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Top One Hundred Print Cartoon Creations
of the Century
Compiled for the Comic Buyer’s Guide
Somewhere Near the Beginning of 2000
Well, I swan.
You coulda fooled me.
I even strenuously maintained that
if it sounds like a duck, it must be a duck. So if you start saying “two
thousand” when referring to the year, it must mark the beginning of something
different—hence, the year 2000 was the beginning of the new millennium; and,
perforce, the year 1999 must be the end of the previous millennium.
Not so, I guess. We’re still here.
So the much bruted about end of the world, which would signal the transition
from one millennium to the next, must be just over the horizon.
Ditto for the century. Centuries end
in “tens” not “nines.” So the end of the Twentieth Century is the year 2000,
not the year 1999. But it won’t matter who is in the White House to lead us
into the Twenty-first Century because, as already noted, with the concurrent
end of the millennium, the world as we know it will cease to exist. And that
includes the White House.
While we still have time, then,
lemme put out my centennial list.
Fortunately for me, I have all of
the centennial lists of last year to refer to for guidance.
Last year, laboring under the heavy
misapprehension that 1999 was the last year of the century, lots of folks
celebrated by making up lists of one hundred of all manner of things. It was
the game of the season. It was a way of
celebrating the end of the century. There are other ways. But this
is the way numerous personages did their celebrating.
Some did it with a thousand things
instead of a hundred because they thought it was also the end of the millennium,
in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t
know that you could have avoided noticing. The racks of tabloid newspapers at the check-out stand in the grocery
stores screamed the significance of the millennium at you: that’s where I found
out it was the end of the world.
Well, this year, the last days are
surely upon us. The signs and portents
lay before us--pestilence and chaos on every hand. Crime and violence in the streets, mysterious new killer viruses
on the loose, radically changing weather patterns, earthquakes, floods,
famines, destruction and death and terrorism everywhere. If that’s not a portent, I wouldn’t know one
when I see one.
It’s pretty unsettling, let me tell
you. I don’t know if I can go through
this every thousand years.
One of the most intriguing
millennium lists is the one that makes up the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People. Agnes Hooper Gottlieb, Henry Gottlieb, Barbara Bowers, and Brent Bowers
undertook to rank order the one thousand men and women who did the most to
shape the past one thousand years. Their method is admirable in theory even if
tedious in execution. Using a Biograph
System, they awarded candidates points in each of five categories: lasting
influence, effect on the sum total of wisdom and beauty in the world, influence
upon contemporaries, singularity of contribution, and charisma. You could award as many as 10,000 points in
the first category; 2,000 in the last.
The highest possible score is
24,000, but the first ranking personage had only 21,768 points. That was Johannes Gutenberg, who invented
the printing press with movable type in the 1430s. He toted up a pretty good number of points in every category
except “charisma,” where he got only 210 points out of the 2,000 possible. How did our quartet of authors know
Gutenberg was an old stick in the mud? Dunno. Katherine Hepburn made the list. Ditto Captain Kidd and Coco Chanel. Andy Warhol is ranked 1,000 as a gesture of poetic justice: so at last
he’ll be famous for more than fifteen minutes. Lady Godiva didn’t make the
list, though. Neither did Amerigo
Vaspucci, Pocahontas, or Ronald Reagan. Or, alas, Cal Ripken, Jr.
In picking the top one hundred works
of comic art in the last century, my criteria aren’t as mathematically pure as
Gottlieb and Bowers’. In fact, my
method is simplicity itself. The
criteria? Just works of genius, that’s
all. Works of one kind of genius or
another.
