A happy 100th anniversary to the long-running classic News comic strip, Winnie Winkle, debuting as a daily strip on September 20, 1920 in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News and ending a 75 year run on July 28, 1996, in that self-same New York Daily News.
From my pal, John Wells:
"One hundred years ago, cartoonist Martin Branner introduced 'Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner' in the pages of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. Developed from a concept of newspaper syndicate head Joseph Patterson, Winnie was a trailblazing early example of the working girl strip. While her less-than-ambitious father sat at home, Winnie supported the family for the likes of safety pin manufacturer Barnaby Bibbs and fashion king Edwin Bonnaz. Under Branner, the series was a comedy, albeit one that was interspersed with melodrama and tragedy. Winnie's husband, Bill Wright, was presumed dead four times during the feature's run, the first instance occurring as the blonde stenographer gave birth to twins. The strip transitioned to dramatic soap opera in the 1950's with a more dramatic art style by Branner assistants like Jack Berrill and Max Van Bibber. Following a series of strokes in the early 1960's, Branner effectively retired with Van Bibber and writer Henry Raduta as the new creative team. Van Bibber in turn, was succeeded by students of the Joe Kubert School and Frank Bolle in the early 1980's while Leonard Starr came aboard to ghost-write the feature in 1985. Now the head of a major fashion company, Winnie had come a long way since she was a stenographer for Mr. Bibbs. Unfortunately, her popularity was a shadow of its former self. Once flagship paper The Chicago Tribune dropped the strip on November 26, 1994, the writing was on the wall. Winnie Winkle ended its run on July 28, 1996 in the New York Sunday News and a relative handful of other papers."
I'm going to limit the history lesson to John's words above and post a long sample of Sunday pages, one per year, through the decades of this iconic feature as it ran in the New York Sunday News comics, depicting the changes through the 3/4 century. The Sunday page debuted on April 2, 1922. The topper Looie Blooie, which became just Looie,
came and went over the decades in this paper, finally petering out by
the early 1960's, by which time it was done in a black "silhouette"
style for approximately the last 5 years. The mid 1930's, mostly 1935, also had "Fashion Cut-Out" and "Style Story" features for a short while. Two "Style Story" examples are below, both from 1935, not placed into the yearly survey I've assembled here.
And sadly, by the 1970's and beyond, editors would frequently truncate the Sunday page from 3 tiers to 2 tiers in order to fit 3 strips per page. A practice amounting to highway robbery, in my humble opinion. The practice varied from week to week depending on ads and space.
[*** Warning...Newspaper comic strips of certain earlier decades, specifically the 1910's, 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's, often depicted racial stereotypes in a manner completely unacceptable today. As they were common across all media of the time, pretending they didn't exist, or censoring them, would be an injustice to accurate history. Please keep this context in mind. ***]
[*** Additional note... The Sunday pages of the early 1940's through the early 1950's primarily featured the character and family of Denny Dimwit, a pin-head shaped dunce whose fractured syntax and coarse misadventures were very popular (even spawning toy dolls). From today's perspective, the character stereotypes of an uneducated, poverty-stricken family comes across somewhat less amusing and a bit awkward than as humorously originally perceived in mid 20th century popular culture. ***]
A Winnie Winkle themed illustrated envelope for a 1944 letter from Martin Branner to his son Bernard during the war.....
The 1920's:
April 2, 1922 (debut Sunday page)
April 1, 1923 (original art)
The 1930's:
August 10, 1930
April 5, 1931
January 1, 1933 (original art)
October 29, 1933
March 11, 1934
March 27, 1938
July 23, 1939
The 1940's:
January 21, 1940
December 7, 1941
October 18, 1942
March 28, 1943
February 27, 1944
December 23, 1945
November 10, 1946
December 28, 1947
April 4, 1948
October 30, 1949
The 1950's:
December 3, 1950
February 18, 1951
June 15, 1952
April 5, 1953
June 20, 1954 (last Denny Dimwit Sunday)
November 20, 1955
May 13, 1956
February 17, 1957
March 30, 1958
May 31, 1959
October 2, 1960
December 17, 1961
October 7, 1962
November 3, 1963
March 22, 1964
January 24, 1965
December 25, 1966
November 12, 1967
September 29, 1968
November 2, 1969
The 1970's:
March 15, 1970
December 26, 1971
July 30, 1972
July 1, 1973
July 28, 1974
November 2, 1975
March 7, 1976
November 13, 1977
December 17, 1978
August 31, 1980
December 12, 1981
December 19, 1982
April 17, 1983
August 5, 1984
September 1, 1985
March 9, 1986
August 30, 1987
September 25, 1988
July 23, 1989
November 11, 1990
June 16, 1991
September 6, 1992
November 14, 1993
December 18, 1994
July 9, 1995
July 28, 1996 (final Sunday page)
SOURCES:
- All scans are from the author's personal collection of the New York Sunday News Comics except for 10 scans, including the debut Sunday, which came from the collection of my friend John Wells, whose help was much appreciated. Thanks also to John for guest writing the strip's history at the top of this page.
- Original art scans courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
- Photo of Martin Branner and scan of illustrated envelope from my friend Shaun Clancy, both used with his permission.
