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<TITLE>Richard Felton Outcault Biography</TITLE>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="2" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> <font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Imagine
a publishing magnate, keen to cultural trends and technological advances,
who hires an illustrator to create an image that, when published, will
reap astounding commercial gains by appealing to an untapped market.
In the face of critical dismissal, lawsuits, and ferocious competition,
he launches the career of an artist whose skill and originality guarantee
a huge and appreciative audience for a new art form.<BR>
<BR>
It reads like a potboiler, but these events directly correspond to the
story of publisher Joseph Pulitzer, illustrator <B>RICHARD FELTON OUTCAULT
(1863-1928)</B> and the origins of the American comic strip, a cultural
phenomenon now celebrating its centennial.<BR>
<BR>
Outcault began as a technical illustrator for Thomas Edison and as a
comic artist for the humor magazines <I>Judge</I> and <I>Life</I> as
well as other small circulation publications. When Pulitzer chose to
experiment with a color supplement to his national newspaper, the <I>Sunday
World</I>, in 1894, he included Outcault's first "Yellow Kid" cartoons.
On May 5, 1895, the first color comics section made its debut in that
paper with a large, single panel cartoon by Outcault on the front page
entitled "Hogan's Alley". It was a depiction of a fictitious incident
in a city slum, and therefore spoke immediately to the paper's growing
following of primarily Democratic immigrants. Its text was simple, yet
it was drawn in a naturalistic style true to the intellectual sensibilities
of the day as seen in Jacob Riis' photos and the writings of Stephen
Crane and William Dean Howells. And it featured "Mickey Dugan" aka "The
Yellow Kid", a bald, big-earred waif in a yellow gown decorated with
messages in street jargon who always looked directly at the reader -
a savvy graphic stroke on the cartoonist's part. "The Yellow Kid" served
as a visual focal point in a frenzied scene that burlesqued the social
and political concerns of the uppercrust and offered humor and commentary
for children and adults alike. Most importantly, he was memorable, and
his popularity assured the continuance of the color comics section,
which has since become an American entertainment institution on a par
with baseball and the movies.<BR>
<BR>
The fact that the "Yellow Kid" became a hotly contested property among
rival publishers further attests to its success. Outcault accepted a
lucrative offer to continue the comic in Pulitzer's rival's paper, William
Randolph Hearst's New York Journal; a lawsuit ensued which awarded the
title "Hogan's Alley" to the World and "Yellow Kid" to the Journal.
As a result, the papers boasted two "Yellow Kids" for a period of months,
one by Outcault and one penned by George Luks, who later gained fame
as a founder of the "Ashcan School".<BR>
<BR>
Outcault's work in "Hogan's Alley" and later comics like "Poor Lil Mose"
and "Buster Brown" popularized some innovations in comics and served
as a precursor to others. While he did not invent dialog balloons or
panel strips, his incorporation of these techniques promoted them as
the standard for the "funny pages". While he borrowed characters others
had sketched out, the graphic and verbal ingenuity with which he animated
them helped establish the archetypes which dominated comic strips for
twenty years, and which served as the foundation for comics to the present
day. It is easy to discern echoes of his pioneering work in the contemporary
panels of "Peanuts", "Doonesbury", and "Calvin and Hobbes". - J. P.<BR>
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<B>[The Yellow Kid in "Hogan's Alley", <I>New York World</I>, May
24, 1896, pen & ink]</B></font><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="2" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"><BR>
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