Richard Felton Outcault
Richard Felton Outcault (born January 14, 1863 in Lancaster , Ohio , † September 25, 1928 in Flushing , New York ) was an American cartoonist , author and painter. He is the creator of the cartoon characters The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown .
Outcault was the son of Jesse and Catherine Outcault. From 1878 to 1881 he attended McMicken University's School of Design in Cincinnati . In 1889 he became a draftsman for Thomas Alva Edison . On his behalf he went to the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 , where he took the opportunity to complete his artistic training. In 1890, after his return to the United States, he began drawing comic contributions for magazines such as Truth and Judge .
In 1894, his most famous character, "The Yellow Kid", appeared for the first time in Truth magazine . In the same year he switched to a permanent position at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World . There his series appeared under the title Hogan's Alley with the Yellow Kid, initially in a small format and in black and white, without attracting special attention. That only changed when the series was published full-page and in color - with the protagonist's bright yellow nightgown standing out in particular. The success of the series led to a rapid increase in the circulation of the New York World , which did not escape William Randolph Hearst , who immediately lured Outcault for a higher fee for his New York Journal . A lawsuit between the two sheets resulted in Pulitzer retaining the title rights to Hogan's Alley , and the comic book published by Hearst under the title The Yellow Kid . In English, the term for tabloid journalism , yellow press , derives from Outcault's Yellow Kid .
literature
- Jens Balzer and Lambert Wiesing : Outcault. The invention of the comic. Bochum: Bachmann 2010. ISBN 978-3-941030-07-7
Web links
- Literature by and about Richard Felton Outcault in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Outcault, Richard Felton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American comic book artist, author, and painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 14, 1863 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lancaster, Ohio |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 25, 1928 |
| Place of death | Flushing |