48 Fun Facts About Comic Strip

Which 1890s Richard F. Outcault comic character gave sensationalist journalism its name?

The Yellow Kid: when Hearst lured Outcault away, Pulitzer had George Luks keep drawing the Kid, so two rival papers each ran one.

As of 2026, which strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 is the oldest comic strip still in syndication?

The Katzenjammer Kids: after a court fight, Hearst kept the title, so Dirks drew the same boys for rival papers as The Captain and the Kids.

Apollo 10's lunar module shared its name with which Peanuts character?

Snoopy: the lunar module was named for him because it would 'snoop' around Apollo 11's future landing site.

What was the original title of Schulz's weekly panel cartoon before United Features renamed it Peanuts?

Li'l Folks: the name clashed with an older strip by Tack Knight, so the syndicate picked Peanuts, a title Schulz hated.

What does Lucy van Pelt sell from her booth in Peanuts?

Advice: her most regular patient is Charlie Brown, the same boy whose football she keeps yanking away.

Charles Schulz's nickname "Sparky" came from a horse in which comic strip?

Barney Google: an uncle named him after the strip's horse, Spark Plug, and Schulz later signed his early cartoons "Sparky".

Which comic-strip boy's name was licensed by an American maker of children's shoes?

Buster Brown: the shoe line also used the name of his sweetheart Mary Jane, which is why strapped girls' shoes are called Mary Janes.

What is the first name of Garfield's owner in Jim Davis's comic strip?

Jon: Davis first pictured the cat as sidekick to shy Jon Arbuckle, and the strip ran as Jon until it was renamed Garfield in 1977.

Calvin and Hobbes take their names from which pair of historical figures?

A theologian and a philosopher: John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, though the tiger's personality came from Watterson's own cat, Sprite.

Bill Watterson refused to allow what for Calvin and Hobbes during its 1985-1995 run?

Merchandise and animated adaptations: he fought his syndicate for years over licensing, so almost no legitimate Calvin and Hobbes merchandise exists.

What is the name of Calvin's babysitter in Calvin and Hobbes?

Rosalyn: a high-school senior, she demands advance payment and raises from Calvin's parents, and in her final story she beats him at Calvinball.

Gary Larson's The Far Side coined which term for the spikes on a Stegosaurus's tail?

Thagomizer: the joke word stuck and became the informal name for the real spikes on stegosaur tails.

Which scientist's institute protested a Far Side cartoon that joked about her?

Jane Goodall: she found the joke funny, overruling her institute's complaint, and later wrote a preface for a Far Side collection.

Why did Dilbert lose its distributor and hundreds of newspapers in 2023?

Its creator's racist remarks in a video: Scott Adams then moved the strip online as Dilbert Reborn, available only by subscription.

Which heroine did Dalia Messick create after she began signing her strips as Dale?

Brenda Starr: Messick felt editors were prejudiced against women, and when she retired, women writers and artists took over the strip.

The name "Doonesbury" combines prep-school slang for a clueless person with the surname of whom?

Garry Trudeau's Yale roommate: Charles Pillsbury, and the strip's liberal politics later led some newspapers to run it on their editorial pages.

Blondie, created by Chic Young in 1930, features her husband Dagwood, famous for his love of what?

Sandwiches: his towering creations became so famous that English gained the term "Dagwood sandwich".

Beetle Bailey, created by Mort Walker in 1950, is set at which Army post?

Camp Swampy: Beetle began as a college student, but in March 1951 he quit school and joined the Army.

Who created Hägar the Horrible in 1973?

Dik Browne: the title came from a Browne family nickname, and his son Chris later took over the strip.

In Krazy Kat, what does the mouse Ignatz constantly throw at Krazy?

Bricks: Krazy takes every brick as a sign of love, while the police dog Offissa Pupp keeps throwing Ignatz in jail.

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo dreamed his way each week into which fantastical land?

Slumberland: however wild the dream got, each weekly page ended the same way, with Nemo waking up in the final panel.

Walt Kelly's Pogo, an opossum, lived in which real swamp?

The Okefenokee: Pogo began as a side character in Albert the Alligator's comic-book stories before getting his own newspaper strip in 1948.

Al Capp's Li'l Abner was set in which fictional hillbilly village?

Dogpatch: its Sadie Hawkins Day race, where single women chase down bachelors, gave America the Sadie Hawkins dance.

What coincidence marked the March 12, 1951 debut of Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace?

