Bud Fisher

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Harry Conway "Bud" Fisher (born April 3, 1885 in Chicago , Illinois , † September 7, 1954 in New York City , New York ) was an American cartoonist, comic artist and director. He became known through the comic strip Mutt and Jeff , which was one of the first daily strips worldwide.

In 1905, after three years at the University of Chicago , Fisher dropped out and became a cartoonist with the San Francisco Chronicle for theater, sports, and general news. On November 15, 1907 his strip A. Mutt appeared for the first time , which had a strong similarity to the strip A. Piker Clerk by Clare Briggs, which had appeared a few years earlier . The title hero was Mutt, who was passionate about betting on horses and who mostly lost. In contrast to A. Piker Clerk, however, A. Mutt were real horses that were supposed to start on the day the respective strip was published, and the strip appeared on the sports page of the newspaper. Fisher was so successful that he was lured away by William Randolph Hearst's Examiner after just four weeks with his strip . In 1915 Fisher moved to the Wheeler Syndicate, where he received $ 1,000 a week for his strips . In 1921, his weekly salary was $ 4,600, making him the top paid draftsman of the time. Fisher, who after acquiring a racing team turned mainly to his passion for horse racing, had his strips drawn by assistants and only signed them. Fisher had started this practice quite early; so initially the then largely unknown George Herriman was one of his assistants.

Fisher directed over 300 film adaptations of Mutt and Jeff made from 1911 onwards and was also responsible for the scripts.

literature

  • Marcel Feige: The little comic dictionary . Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-544-9 , p. 281
  • Franco Fossati: The large illustrated Ehapa comic lexicon . Ehapa Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7704-0865-9 , p. 100
  • Andreas C. Knigge: Comic Lexicon . Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-548-36554-X , p. 197

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fisher, Bud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fisher, Harry Conway
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cartoonist, comic book artist and director
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH 7th September 1954
Place of death New York City , NY