TURNING POINTS by Maggie Thompson
Here’s the latest installment of Maggie Thompson’s ongoing look at important beginnings, middles and ends, this time for October 7-13, 2016…
95 years ago October 12, 1921 Art Clokey is born as Arthur Farrington. He creates Gumby and Davey and Goliath.
90 years ago October 8, 1926 Writer-artist Lars Jansson is born. Tove Jansson’s brother, he writes and draws the Moomin comic strip after she gives it up.
85 years ago October 12, 1931 Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy strip begins daily continuity.
80 years ago October 9, 1936 Artist Mar Amongo is born. He contributes to DC comics during the 1970s and 1980s.
75 years ago October 13, 1941 Already a feature in freestanding Sunday newspaper comic book sections, Will Eisner’s The Spirit adds a spinoff daily strip from The Register and Tribune Syndicate.
55 years ago October 9, 1961 Award-winning writer-artist Matt Wagner is born. He creates Mage and Grendel.
45 years ago October 7, 1971 Walt Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks opens in the United Kingdom. Based on novels by Mary Norton, the film combines live-action and animation.
40 years ago October 11, 1976 The Virtue of Vera Valiant begins. It’s a newspaper strip written by Stan Lee and drawn by Frank Springer.
40 years ago October 13, 1976 Marvel International begins publication of the weekly Captain Britain comic book. Writer Chris Claremont and artists Herb Trimpe and Fred Kida introduce the Captain Britain character.
30 years ago October 10, 1986 Award-winning cartoonist, commercial artist, and Short Ribs creator Frank O’Neal dies at age 65.
15 years ago October 7, 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block, widely known as “Herblock,” dies of pneumonia at age 91.
