''Ozark Ike'' is a

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

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 ...

about dumb but likable Ozark Ike McBatt, a youth from a rural area in the mountains. The strip was created by Rufus A. ("Ray") Gotto while he was serving in the

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

as an illustrator for Navy instruction manuals. The strip ran from November 12, 1945, to September 14, 1958.

Characters and story

Strong-but-simple Ike McBatt is from a

hillbilly ''Hillbilly'' is a term historically used for White people who dwell in rural area, rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in the Appalachian region and Ozarks. As people migrated out of the region during the Great Depression, ...

family living in the small backwoods community of Wildweed Run (pop. 49). Ozark Ike is an all-around athlete, playing

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

. Between seasons, he enters the

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

ring. The characters and the baseball park settings are apparently inspired by Ring Lardner's well-known baseball short story "Alibi Ike" (1915), filmed in 1935 as the comedy ''Alibi Ike'', starring Joe E. Brown in the title role and

Olivia de Havilland Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her tim ...

in her film debut. Ozark Ike's girlfriend is Dinah Fatfield, whose family has been involved in a feud with the McBatt clan for several generations. As is evident in the names, this background situation was inspired by the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Personnel

Gotto is famous for using extreme perspectives to achieve great drama and action in sports. As such ''Ozark Ike'' attracted publisher Stephen Slesinger's attention. Slesinger also owned '' Red Ryder'', '' King of the Royal Mounted'', US and Canadian rights to ''

Winnie-the-Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear, Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by ...

'', and had exclusive licensing arrangements for other notable fictional characters including Tarzan and all of the NEA newspaper comics. Slesinger produced the cartoon for distribution through King Features Syndicate, and it debuted November 12, 1945. One of the assistants on the strip was Fred Rhoads. Gotto left in 1954 to start his creator-owned baseball strip '' Cotton Woods'' syndicated by General Features, but ''Ozark Ike'' continued until 1959 under Bill Lignante and George Olesen. Lignante was also a leading courtroom artist for network television, and is most famous as the artist who created hundreds of drawings of famous patrons that decorate the Palm Restaurants. Gotto eventually went on to design the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National ...

logo. "Ozark Ike" was the nickname of

major league baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

players Gus Zernial .

References

External links

Don Markstein's ''Toonopedia'' entryBill Lignante
{{King Features Syndicate Comics 1945 comics debuts 1958 comics endings American comic strips American football comics Baseball comics Boxing comics Basketball comics Gag-a-day comics Comics characters introduced in 1945 Comics set in the United States Fictional baseball players Fictional basketball players Fictional boxers Fictional players of American football Fictional hillbillies Male characters in comics Sports comics