Some are pace-setting (Terry, The Far Side, Peanuts), showing
others the way. Some are simply unique
exploitations of the medium by masters (Betsy
and Me, Popeye, Gordo, Alley Oop). Others are works of a cartoonist whose influence was wider than is
represented by a specific work; so these works (Scrooge McDuck, Dark Knight Returns, The Spirit) are
merely touchstones representing that cartoonist’s pervasive impact upon the
profession and the craft. And often I
mixed up both these criteria and myself. And sometimes, alas, I failed to
mention genuine works of genius because I didn’t know about them or hadn’t seen
enough of them. The comic strip 9 Chickweed Lane, for instance, should be on
this list somewhere: its creator, Brooke McEldowney, is clearly a master at his
craft. But I didn’t start watching the strip until after the old millennium
passed over my head.
In citing long-running works like
the comic strips Terry or Peanuts, I often give the dates of the
period when the work was most influential or at its peak. Here we go, starting at the “bottom” of the
ranking and working our way up to the “top”:.
100. Fabulous
Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton; flagship creation of the
underground by one of the medium’s founders.
99. Understanding
Comics by Scott McCloud; a vivid demonstration of the medium’s capacity for
serious, non-narrative discourse.
98. Usagi
Yojimbo by Stan Sakai; a superior example of non-superhero comics
storytelling in both picture and words.
97. Zippy by
Bill Griffith; an underground creation that crossed-over successfully to
syndication, proving that unconventional cartooning can survive in the mainstream.
96. Betsy and
Me by Jack Cole; an innovative comic strip in both graphic style and
narrative technique, the third of Cole’s masterful achievements in the medium.
95. Greeting cards by Sandra Boyton; a blend of words and pictures in a wholly novel (and
highly comical) manner.
94. Suburban
Heights (et al) by Gluyas Williams; a sustained example of Williams’
pristine black-and-white style.
93. David
Levine’s caricatures in New York
Review of Books, revived the art of pure caricature in this country.
92. Katzenjammer Kids by Rudolph Dirks; set the pace for the medium in the
closing years of the 19th century by deploying both words (in balloons) and
pictures to tell its stories.
91. Mort
Drucker’s caricatures in Mad parodies; a stunningly accurate “portrait” painter.
90. Mutt and
Jeff by Bud Fisher (1907-1930); the first daily “strip” established the
form by running across the page instead of in a box somewhere on the page.
89. Felix the
Cat by Otto Messmer; a visually inventive creation, Felix was the first
super star of animation.
88. Bootsie by Ollie Harrington; a social protest series of panel cartoons by a passionate
master.
87. Brenda
Starr by Dale Messick; a role model in the funnies by a role model at the
drawingboard, the first nationally recognized syndicated female cartoonist
(although not “the first syndicated female cartoonist”).
86. The Lonely
Ones by William Steig; shows how cartooning can step beyond laughter into
philosophical satire.
85. Gasoline
Alley by Frank King (1918-1946); the characters aged, year by year, and
also set the pace for homespun narrative in small town American when small town
America was vanishing apace.
84. Barney
Google (July 17, 1922 until DeBeck’s death in 1942); one of the first comic
strips to extend itself beyond the funnies pages into popular culture at large,
inspiring a popular song (“Barney Google with his goo-goo googly eyes”) and
coining a host of expressions (“sweet mama,” “balls afire,” “time’s a-wastin’,”
etc.--mostly from the hillbillies).
83. Little Annie
Fanny by Harvey Kurtzman & Will Elder; the most luxurious full-color
comic strip in print for the first 10-15 years of its run in Playboy.
82. Dark
Knight Returns by Frank Miller; revitalized superheroicism in comic books
by treating the superhero “realistically” as a flawed human being rather than
an icon.
81. Maus by Art Spiegelman; the first serious narrative in the medium to earn public
recognition via a Pulitzer Prize.
80. For Better
or For Worse by Lynn Johnston; a comic strip with heart and humanity,
setting an example for the medium.
79. Rose Is
Rose by Pat Brady; one of the few imaginative visualizations yoking word
and picture in newspaper comics.
78. Dennis the
Menace by Hank Ketcham; a stylistic triumph in black-and-white.
77. Caspar
Milquetoast by H. T. Webster; one of the first comic strip celebrities to
have his name seep into popular culture.
