as King Features offered him double, once again continuing Hearst's philosophy of hiring away the best talent at hiring salaries. At King Features, Ahern created Room and Board, a continuation of his boarding house strip that ran from 1921 to 1936 about life at a boarding house. Ahern would slightly change his characters from Major Hopple to Juggle Puffle, and that strip would run in 1953.

2:32Right Around Home was a Sunday strip by Dudley Fisher that ran from January 16, 1938, to May 2, 1965 about the energetic Myrtle and her parents, central figures in their neighborhood. What made the strip unique was that Fisher filled a single Sunday page with an elevated down view showcasing the characters in the setting. After World War II, the strip was renamed Myrtle Right Around Home and later Right Around Home with Myrtle. Fisher would draw it until his death on October 6, 1951 with his assistant, Stan Randall,

3:05continuing the strip until finally ending it on May 2, 1965. With the success of Dick Tracy by Chester Gold in 1931 from the Tribune Syndicate, the crime comic strip launched into popularity and several syndicates moved and capitalized on it. For King Features, it produced Secret Agent X-9 by writer Dashiell Hammett, one of the greatest detective writers of all time and artist Alex Raymond, appearing on January 22, 1934, the same year that Dashiell's classic The Thin Man was published. X-9 was an amygdala of many of Hammett's characters before him and clearly an FBI agent,

3:40though one whose method is then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would never have approved of. To get the popular mystery writer, Hammett was paid $500 a week with Alex Raymond as the artist just getting $20. Hammett would leave after a few stories, not able to keep up with the daily grind of a comic strip, but Secret Agent X-9 would continue until February 10, 1996. That same year, King Features added another crime strip with Red Berry by Will Gold, no relation to Chester Gold, premiering on March of 1934 about an undercover cop working in Hollywood,

4:12lasting until July 17, 1938, inspiring several books and a serial along the way. Another crime strip that came out the previous year on August 7, 1933 was Radio Patrol, about Sergeant Pat and his partner stuttering Sam. It was written by Eddie Sullivan and drawn by Charles Smith, originally appearing a year before as Pinkerton Jr., and would be noted for his realistic and serious stories, including accurate depictions of the Boston and New York, New England areas.

4:43It ran until December 16, 1950 and would inspire several film serials and even an outright movie. With the popularity of air travel, much of it spurred on by Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic in 1927, King Features launched flying strips like Ace Drummond in 1933, drawn by an actual World War I flyer Clayton Knight, with legendary American flying ace Eddie Rittenbacher credited with writing it. The strip depicted the adventures of the title character around the world, and at its peak was published in 135 newspapers before ending on July 7, 1939.

5:16In 1935, Barry Baxter in the air by Frank Miller, no relation to the legendary comic book artist decades later, would also appear and was noted for his accurate depictions of airplanes.

5:29King Features also expanded on other avenues when he acquired the rise to the Lone Ranger Strip, which launched on September of 1938 and ran until December of 1971. King of the Royal Mounted launched on February 17, 1935, based on writer Zane Gray's popular stories and whose son, Romer, helped with the strip, about Canadian Mounties and would run until February 14, 1954. The big event, though, would be between 1934 and 1937, which would be one of the most important periods for King Features,

6:01and it essentially launched its big four strips in the 1930s. Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, and Prince Valiant.

Big Four Strips

6:11Flash Gordon was created in response to the popularity of the science fiction series, Buck Rogers in the 21st Century, and created by Alex Raymond, launching on July 7, 1934. Starring Flash Gordon, a Yale graduate and world-renowned polo player, along with the beautiful Dale Arden and the scientist Han Zorkov, they find themselves in the planet Mongo after flying in a rocket ship Zorkov built in his backyard. There, they battled the evil Emperor Ming, the Merciless, at the time of kind of Fu Manchu of outer space.

