Sidney Smith (cartoonist)

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Sidney Smith (actually: Robert Sidney Smith ; born February 13, 1877 in Bloomington , Illinois , † October 20, 1935 in Chicago , Illinois) was an American comic artist and cartoonist. He became known for his daily strip The Gumps .

Smith, the son of a dentist, first drew cartoons for his hometown newspaper. His first comic book, Buck Nix , was written in 1908 for the Chicago Examiner . When he moved to the Chicago Tribune , he continued the strip under the name Old Doc Yak . This series with humanized animals also appeared various cartoons in which Smith was involved. In February 1917, at the suggestion of his publisher Joseph Medill Patterson, he began the series The Gumps , which was so successful that he had to stop work on Old Doc Yak in June 1919 in order to concentrate entirely on The Gumps . As the series progressed, Smith moved on to telling longer-lasting stories rather than providing a daily joke.

The financial success of his drawing activities was so great that Smith could afford several houses and a car park and give him the Great Depression could not touch. On the way back from signing a contract that would have earned him $ 1 million in earnings for the next three years and a Rolls-Royce as a bonus, Smith died in a car accident. The Gumps , one of the most popular daily strips in the 1920s and 1930s, was taken over by Gus Edson and continued through October 17, 1959.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Andreas C. Knigge : Comic-Lexikon . Ullstein Verlag , Frankfurt am Main; Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-548-36554-X , pp. 410 .
  2. ↑ a b Sidney Smith at lambiek.net (English) , accessed on December 12, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Sidney
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Robert Sidney (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comic artist and cartoonist
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Bloomington , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1935
Place of death Chicago , Illinois