The gumps

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The Gumps is the best known comic by the American cartoonist Sidney Smith . The daily strip , in which a person died for the first time in US comic history, appeared from 1917 to 1959. In addition, The Gumps was one of the first comic strips to appear as a sequel.

action

The focus is on the middle-class Gump family with father Andy, who tries every possible way to get rich. He is supported by his wife Min (short for Minerva) and their son Chester. The family also includes a cat named Hope, the dog Buck, the wealthy Uncle Bim and the housemaid Tilda. Smith had supporting character Mary Gold die in 1929. Initially, the strips were designed to end and close with a joke every day. As the series progressed, Smith changed his concept and introduced an ongoing plot. This makes The Gumps one of the first comic strips to appear as a sequel.

Publication and draftsman

At the suggestion of his publisher Joseph Medill Patterson , the comic artist Sidney Smith ended his strip Old Doc Yak, which appeared in the Chicago Tribune , as a daily strip in February 1917 by having the characters move out of the house that was the focus of the action. On February 12, 1917, Smith let the middle-class Gump family move into the same house. The Gump family strip was in the same spot in the newspaper as the Old Doc Yak strip before . The first Sunday page of The Gumps appeared on June 29, 1919.

Smith was temporarily supported in his work by Stanley J. Link , Harold Gray , who took over the lettering from 1921 to 1924 , and Sol Hess . When Smith died in a traffic accident, Gus Edson was appointed by Patterson to succeed him. The future actors Martin Landau and Ray Bailey assisted him at times .

The last strip of The Gumps came out on October 17, 1959.

Of The Gumps numerous animated films were made, particularly in the 1920s. In addition, there were numerous accompanying merchandising products in the 1920s .

reception

According to Andreas C. Knigge , Smith made The Gumps "the first real soap opera in comics and the most successful series of the twenties". Harald Havas also sees The Gumps as the most successful comic strip of the 1920s.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Press: Why Bertie! at time.com , accessed November 21, 2011
  2. ↑ The Gumps on britannica.com (English) ( Memento of 21 November 2011 at the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Andreas C. Knigge: Comic-Lexikon . Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main; Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-548-36554-X , p. 410.
  4. ↑ Marcel Feige: The little comic dictionary . Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-544-9 , p. 358.
  5. ↑ a b Andreas C. Knigge: Comics . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1996, ISBN 3-499-16519-8 , p. 47.
  6. ↑ Stanley J. Link on lambiek.net (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  7. ↑ Harold Gray on lambiek.net (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  8. ↑ Sol Hess on lambiek.net (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  9. ↑ Martin Landau's biography on imdb.com (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  10. ↑ Ray Bailey on lambiek.net (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  11. ↑ The Gumps on chicagotribune.com , accessed November 21, 2011
  12. ↑ The Andy Gump character on imdb.com (English) , accessed on November 21, 2011
  13. ^ Sidney Smith in the Internet Movie Database , accessed November 21, 2011
  14. ↑ Harald Havas : Comic Worlds. History and structure of the ninth art , Edition Comic Forum 1992, ISBN 3-900390-61-4 , p. 32.