6:41Don Moore, a popular pulp writer, would later provide scripts for the series, working until 1954 with Alex Raymond, and later his autistic successors, Austin Briggs and MacRaebo. Alex Raymond's art truly grew on Flash Gordon, making him one of the best comic book strips in the world and cementing his place in comics history. Originally a Sunday strip, it became so popular that Daly was added in 1941, drawn by Austin Briggs, and lasted to 1944. Alex Raymond would leave the strip in 1944 to serve in the U.S. Marines during World War II,

7:13with the strip continuing on their various artists to its end in 2003. Flash Gordon remains one of the most popular science fiction stories in history, inspiring numerous cartoons, TV shows, and movies, notably the Camp Classic 1980 film. While also inspiring many other stories in response. Most significantly, George Lucas originally wanted to do a film adaptation of Flash Gordon in the 1970s, but wasn't able to acquire the rights. Thus, he decided to craft his own science fiction saga, which we know today as Star Wars.

7:45During this time, Alex Raymond also worked on Jungle Jim, about a jungle adventurer in the same vein as Tarzan, which launched on January 7, 1934. While not as popular as Flash Gordon, it was fairly successful, inspiring radio shows and film serials, before ending on August 8, 1954.

8:02Lee Falk practically created the comic book strip superhero, and thus the comic book superhero, with both Mandrake the Magician and the Phantom. The first was launched on June 11, 1934, by the Magician with the Power of Hypnotism, thus the first with superpowers, which Phil Davis provided in the art. Together with his black companion, Lothar, Mandrake would set out on a series of adventures in science fiction and fantasy variety from strange parents and alternate dimensions, while battling everything from robots to werewolves.

8:35Mandrake's powers would also expand, demonstrating levitation, invisibility, teleportation, and shape-sifting. Lothar himself was quite powerful, said to be the strongest man in the world. He even lifted an elephant with one hand in the strip, and invulnerable to any weapon forged by man. Also of note, Lothar is one of the first black superheroes depicted in comics. Mandrake would be highly successful, lasting until July 6, 2013, and aspiring numerous radio shows and serials along the way.

9:07Lee Falk next created the Phantom, which launched on February 17, 1936, and he would be the first to wore a mask in the comic strip, thus fulfilling the other half of the equation, superpowers and mask. Inspired by six masked pulp heroes like the Shadow and the Phantom Detective, the strip chronicled the Phantom's adventures across Africa, with the original art by Ray Moore. It was also here another distinctive superhero feature was introduced, that of a legacy character, as the role of the Phantom is carried on from father to son, earning him the name,

9:38the Ghost That Walks, as many believe he cannot die, not realizing that the mantle has just been passed on from father to son, along with his distinctive purple costume and skull ring. The strip is still syndicated to this day, and has, of course, inspired numerous films and TV shows. Of note is the underrated The Phantom 2040 cartoon of the 1990s, and the fun Phantom movie of 1996, with Billy Zane donning the purple suit and skull ring.

10:05Of special note, Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Lothar, and The Phantom teamed together in the Defenders of Earth cartoon series of 1985, in which they joined together to fight Ming the Merciless, along with their children. Lasting for 65 episodes, it remains a cult favorite to this day, with some subtle progressive stances. For example, when it's believed that the Phantom is dead, his daughter takes up the mantle in the episode. Also of note, Stan Lee is credited with writing the lyrics to the title song. Was there anything Stan the Man Lee couldn't do?

10:37The final of King Features Big Four premiered on February 13th in 1937, when Hal Foster launched Prince Valiant, having previously done an acclaimed run on Tarzan. Tiring of that strip after so many years, William Randolph Hearst personally approached Foster about creating a new series, having long wanting the work to produce a script with him. Originally, it was called Derek, son of Thane, before being renamed to the more catchy Prince Valiant, and was supposed to be set during Arthurian times, but Foster actually set it several centuries later, which provided for more colorful costumes and pageantry for the strip.

11:09Hearst was so impressed by it that he gave Foster ownership of the strip and 50% of the profits, a rarity at the time. Foster would state Prince Valiant was in the way in response to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, as they were going into the future, and he wanted to go into the past. Prince Valiant's debut was timely. It was right when King George VI of England was coronated, bringing the world's attention to kings and queens and all of their trappings. Foster would produce the strip until 1971 and still wrote for some years afterward before dying in 1982.

11:40During his run, Hal Foster would accrue numerous awards, winning the Ruby to 1957 from the National Cartoonist Society for Cartoonist of the Year and Best Story Strip in 1964, along with being inducted to the Royal Society of Arts in Great Britain, one of the few Americans ever honored. In fact, no less than the Duke of Windsor called Prince Valiant the greatest contribution to English literature in the last hundred years. Today, Prince Valiant remains a regular Sunday feature in newspaper strips, continuing the story of Prince Valiant, remaining a mix of history and fantasy.

