''Gil Thorp'' is a sports-oriented comic strip which has been published since September 8, 1958. The main character, Gil Thorp, is the athletic director of Milford High School and coaches the football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

teams. In addition to the sports storylines, the strip also deals with issues facing teenagers such as teen pregnancy,

steroids A steroid is a biologically active organic compound with four rings arranged in a specific molecular configuration. Steroids have two principal biological functions: as important components of cell membranes that alter membrane fluidity; and ...

, and drug abuse.

History

The strip was created by Jack Berrill, who modeled and named Thorp after baseball player

Gil Hodges Gilbert Ray Hodges ('' né'' Hodge; April 4, 1924 – April 2, 1972) was an American first baseman and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played most of his 18-year career for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers. He was widely regarded as ...

and Olympic athlete

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Nativ ...

. The setting of Milford is named for

New Milford, Connecticut New Milford is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The town is in western Connecticut, north of Danbury, on the banks of the Housatonic River, and it shares its border with the northeastern shore of Candlewood Lake. It is ...

when he began writing the strip. Berrill continued the strip until he died of cancer on March 14, 1996. Over the course of his 38 years, Berrill broke ground with many of his stories, often dealing with sensitive social issues of the day. As editorial standards relaxed, he was able to move from stories about jalopies and after-school jobs to topics like teen pregnancy, divorce, steroids, and sexual harassment. When the ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...

'' had a problem getting a week's worth of strips, the newspaper received over 30,000 calls.

Writers

Upon Berrill's death, Tribune Media Services chose author Jerry Jenkins (co-author of the ''

Left Behind ''Left Behind'' is a multimedia franchise that started with a series of 16 bestselling religious novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It focuses on a seven-year conflict between the Tribulation Force, an underground network of converts ...

'' novels) to take over writing the strip. Jenkins had been in discussions with TMS about expanding previous ''Gil Thorp'' stories into a series of youth novels and was a logical replacement. Many of Jenkins' stories were written uncredited by his son Chad Jenkins, a baseball coach at Bethel College. The Jenkins stories discussed overtly religious topics which had not appeared in the strip before, including an

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses ...

football player and a 15-year-old pregnant girl whom Thorp talks out of getting an abortion. In 2004, Jenkins was followed as writer by ''

Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the '' Detroit Tribune'' on Februa ...

'' columnist Neal Rubin. In 2022, the Tribune Content Agency announced that graphic novel writer Henry Barajas would take over authorship of the strip beginning in July of that year.

Artists

The strip was drawn by Berrill from 1958–1993 until

glaucoma Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that result in damage to the optic nerve (or retina) and cause vision loss. The most common type is open-angle (wide angle, chronic simple) glaucoma, in which the drainage angle for fluid within the eye re ...

forced him to turn the reins over to his Connecticut Cartoonist Associate colleague

Warren Sattler Warren Sattler (born September 7, 1934) is an American artist and cartoonist, who contributed work to many popular publications from the early 1960s through the 1990s. Biography A lifelong Connecticut resident, Warren Sattler started cartooning a ...

. Later,

Frank Bolle Frank W. Bolle (June 23, 1924 – May 12, 2020) was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips '' Winnie Winkle'' and '' The Heart of Juliet Jones''; for stints on ...

took over. followed by Ray Burns. Frank McLaughlin took over following Burns' death in 2000. On February 18, 2008, '' Apartment 3G'' artist Frank Bolle again took over art chores for ''Gil Thorp'' on an interim basis. Rod Whigham became the permanent artist two months later.

The Bucket

The Bucket was an online forum hosted by the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'', named after the teen burger hangout in the strip, The Bucket. It was a lively site for 15 years and featured discussions about the strip and other topics. Members of the community were known as "Bucketeers".

References

External links

Gil Thorp on GoComics.com
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on August 28, 2016.

by Michael Miner, ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by ...

'', April 18, 2003 (Archived May 13, 2003). {{DEFAULTSORT:Gil Thorp American comic strips 1958 comics debuts American football comics Baseball comics Basketball comics Drama comics Slice of life comics Thorp, Gil Thorp, Gil Thorp, Gil Thorp, Gil Thorp, Gil Comics set in the United States Comic strips syndicated by Tribune Content Agency GoComics Sports comics