''Little Jimmy'', originally titled ''Jimmy'', is a newspaper comic strip created by Jimmy Swinnerton. With a publication history from February 14, 1904, to April 27, 1958, it was one of the first continuing features and one of the longest running.

Characters and story

The title character was a little boy who was constantly forgetting what he was supposed to do and ended up getting into trouble. As comics historian Don Markstein described: The strip first appeared sporadically in'' The New York Journal''. It soon became a regular in the Sunday comics section and was picked up as a feature in other newspapers owned by

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...

. When King Features Syndicate was created in 1915, ''Little Jimmy'' went into nationwide syndication. In 1920, a daily strip was added and ran until the late 1930s. The

Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...

continued until Swinnerton retired in 1958. Markstein noted that Swinnerton "drew his strip in a clear, open style, unlike most cartoonists of his time. In this, he anticipated dominant styles of the 20th century, less crowded and more easily read — quite appropriate for newsprint production, where the printing isn't always as clear as it should be." The Sunday page included several toppers over the course of the strip: '' Mr. Jack'', a revival of a previous Swinnerton strip (January 24, 1926 - 1935), ''Li'l Ole Orvie'' and ''Oh, Yeah?'' (both 1935–1937), and ''Funny Films'' (November 1943 - 1944).

Animation

Little Jimmy appeared in the 1936 Betty Boop film '' Betty Boop and Little Jimmy''.

Legacy

Little Jimmy Camp in the

Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the United States Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in Southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabri ...

, near Los Angeles, California, is named after the comic strip in honor of Swinnerton, who often stayed there during the summers of 1908 and 1909. As a child, author

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...

, best known for her seminal work ''

Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind ...

'', was nicknamed “Jimmy” after ''Little Jimmy''’s main character, since she wore boy’s clothing.

References

External links

Coulton Waugh: ''The Comics''
1904 comics debuts 1958 comics endings American comics characters American comic strips Child characters in comics Comics about children Male characters in comics Comics adapted into animated series Comics set in the United States Gag-a-day comics Comics characters introduced in 1904 Public domain comics {{comic-strip-stub