12:12Like all entertainment mediums during World War II, comic books and comic strips joined in, and King Features was no exception.

World War II and Expansion

12:20In 1943, Roy Crane was signed by King Features Syndicate, leading him to the event in his long-running Ross Tubbs Captain Easy feature. At King, he did Buzz Sawyer, which debuted on November 1, 1943, about a Navy Lieutenant, junior grade, serving on the carrier in the Pacific of World War II, one of the many war strips by King Features at the time. Sawyer was serving the military off and on for years, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, throughout the series before ending on October 7, 1989.

12:51Frank Robbins did Johnny Hazard on June 5, 1944, one day before D-Day, about an aviator in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and after World War II ended, became a Cold War spy, lasting until August 20, 1977. Meanwhile, superheroes, who originally made their movies and comic books, started to get their own strips in newspapers. Superman got his own strip in 1939 with Batman Falling in 1945, published by McClure. Hoping to follow suit, King Features did Wonder Woman, which lasted from May 1, 1944

13:22to December 1, 1945, and was only a daily. It did have the distinction of being written and drawn by Wonder Woman's creators, William Moulton Marsden and H.G. Peter.

13:33Another innovation of comic strips at the time was the invention of the soap opera strip with Mary Worf in 1938 by Alan Sanders and the publisher syndicate. Realizing the potential of this new genre, Elliot Kaplan, the brother of Al Cap, the creator of Little Abner, created Dr. Bob's for King Features Syndicate. It was drawn by James McArdle from the Pulp Spicy Detective about Stephen Bob and his drama as a hospital doctor. Alex Raymond did Rip Kirby after serving in the Marines in 1945, which debuted on March 4, 1946.

14:04Without a private eye, the initial idea was from the editor, Walt Green. Unlike other detectives of the time, Kirby lived in an expansion Manhattan apartment complete with an English butler and also a reformed thief named Desmond. Raymond and Green stayed with the strip until 1956 and various artists continued it until the series ended on June 26, 1999.

14:26With our cartoons becoming more prominent, it was only natural they would form their own organization, the National Cartoonist Society. It was originally formed out of a group of cartoonists who worked together in the USO during World War II. Missing this fellowship, they decided to set up their own group with original members being Rube Goldberg, Ernie Burschmiller, C.D. Russell, Gus Edson, Russell Patterson, Otto Soglo, and Milton Keneff. This formed the first committee on February 20, 1946, with Goldberg as president, Patterson as VP, C.D. Russell as secretary,

14:57and Keneff as treasurer. Soglo would later become the second VP in the Cartoonist Society and it was officially formed on March 1, 1946. Five out of the seven of these original members were assigned with King Features, which was originally the Cartoonist Society. National will be added a few years later. And King even helped provide the staff with Marge Duffy the Vine. By 1947, the NCS would have 112 members and eventually the Vine would leave King Features to work full-time at the NCS, affectionately being called

15:28the Society's Dead Mother. She continued to work at Serve the NCS till her death in 1989 and is credited with helping to grow in the organization it is today as the premier society for the world's professional cartoonist.

15:42In 1947, King Features landed one of the comic strip superstars when it signed Milton Keneff away from Terry and the Pirates to produce Steve Canyon, which prepared on January 13, 1947. It was a signing so significant that they made the cover of Time Magazine in 1947 and Newsweek in 1950, and Keneff's deal allowed him to own the story with full editorial control. Keneff claimed to have personally met Hearst to make the deal, even stating Hearst said, you're a high-priced SOB, aren't you? Before walking out.

16:12The other claim is a story that while not true, probably shouldn't be. Steve Canyon would last for four decades, becoming one of the top adventure strips of all time before ending on June 4, 1988.

