Medium: Newspaper comics
Distributed by: The New York World
First Appeared: 1895
Creator: Richard F. Outcault
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Cartoonist Richard Felton Outcault started drawing funny pictures about New York tenements in 1894, for Truth magazine. The first appeared in that year's June 2 edition. On Feb. 17, 1895, one of them was reprinted in Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, The New York World, inaugurating the series from which "The Yellow Kid" would eventually emerge. By the end of that year, Outcault was doing full-page ones, in color, on a weekly basis, under the title "Hogan's Alley" (which appeared on a street sign as early as the very first of the Truth magazine cartoons). Gradually, there emerged a distinctive young character, identifiable by a bald head, huge ears, and a bright yellow nightshirt, which later had his dialog written on it. He wasn't usually addressed by any particular name (although when that did happen, the name was was Mickey Dugan), but readers came to know him as "The Yellow Kid". R. F. Outcault and the Yellow Kid demonstrated that the Sunday comics could sell newspapers and other forms of merchandise, and firmly established the comics as a permanent part of the American newspaper. |