76. Magazine cartoons by Tom Henderson (1950s); visual-verbal blending of the first order.
75. Joe
Palooka by Ham Fisher (c. 1935-1950); one of the most popular comic strips
in the medium’s history, the strip’s hero was a role model for young Americans.
74. Professor Lucifer G. Butt’s Inventions by Rube Goldberg; another cartoonist who
infiltrated popular culture, giving his name in the dictionary to any
mechanical device that seems more complicated in operation than the task it is
intended to perform.
73. The Far
Side by Gary Larson; set the pace for bizarre humor in the last decades of
the century.
72. Harem girl cartoons E. Simms Campbell; a place-holder for the cartoonist who designed
Esky, the goggle-eyed mascot for Esquire magazine, and who devised the comedy for most of the magazine’s cartoons in the
early years.
71. Political cartoons by Rollin Kirby; the first winner of a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning,
Kirby invented the notorious Mr. Dry, a funereal symbol of Prohibition in the
twenties.
70. The Gumps by
Sidney Smith; established the continuing story mode for daily comic strips,
making suspense a vital ingredient on the comics pages.
69. Bringing
Up Father by George McManus; by the 1940s, Jiggs and Maggie were probably
the most famous comic strip characters in the world--and they were elegantly
rendered, too, by a master.
68. New Yorker cartoons by Charles Addams established
the macabre in cartoon humor.
67. Male Call by Milton Caniff; the most widely circulated comic strip in history (about
4,000 base and unit newspapers during World War II), it featured the curvaceous
Miss Lace, a daringly risque departure in comic strippery but justified considering
the exclusive audience--soldiers and sailors in wartime, who, Caniff said,
needed to be reminded of what they were fighting for.
66. He Done
Her Wrong by Milt Gross; a graphic novel without words, a tour de force.
65. Betty, Veronica, and My Friend Irma by Dan DeCarlo (1950s); established a
style for rendering cute but sexy women.
64. Gordo by
Gus Arriola (c. 1955 on); a beautifully designed strip that also deliberately
acquainted its readers with the customs, language, and folkart of Mexico.
63. Polly and
Her Pals by Cliff Sterrett (c.1925-1950); another triumph in graphic
design.
62. Little
Lulu comic books by John Stanley; captured the aura of childhood like no
one else except, maybe--
61. Capp
Stubbs and Tippie by Edwina Dumm; the first lady of cartooning (who was
doing editorial cartoons for a daily newspaper before women could vote), Edwina
defied logic again by producing the epitome of a boy strip for over 40 years.
60. Calvin and
Hobbes by Bill Watterson; captures the child within us all but with an
adult perspective.
59. Editorial cartoons by Jeff MacNelly (c. 1970-1990); the pace-setter in editorial
cartooning for the last quarter of the century.
58. Boys’
Ranch comic books by Jack Kirby (mostly) and Joe Simon; the apogee of the
team’s achievement in visuals and thematic narrative.
57. Skippy by Percy Crosby; the classic roughneck boy down the block, Skippy was, by
turns, philosophical and petulant, but he was always a graphic delight,
Crosby’s sketchy renderings capturing youthful energy like no one else (not
even Edwina).
56. Sad Sack by George Baker (1942-1946); everyone’s low man on the totem, the Sad Sack was
the quintessential put-upon dogface soldier of World War II.
55. Gasoline
Alley by Dick Moores (c. 1960-1986); in revitalizing Frank King’s classic,
Moores proved that a successor can improve upon a creator’s achievement.
54. Li’l Abner by Al Capp (1934-1960); the second strip in the “modern era” (since 1930) to
have a political stance, Abner paved
the way for all political satire in the last half of the century.
53. New Yorker cartoons by George Price; unique
renderings, Price’s drawings represented the dottiest of our population in the
most loving manner.
52. Masses cartoons
by Art Young; exemplar of an
idealistically driven cartoonist, Young never drew a cartoon whose message he
didn’t believe in passionately once he’d converted to Socialism in the early
years of the century.