16:24Other big strips from King Features Syndicate was Dick's Adventures in Dreamland by Mike Strell and Neil O'Keefe, and most significantly, Beetle Bailey by Mort Walker, which debuted on September 4, 1950, by a young man who joins the army right before the Korean War breaks out. While Bailey had a slow beginning, it soon became the number one strip in America, with Walker's family continuing it after his death. The humor strip revolved around the inept soldiers at Camp Swampy with the title character Beetle Bailey, a lazy soldier who mostly tries to avoid work, must have sagrined

16:55the sergeant snorkel. The strip remains immensely popular, syndicated in 1,800 papals across the world. Another strip was The Heart of Juliet Jones, a contemporary comic soap opera strip, which premiered on March 9, in 1953, which was based on the 30-page strip by Margaret Mitchell, the famed author of Gone with the Wind.

17:16Written by Elliot Kaplan and drawn by Stan Drank, who stayed on until 1989, it was a soap opera strip about rival sisters Juliet and Eve Jones. The main appeal was Frank Drank's art, with its realistic depictions that he achieved through Polaroid references. After he left, Frank Boyle took over the art, continuing the series to January 1, 2000, ending on an unresolved cliffhanger. By the 1950s, the size of comic strips started to shrink and sink while King Features lost his founder with William Randolph Hirst,

17:47who died on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. A controversial figure during and after his rise, Hirst was nevertheless instrumental in the creation and spread of comic strips popularity through King Features syndicate. Of course, he was the inspiration for Citizen Kane, the 1941 film that is considered the greatest ever made, and Hirst was so enraged by it that he thought to have the film squashed. While the chief was no more, King Features continued to rate as the premier purveyor of comic strips. With comic strips diminishing, though, King Features decided to branch out

18:18with a TV studio in the 1960s. It was headed by Albert Dox, who made a new cartoon series of Popeye for ABC after Paramount's license ran out in 1957. The new series would run for 220 episodes and ran from 1960 to 1962 before going and syndication. Of note, Bluto was renamed Brutus due to a belief that Paramount still had the rights to the name, a mistake since Bluto had originated in the comic strip before the Paramount cartoons. Next, Al Burdock produced

18:49shorts for Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Spiff, and Crazy Cat. Of interesting note is the launch of The Beatles on September 25, 1965, and ran for 39 episodes. It was this cartoon series that led Al Burdock and King features the involvement in producing the animated The Yellow Submarine movie on July 17, 1968, a musical which has the Beatles recruited to save the land of Pepperland from the evil blue meanies. A psychedelic trip of a film, it remains one of the most influential movies to this day. John Lassner of Pixar

19:19credits it as helping expand the animated movie audience into a more serious alt form, while the late, great John Lennon said it was his favorite of all the Beatle movies. Next, they did Cool McCool from September 10, 1966 to January 21, 1967 for the NBC Network, lasting for 20 episodes. It was created by Bob Kane, the co-creator of Batman, about a hip trench coat spy who defeats villains despite his comic ineptus. Back on the comic strip front, Bud Blake's Tiger began

19:50on May 3, 1965 and would win the best humor strip at the NCS in 1959, 1960, and 1972. along with High and Lois. The strip, A Gag a Day About Suburban Boyhood Pals, appeared in 400 papers and ran until 2004. In 1966, King Features tried to expand it to comic books themselves with King Comics, launching several comics based on their popular strips, such as The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Popeye. Flash Gordon are particularly well-received,

20:20earning three Alley Awards in 1966 and another in 1967. However, King Features failed to get the comics tax code approval, CCA, on their books, leading to many retailers refusing to carry them. While the King eventually got CCA approval and even tried to sell their comics and package deals to supermarkets, the line went defunct in 1967, with many of their comics picked up by Charlton afterwards. Another significant strip from King Features with Haggard the Horrible, a humorous strip about a Viking, which was launched in 1973 by Dick Brown and would

20:51win the NCS Award for Best Strip in 1977, 1984, and 1986. Brown would win the Reuben for Cartoons of the Year from the NCS in 1973, previous for High and Lois, a suburban strip he illustrated with Mort Walker writing. Brown winning the Reuben would make him the third repeat winner after Milton Knieff and Charles Schultz. Of those three, only Brown and Knieff did this for two different strips. Schultz won for only Peanuts. Brown's son, Chris, would eventually take over Haggard the Horrible in 1988, and the strip continues

21:21to this day. High and Lois, which was originally launched back in October 18th, 1954, continues to be syndicated to this day as well.