A British namesake launched: The Beano's unrelated Dennis the Menace went on sale that day, while Ketcham's boy was inspired by his own son.

What was Bil Keane's round-bordered strip about the Keane household originally called?

The Family Circle: when Family Circle magazine objected to the name, Keane changed the second word to Circus.

Cathy Guisewite's Cathy struggled with the "four basic guilt groups": food, love, family and what?

Work: Cathy's long-time boyfriend Irving finally married her in 2005, five years before the strip ended in 2010.

Which animal characters star in Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County?

Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat: after Breathed retired the strip in 1989, both turned up again in his Sunday strip Outland.

What is unusual about the format of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant?

It uses no word balloons: short captions tell the story, leaving Hal Foster's richly detailed, illustration-style panels uncluttered.

Which gadget did industrialist Diet Smith give detective Dick Tracy in 1946?

The wrist radio: Chester Gould is said to have got the idea after visiting inventor Al Gross, who built miniature two-way radios.

Little Orphan Annie took its name from an 1885 poem by which Hoosier poet?

James Whitcomb Riley: the orphan began as a boy, Little Orphan Otto, until publisher Joseph Patterson told Harold Gray to put a skirt on him.

Popeye first appeared in 1929 in which existing comic strip?

Thimble Theatre: within a year Popeye had replaced Ham Gravy as Olive Oyl's sweetheart, and the strip was eventually renamed after him.

Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy grew out of a strip about her aunt. What was that strip called?

Nancy was introduced in 1933 and took over the daily slot in 1938.

Marmaduke, the star of Brad Anderson's strip since 1954, is what breed of dog?

The Winslow family put up with him for six decades until 2015.

Reg Smythe's work-shy British strip character Andy Capp lives in which town?

Hartlepool: creator Reg Smythe was born there, and Andy first appeared in the Daily Mirror in 1957.

Mafalda, the six-year-old star of Quino's strip, comes from which country?

Argentina: Quino first drew her for a covert ad campaign for Mansfield appliances, and when it fell through she got her own strip.

Before creating Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis worked in what profession?

The strip's cast of Pig, Rat, Zebra, Goat and a fraternity of crocodiles frequently mocks other comic strips.

Bill Amend's FoxTrot switched to what schedule from the end of 2006?

Sundays only: after 18 years of daily deadlines, Bill Amend stepped back from the daily grind to free up his time.

Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks satirized politics through the eyes of which young radical?

Huey Freeman: he and his little brother have moved with their grandfather from Chicago to a mostly white suburb.

What made Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse distinctive?

The characters aged in real time, so the family's old sheepdog Farley eventually died, saving young April from drowning in 1995.

Where was B.C. creator Johnny Hart when he died in 2007?

At his drawing board: Hart suffered a stroke while working at home, and his grandsons later took over B.C.

Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott's 1990 strip about Darryl and Wanda MacPherson opened with which event?

Their first baby's birth: the opening strip is set in the hospital just after Zoe arrives, and Kirkman drew on raising his own children.

Patrick McDonnell's strip Mutts follows a dog named Earl and a cat named what?

Mooch: creator Patrick McDonnell folds his animal-rights causes into the strip, including Shelter Stories about animals in shelters.

In Jeff MacNelly's strip Shoe, the newspapermen are all what kind of creature?

Birds: creator Jeff MacNelly knew newsrooms well, having won three Pulitzer Prizes as a political cartoonist.

In Get Fuzzy, ad executive Rob Wilco lives with a cat named Bucky and a gentle dog named what?

Satchel: when a 2005 strip joked that a sportscaster named Lobel was drunk on TV, Boston sportscaster Bob Lobel sued cartoonist Darby Conley.

The Wizard of Id's title combines The Wizard of Oz with a term from which thinker?

Sigmund Freud: Johnny Hart took the idea for the strip's medieval kingdom of Id from the characters on a deck of playing cards.

Which two characters starred in George McManus's long-running strip Bringing Up Father?

Jiggs and Maggie: Jiggs struck it rich in the Irish Sweepstakes, but social-climbing Maggie keeps stopping him from seeing his old pals.

Which villainess leads the pirates in Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates?

The Dragon Lady: the villain's name passed into American slang for a domineering, ruthless woman.

Ziggy's creator Tom Wilson had been an executive at which company before the strip?

American Greetings: a Ziggy gift book the company published caught the eye of Universal Press Syndicate, which signed him up as a newspaper panel.