Henry (comic)
Encyclopedia
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created in 1932 by Carl Anderson
Carl Thomas Anderson
Carl Thomas Anderson was an American cartoonist best remembered for his comic strip Henry. Readers followed the pantomime adventures of the mute, bald-headed Henry in strips which he signed with his familiar signature displaying an enlarged "S": Carl AnderSon.-Background:Carl Thomas Anderson was...
. The title character is a young bald boy who is mute (and sometimes drawn minus a mouth). With the exception of a few early episodes, the comic strip character communicates only through pantomime
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
, a situation which changed when Henry moved into comic books.
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
was the first publication to feature Henry, a series which began March 19, 1932, when Anderson was 67 years old. The series of cartoons continued in that magazine for two years in various formats of single panel, multiple panels or two panels.
From cartoons to comic strip
After seeing a GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
publication of Henry, William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
signed Anderson to King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
and began distributing the comic strip on December 17. 1934, with the half-page Sunday strip launched March 10, 1935. Henry was replaced in The Saturday Evening Post by Marjorie Henderson Buell's Little Lulu
Little Lulu
"Little Lulu" is the nickname for Lulu Moppett, a comic strip character created in the mid-1930s by Marjorie Henderson Buell. The character debuted in The Saturday Evening Post on February 23, 1935 in a single panel, appearing as a flower girl at a wedding and strewing the aisle with banana peels...
.
Don Trachte
Donald Trachte was an American cartoonist. He graduated from Madison, Wisconsin's Central High School, attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later served in World War II as a lieutenant....
. His assistant on the dailies was John Liney
John Liney
John J. Liney was an American cartoonist, who drew the daily Henry comic strip for 44 years.Growing up in Philadelphia, Liney attended the George C. Thomas Middle School and South Philadelphia High School. He was working as a cartoonist at the Philadelphia Evening Ledger when he began selling gags...
. In 1942, arthritis kept Anderson away from the drawing board, so Anderson turned the dailies over to Liney, and Trachte drew the Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
s. When Liney retired in 1979, the strip appeared on Sundays only until Trachte's death in 2005. During that period, Jack Tippit
Jack Tippit
Jack Tippit is an American cartoonist whose work includes the comic strip Amy, which he produced from 1964 through 1991. He received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for the strip for 1970. He also received their Gag Cartoon Award for 1963 and 1966...
and Dick Hodgins, Jr.
Dick Hodgins, Jr.
Dick Hodgins, Jr. is a cartoonist whose work includes illustration, comic strips and political cartoons. Born in Binghamton, NY, the Hodgins family moved to Queens, NY...
also contributed. About 75 newspapers still run classic Henry strips drawn by Trachte, and it is also available through King Features' DailyINK.
Characters and story
Cartoonist Art Baxter analyzed the appeal of the character and the strip:- Henry was a strip that was supposed to be contemporary, but it never looked that way. There were almost no modern trappings. There may be cars or telephones, but that's about it. It always seemed like Henry could always find the coal wagon, horse-drawn ice delivery or a five-cent ice cream cone. There were always shadings of nostalgia in the strip, even when it began in the Depression. Part of that has to do with the fact that Henrys creator, Carl Anderson, was already an old man in his late sixties when he created the character by accident. Henry is autonomous in The Saturday Evening Post strips. Henry would not pick up a regular cast of characters, all with no proper names, only titles: the mother, the dog, the bully, the little girl, until it became a William Randolph Hearst comic strip. The Saturday Evening Post Henry is similar in many ways to the Little Rascals/Our GangOur GangOur Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
comedies of the same era. That is children free from the tyranny of an adult presence (mostly). Children navigating the world as best they can with the knowledge and experience they currently possess. Sometimes they get things right, often get things wrong and frequently come up with solutions to problems unique to their limited experience. Necessity is the mother of invention with funny surprising results.
Animation
Henry speaks in a Fleischer StudiosFleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
animated cartoon alongside Betty Boop
Betty Boop
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...
, titled Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American
Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American
Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American is a 1935 Fleischer Studios animated short film starring Betty Boop, and featuring Carl Anderson's Henry. The short was also released as Betty Boop with Henry.-Plot:...
(1935).
Comic book
Dell ComicsDell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...
published a color comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
, Carl Anderson's Henry, which ran 61 issues from 1946 to 1961. Henry spoke in the comic book, as did all the other characters.
Sources
- Strickler, DaveDave StricklerDave Strickler is a reference librarian noted for his compilation of Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index, regarded as a major reference work by researchers and historians of newspaper comic strips....
. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1