21:29In the 1980s, King features Purchase, Register, and Tribune for $4.3 million, thus adding Family Circus and The Amazing Strider Ant strips to its lineup. Spider-Man would eventually end in 2019. Later that year, King purchased News America Syndicate, thus submitting them as the lead syndicate of comic strips in the world with 316 features. In 1989, Jay Kennedy became the editor and started a new breed, which was a rotating strip of new talent that included Baby Blues, Mutt's, and Zip's.

22:00Baby Blues was launched on January 7th, 1990, and won Best Humor strip at the NCS in 1996, created by Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman, about the ever-growing McPherson family, beginning with Darren Wanda and their newborn Zoe, and over the years added son Hammy and other daughter Wren. The strip continues to this day. Mutt's was created by Patrick McDonnell, launching on September 5th, 1994, following the adventures of Earl and a dog and Mooch a cat. It continues to this day and according to Charles Schultz, is one of the best comic strips ever made.

22:31Zip's was launched fully on July 7th, 1997, created by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, a human strip by Jeremy Duncan, a teenager in suburban Ohio. It continues to this day as well as one of the most popular comic strips in syndication. It was an ideal time for King Features as many great comic strips such as Calvin Hobbes, The Far Side, and Bloom County had ended in 1995, giving King Features plenty of new space to fill in the papers. King Features would then launch

Modern Era and New Strips

22:58its first website on January 12th, 1998, later reinvented as the Daily Ink in 2006, in which online subscribers could receive all of King Features' trips for $19.99 a year. The website was relaunched on December of 2003 as Comics Kingdom, which was originally created as a website newspapers could embed on their sites. The site remains popular to this day as it constantly adds new strips to download, including King Features' extensive back catalog.

23:25Jay Kennedy died on March 15th, 2007, with Brandon Buffard becoming new editor on April 23rd, 2007, having previously worked as an editor at DC Comics, and continues to serve as King Features editor. Today, King Features Syndicate is the second largest comic strip to dubler after Andrew McNeil Syndicate, also known as U-Click, in the world, with up to 113 million readers worldwide, remaining a part of Hearst Holdings Incorporated. Since its founding in 1915, it has survived over 100 years of comic strip history, bringing

23:56some classic characters like Popeye, Blondie, and Flash Gordon to life, which of course have had their impact on comic books and numerous other mediums. You cannot write the history of comic books without comic strips, and you cannot do the history of comic strips without King Features. I would like to thank the chief source of this episode, King of Comics, 100 Years of King Features, published by IDW, a fantastic coffee table-sized book that not only gives a thorough history of the company, but numerous reprints of their many classic strips. A must-read for any comic strip fan.

24:27And now it is June 4th for 2026, time for the favorite comic of the week, Batman, number 10 by Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez, which is a great little standalone issue that kind of catches you up on what's been going on in Gotham City, as Vandal Savage is the police commissioner now, Poison Ivy is the mayor, and they've made

24:57Batman into a fugitive, and they've even thrown Barbara Gordon into prison, though this all seems to be going according to plan, as Batman continues to take his fight to Vandal Savage in surprising ways. This is a great little issue that is part of what's been one of the better runs of Batman in the last few years. It's great to see he's also a more positive Batman, as he's basically, he's in his gray and blue costume, so he's kind of more cheerful, he's got the Batman family following, and actually, there's a nice moment at the end where it shows that he's actually, Batman is a bringer of hope, too, which is a nice twist in

25:29the more, the Dark Knight character, and we've done a lot of Dark Knight before, but we still have plenty of that in the absolute Batman, which is fantastic, and I still think the best Batman book in the stands, but this is a great second choice, and it's the main Batman line, so definitely check it out. And of course, there's Matt Spock, Jorge Mann, this is gorgeous art, he's been one of the best DC artists on the payroll right now, probably next to Dan Mora, who, that guy's a crazy workaholic, too, but it's a fantastic look at the character, you know, like I said, the great blue and gray costume, the Batman, and it's Gotham City in general, so yeah, yeah, you're looking for a good

25:59Batman, we're eating pretty good right now between Batman and absolute Batman, so definitely check both those books out. And with that, we will conclude with this episode of the Archives, join me again next week for, yeah, likely another episode of the Archives, until then, go ahead and enjoy some good comic book, and definitely check out, well, all the Batman books right now, because DC has been killing as a whole of the characters. Car insurance is way

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