51. Fox and
Crow comic books by Jim Davis; the con man and his perpetual victim were
never so thoroughly explored (and exploited) as in this title.
50. Editorial cartoons by J.N. Darling (“Ding”) (c.1910-1945); perhaps the first
nationally-recognized editorial cartoonist, Ding set the graphic fashion for
his generation of the breed.
49. Bravo for
Adventure by Alex Toth; a beautifully executed expression of a cartoonist’s
belief in his art and in the moral function of heroism.
48. Playboy cartoons by Jack Cole; divorcing himself from the linear medium of comic books,
Cole set the pace for all Playboy cartoonists with his watercolor masterpieces of the mid- to late-fifties.
47. Editorial cartoons by Paul Conrad; particularly during the Nixon administration and
ensuing Watergate era, Conrad exemplified hard-hitting, merciless metaphorical
cartooning.
46. Fantastic
Four comic books by Jack Kirby (mostly) and Stan Lee; a watershed creation
that sparked a revival of superhero comic books.
45. Blondie by
Chic Young (until c. 1960); the ultimate in domestic comedy for its time, Blondie was among the top five comic
strips in worldwide circulation. Still is.
44. Crimebuster stories in Boy Comics by Charles Biro and Norman Maurer; a benchmark here for
the documentary style of narration that characterized the Lev Gleason books of
the 1940s and 1950s, setting a model for Kurtzman and others, who, later, tried
for serious storytelling in the medium.
43. Mickey
Mouse (comic strip) by Floyd Gottfriedson (c.1930-c.1950); established the
character of The Mouse better than the films.
42. Dick Tracy by Chester Gould (c. 1930-1953); set the pace for authenticity as well as
violence in cops and robbers strips.
41. Little
Orphan Annie by Harold Gray (c. 1930-1949); exemplified self-reliance for a
Depression-racked country and was perhaps the first nationally distributed
strip to overtly assume a “political” stance.
40. Daredevil by Frank Miller; demonstrated how a creative intelligence can revive a
faltering character in a marketplace medium.
39. Spider-Man by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee; shifted the age group to which superhero comic
books appealed from early to late teens, attracting a college audience.
38. EC horror
comics by Al Feldstein and Jack Davis and Graham Ingels; created a new kind
of comic story with twist endings and vivid grisly graphics.
37. EC science
fiction comics by Al Feldstein and Wally Wood; another standard
established, particularly in visuals.
36. Mad parodies
as drawn by Wally Wood; for cute
silliness and sexy cartoon women, unequaled.
35. Mad marginals
by Sergio Aragones; masterful
pantomime comic art of seemingly endless inventiveness.
34. Batman by
Bob Kane and Bill Finger; added costumed vigilantism to the comic book canon
with the second of the genre’s icons.
33. Beetle
Bailey by Mort Walker; helped change the direction of newspaper comic
strips by introducing magazine-style drawing.
32. Scrooge
McDuck by Carl Barks; a complex and whole personality infused into a duck
and coupled to moral lessons in perfect tune with his society.
31. Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau; turned name-dropping into political satire, a major step for
syndicated comic strips.
30. Editorial cartoons by Herblock; a hard-hitting pace-setter in the 1950s who coined the
term McCarthyism.
29. Superman by
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; a creation that was soon so popular that it
spawned an entire industry.
28. EC war
stories by Harvey Kurtzman; took the glamour out of war and established a
new style of comic book storytelling, too.
27. Stories in Zap Nos. 1-4 and Snatch Nos. 1-3 by Robert Crumb; the success of these
titles took underground cartoonists out of newspapers and into comic book
formats, virtually creating underground comix.
26. Mad parodies as drawn by Will Elder (Nos. 1-23); manic visual invention set Mad’s style.
25. Sick Sick
Sick by Jules Feiffer; a new approach to social commentary in which characters
reveal their flaws in endless monologues.
