Joseph Musial (January 15, 1905 – June 6, 1977) was an American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

who drew ''

The Katzenjammer Kids ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949).Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...

. His parents were Polish immigrants.

Career

Having studied at the

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1929, Musial started out his cartooning career as assistant to

Billy DeBeck William Morgan DeBeck (April 15, 1890 – November 11, 1942) was an American cartoonist. He is most famous as the creator of the comic strip ''Barney Google'', later retitled ''Barney Google and Snuffy Smith''. The strip was especially pop ...

, creator of Barney Google, in the early 1930s. He subsequently worked as ghost artist on a number of comic strips from King Features, apparently stepping in to assist various creators whenever necessary. He eventually became art director of the comic book division by the syndicate. In 1956, following the death of cartoonist Doc Winner, King Features sought a replacement writer and artist on ''The Katzenjammer Kids''. Musial took the job, and spent his remaining 21 years drawing the popular weekly strip. He was the fourth artist to work on the strip, following

Rudolph Dirks Rudolph Dirks (February 26, 1877 – April 20, 1968) was one of the earliest and most noted comic strip artists, well known for ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' (later known as ''The Captain and the Kids''). Dirks was born in Heide, Germany, to Joha ...

, Harold Knerr and Winner.

Death

Musial died at the North Shore Hospital in

Manhasset, New York Manhasset is an affluent Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore of Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. It is co ...

, at the age of 72. Following his death, cartoonist Mike Senich took over ''The Katzenjammer Kids''.

References

1905 births 1977 deaths American comic strip cartoonists Paris-Sorbonne University alumni Artists from Yonkers, New York American people of Polish descent {{US-comics-artist-stub