Here’s the latest installment of Maggie Thompson’s ongoing look at important beginnings, middles, and ends, this time for August 7-13, 2026…

510 years ago August 9, 1516 Hieronymus Bosch dies at age 65 or 66. The influential painter was known for his fantastic imagery and use of connected sequences.

270 years ago August 13, 1756 Influential British caricaturist and printmaker James Gillray is born. He’s called “the father of the political cartoon.” With William Hogarth and George Cruikshank, he is one of the “Big Three” of 1700s political cartoonists and uses speech balloons and sequential narratives.

150 years ago August 8, 1876 Prolific British writer Charles Hamilton (who also works as Frank Richards) is born.

150 years ago August 8, 1876 Harry James Westerman is born. The Puck cartoonist creates The Dinkelspiels, written by George V. Hobart.

125 years ago August 10, 1901 Australian artist Emile Mercier is born.

125 years ago August 12, 1901 Animator and writer-artist Bob Kuwahara (who works as “Bob Kay”) is born. He creates the Marvelous Mike strip and writes and directs 14 “Hashimoto-san” theatrical shorts.

115 years ago August 11, 1911 Belgian cartoonist Paul Jamin is born.

115 years ago August 13, 1911 Hungarian artist and pioneer animator Viktor Kálmán is born. He’s best known for Sing along with Khrushchev Coloring Book and Red Primer for Children and Diplomats.

105 years ago August 7, 1921 Maurice Tillieux is born. The Belgian writer-artist is known for Félix and Gil Jourdan.

100 years ago August 7, 1926 Influential writer-artist Thomas Starling Sullivant dies at age 71. He was especially known for his anthropomorphic animal cartoons.

100 years ago August 7, 1926 Artist Hi Mankin is born. Known for his work on Hanna-Barbera material and comic strip assists, he freelances to DC, Dell, Lev Gleason, and more and provides storyboards for films.

100 years ago August 12, 1926 Douglas Croft is born as Douglas Malcolm Wheatcroft. He’s the first actor to play Robin (in the 1943 Batman serial).

95 years ago August 7, 1931 Spanish writer-artist Isaac del Rivero de la Llana is born.

95 years ago August 12, 1931 Luis Bermejo is born. The Spanish artist is especially known for his work for Warren’s Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines.

95 years ago August 12, 1931 Italian artist Tito Marchioro is born.

90 years ago August 9, 1936 Professor Brainstine tells the origin of Eugene the Jeep in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre.

85 years ago August 13, 1941 Motion picture pioneer James Stuart Blackton dies at age 66 after being hit by a car. The silent era film producer was co-founder of Vitagraph Studios using stop motion and drawn animation and played Happy Hooligan in Vitagraph shorts.

80 years ago August 10, 1946 Belgian artist and teacher Claude Renard is born.

80 years ago August 13, 1946 Herbert George Wells dies at age 79. One of the fathers of science fiction, he wrote The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds.

70 years ago August 10, 1956 Peter Robbins is born. He’s the first person to voice Charlie Brown in animated shows and he plays Alexander Bumstead in the Blondie TV series.

70 years ago August 12, 1956 Elmer creator Doc Winner dies of cancer at age 71.

65 years ago August 9, 1961 French writer-artist Joseph Hémard dies at age 81. He was president of Parisian Humoristes in 1918.

65 years ago August 9, 1961 Animator, writer-artist, and teacher Ted Stearn is born. He creates Fuzz & Pluck.

65 years ago August 11, 1961 Eclipse editor Letitia Glozer is born.

60 years ago August 11, 1966 Cartoonist Ed Wheelan dies of a heart attack at age 78. He created the newspaper strip Midget Movies, which became Minute Movies for a different syndicate. He morphed the feature for comic books, providing it to Flash Comics and spinning off into EC’s Fat and Slat. He also created Comics McCormick, “The World’s #1 Comic Book Fan.”

60 years ago August 13, 1966 Too Much Coffee Man creator cartoonist Shannon Wheeler is born. He co-creates The Mueller Report Graphic Novel (2020) with Steve Duin.

55 years ago August 12, 1971 French artist Michel Koeniguer is born.

50 years ago August 11, 1976 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer creator Robert L. May dies at age 71.

50 years ago August 11, 1976 DC creates the position of public relations director and hires Mike Gold to do the job.

45 years ago August 7, 1981 The Columbia Pictures animated feature Heavy Metal is released. Produced by Ivan Reitman, it’s based on stories, art, and characters that appear in the magazine of that name.

45 years ago August 13, 1981 Belgian artist Gustaaf De Bruyne dies at age 67.

30 years ago August 7, 1996 The radio announcer and voice artist who voices (and is the Rotoscoping reference for) Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels (1939), Sam Parker dies at age 89.

30 years ago August 12, 1996 Writer, editor, and artist Mark E. Gruenwald dies of a heart attack at age 43. (His face was the inspiration for the head of Marvel’s Time Variance Authority, featured in the Loki series.)

25 years ago August 10, 2001 Mad writer-editor Jerry DeFuccio dies of cancer at age 76.

25 years ago August 10, 2001 Swiss artist Pericle Luigi Giovannetti dies at age 85. He created magazine cartoons featuring the marmot Max.

20 years ago August 9, 2006 2000 AD #1500 launches the “Origins” storyline (by John Wagner and Kev Walker) for Judge Dredd.

15 years ago August 12, 2011 Award-winning Argentine artist Francisco Solano Lopez dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 82. He co-founded the publisher Frontera.

10 years ago August 7, 2016 French comics writer Jean Sanitas dies at age 88. He was awarded the Légion d’Honneur.