Oscar Jacobsson (

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

, 1889 – Solberga, December 25, 1945) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

comic creator and

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 started his career in 1918 when his first newspaper illustration was published. Jacobsson's first illustrations were published in Naggen. In 1920, he created the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

'' Adamson'' for the publication '' Söndags-Nisse''. Adamson himself was a (usually) silent little cigar-smoking man with a big hat and frequent misadventures. The strip soon became very popular and became published in hundreds of newspapers all over the world. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, it became known as "

Silent Sam The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...

". Jacobsson also worked for other publications. His illustrations frequently appeared in magazines and papers like Exlex,

Dagens Nyheter (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record A newspaper of record is a major nationa ...

and Lutfisken. Near the end of his stellar career, Jacobsson created another comic character: Abu Fakir. This was published in Vi.

Keeping Adamson Alive

'Adamson' outlived his creator; the Danish artist Viggo Ludvigsen continued the comic strip for nearly two decades after Oscar Jacobsson's death in 1945. And in the U.S. two artists kept Jacobson alive—Henry Thol from 1935 to 1940 and Jeff Hayes from 1941 to 1953.

The Adamson Award

In 1965, the Swedish Comic Academy founded the "

Adamson Awards Adamson Awards is a Swedish award awarded to notable cartoonists, named after the famous Swedish comic strip "Adamson" ( Silent Sam). There are two award categories: International and Swedish cartoonist. They have been presented by the Swedish ...

" in Jacobsson's honor. This "

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

" is given to one Swedish and one international comic creator every year.

References

1889 births 1945 deaths Swedish comics artists Swedish comic strip cartoonists Artists from Gothenburg {{cartoonist-stub