''Ching Chow'' is an American one-panel cartoon that was created by Sidney Smith and

Stanley Link Stanley Link (1894 - December 24, 1957 ) was an American cartoonist and comics artists, best known for '' Tiny Tim''. Link took a correspondence course in cartooning when he was a teenager. When he was sixteen, he began to work with an animation ...

.Link entry
Lambiek's ''Comiclopedia''. Accessed Oct. 28, 2018. It first appeared on January 17, 1927, and ran for more than 60 years, under a variety of different creators. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune / New York Daily News Syndicate.Markstein, Don
"Ching Chow,"
Toonpedia. Accessed Oct. 28, 2018. The title character was a stereotypical

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

man with slanty eyes and a big, toothy grin. He offered pearls of

Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...

-style wisdom, like "Beware of silent dog and still water." Because Ching Chow was first published in the United States in 1927, the character entered the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

in 2023.

Publication history

Comic strip expert

Don Markstein Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

postulates that Link illustrated the strip from the beginning, with the more well-known Smith's name being attached to give the strip credibility. When Smith died in 1935, Link's name was credited, until his own death in 1957. Link's former assistant Will Henry then produced the strip until it ended syndication in 1971. The strip was revived from 1975 to 1976 by the writer/illustrator team of Rocco Lotto and Will Levinson. Henri Arnold wrote and drew the strip from 1976 until it was discontinued on May 12, 1990. Arnold created a new cartoon, ''Meet Mr. Luckey'', "a virtually identical strip except that it now featured a life-size leprechaun." He continued with ''Mr. Luckey'' until 2009, when it was officially retired.

Concept

As with

Charlie Chan Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alt ...

, in later decades critics took contending views, finding that ''Ching Chow'' reinforced condescending Asian stereotypes such as an alleged incapacity to speak idiomatic English and a tradition-bound and subservient nature. As one critic wrote about ''Ching Chow'', "It wasn’t as much a strip as it was a daily

fortune cookie A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", usually an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chines ...

." In later years, ''Ching Chow'' was viewed by many as a secret tip sheet for playing the numbers — the panel would appear far in the back pages of the ''New York Daily News''. In a 1978 ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...

'' article, one believer is quoted as saying, "Why you think ''Ching Chow'' has been in the newspaper all these years? Because it's funny? Hah, hah."Kelly, John.
On Ching Chow, Lucky Numbers, and Gambling
" ''The Comics Journal'' (December 2, 2015).

References

{{Tribune Content Agency comics American comic strips 1927 comics debuts 1990 comics endings Fictional Qing dynasty people Gag-a-day comics Gag cartoon comics American comics characters Male characters in comics Ethnic humour Race-related controversies in comics Comics characters introduced in 1927 Stereotypes of East Asian people Public domain comics

Publication history

Concept

See also

References