''An Altar Boy Named Speck'', also known as ''Speck the Altar Boy'', is an American

gag cartoon A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-Panel (comics), panel cartoon, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech balloons, following the com ...

comic strip series created by Tut LeBlanc."Speck the Altar Boy, by Margaret Ahern,"
ComicStripFan.com. Accessed Dec. 31, 2018. The strip first appeared March 1, 1951 in ''Catholic Action of the South'', which was the official paper of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans The Archdiocese of New Orleans (; ; ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson (except Grand Isle), Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washingt ...

. Margaret Ahern continued the Speck comic upon LeBlanc's 1953 death, drawing it until 1979. The comic is about a mischievous but lovable

altar boy An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, helping bring up the gifts, and bringing up ...

who keeps getting into various kinds of trouble.

Tut LeBlanc

Wilmer Ralph "Tut" LeBlanc (born in Perry, Louisiana, 1915; died February 23, 1953) was a self-taught artist. In 1943, he married Mildred Marie Simon. He drew the Speck material while living in

Abbeville, Louisiana Abbeville is a city in, and the parish seat of, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,257 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. At the 2020 Population Estimates Program, populat ...

, where he had spent most of his life. He died in 1953 from heart problems that he had had since childhood.

Collections

The ''Speck'' cartoons have been collected in various reprint volumes. *LeBlanc cartoons **''An Altar Boy Named “Speck”'' (Lafayette, LA: Tribune Printing Plant, 1952) - reprinted by

Our Sunday Visitor Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) is a Catholic publishing company in Huntington, Indiana, which prints the American national weekly newspaper of that name, as well as numerous Catholic periodicals, religious books, pamphlets, catechetical materials, ...

and

About Comics About Comics is a publisher of comics and comics-related material founded in 1998 by Nat Gertler. According to Gertler, it is intended to be " eithera mainstream comics publisher, nor an alternative comics publisher". The company has published ...

. **''Speck: More Cartoons'' (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1952) **''An Altar Boy Named 'Speck': The Collection Compilation'' (Camarillo, CA: About Comics, 2024) - reprints both previous books as a single volume. *Ahern cartoons **''Speck the Altar Boy'' (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1958) **''Presenting Speck the Altar Boy'' (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1960) **''Speck: The Altar Boy'' (New York: All Saints Press, 1963) - reprints all of the first and part of the second Hanover House volumes. **''A Speck of Trouble: New Escapades of the Inimitable and Irresistible Speck, the Altar Boy'' (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964) **''Speck the Altar Boy: The Collection Compilation'' (Camarillo, CA: About Comics, 2021) - reprints both Hanover House books as a single volume.

References

Notes

Sources

* 1951 comics debuts 1979 comics endings American comic strips

Speck Speck can refer to a number of European cured pork products, typically salted and air-cured and often lightly smoked but not cooked. In Germany, speck is pickled pork fat with or without some meat in it. In the Netherlands and Flanders, in Du ...

Gag cartoon comics Gag-a-day comics Comics about children Fictional Christians Christian comics {{comic-strip-stub