24. Little
Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay; a work of graphic genius so far ahead
of its time that it was never successfully imitated.
23. Alley Oop by V. T. Hamlin (1939-1960); an absorbing combination of legend, history,
science fantasy, and, even, comedy, all held together by the commanding
presence of a taciturn cave man.
22. Willie and Joe WWII cartoons by Bill Mauldin; caught the essence of the
dogface (soldier in the trenches) for a generation.
21. Krazy Kat by
George Herriman; a lyric poem to the triumph of love.
20. Barnaby by
Crockett Johnson; more lyricism, but this time of the high comedy kind that
champions the power of imagination over reality.
19. The
Pie-face Prince of Old Pretzleburg by George Carlson; an inimitable work of
visual puns and linguistic legerdemain, wedded in antic comedy.
18. Captain
Marvel by C. C. Beck and Otto Binder; a superhero of science fantasy that
mocked the conventions of the genre, creating comedy as well as suspense and
adventure.
17. Peanuts by
Charles Schulz; in visual style, comedic approach, and sheer merchandising, the
strip that so changed the face of newspaper comics as to justify our dubbing
the last forty years of the comics’ first century The Age of Schulz.
16. Tarzan by
Harold Foster; in the Sunday pages particularly, established realistic
illustration as a visual standard for serious adventure comics.
15. Cartoons in True magazine by Virgil Partch (VIP) (c.
1940-1955); re-vitalized the single-panel magazine gag cartoon by making the
sense of the picture dependent upon understanding the caption beneath and vice
versa.
14. Cartoons in assorted 1920s publications by John Held, Jr.; pictures that set the
fashion for the Jazz Age.
13. Plastic
Man by Jack Cole; apart from the novelty of an elastic superhero, these
comic books were hilarious demonstrations of the power of sight gags to infuse
a creation with a distinctive ambiance--in short, a cartoonist’s power.
12. Captain
America by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon; demonstrated how to render action
sequences with such persuasive graphic power as to make superheroes believable.
11. Mad comic book (Nos. 1-23) by Harvey
Kurtzman; satire that stripped pretense and posturing away from social
institutions, setting the style for the magazine for a generation and ripping
the rose-tinted glasses from the eyes of American Youth raised on Disney
visions of homespun rural contentment.
10. Thimble
Theatre (Popeye) by E. C. Segar (1929 until Segar’s death in 1938); a work
of endless comedic invention and visual genius (Popeye’s bulging forearms alone
convinced us of his fistic prowess).
9. New Yorker cartoons by Peter Arno (1927-1950); embodying the
spirit of the magazine as no other New
Yorker cartoonist, Arno made his words completely dependent upon the
pictures for comedic sense (and vice versa) thereby establishing the
single-speaker caption for gag cartoons.
8. The Spirit by Will Eisner; after
developing the grammar of the comic book form in the late 1930s, Eisner went on
to demonstrate how a masked crime-fighter could provide a framework for human
interest stories with genuinely literary qualities.
7. Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond; the most
vivid demonstration of the power of stunning visuals for creating a world.
6. Wash Tubbs (and Captain Easy) by Roy
Crane (c. 1928-1943); the adventure strip that inspired and led all the others.
5. Sports
cartoons by Willard Mullin; set the
style for the entire genre.
4. Theatrical
caricatures by Al Hirschfeld;
another who, like Mullin, embodies an entire cartooning genre.
3. Editorial
cartoons by Pat Oliphant; revolutionized the appearance of editorial cartooning and its method by making
comedy a weapon.
2. Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff
(1934-1946); redefined the adventure strip genre by practicing a chiaroscuro
manner for realistic rendering and by making character integral to his plots.
1. Pogo by Walt Kelly; at its best, this
strip scaled the heights to which the visual-verbal medium of cartooning can
aspire by combining vaudevillian comedy and caricature with satirical allegory,
creating meaning on two levels at once, each serving the purposes of the other.
That’s my list. About which, without further adieu, I say merely: stay ’tooned.
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