Skippy (comic strip)

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Cover illustration for Skippy novel

Skippy was a comic strip drawn by Percy Crosby, considered by many to be one of the classics of the American newspaper strip.^{[citation needed]}

It started in 1923 as a cartoon in the original Life weekly humor magazine, and became a comic strip starting in 1925. It was picked up by William Randolph Hearst's King Features Syndicate, though Crosby retained the copyright--one of the few artists of the time to do so.

The strip became enormously popular--at one point the strip alone guaranteed Crosby $2,350 a week, an enormous sum in those days. Crosby published a Skippy novel and other books, there were Skippy dolls, toys, and comic books, and the comic was adapted as a movie by Paramount. It was a huge hit, winning its director, Norman Taurog, the Academy Award for Best Director, and boosting the career of Jackie Cooper, who played Skippy. Crosby hated the film, and though he had to allow a previously contracted sequel (Sooky) to be made the next year, he never let another Skippy movie be made.

The strip focussed on Skippy Skinner, a young boy living in the city. He's drawn with a sketchy line suggesting restlessness, usually wearing an enormous collar and tie, and a floppy checked hat. The other characters are only vaguely defined--Skippy's parents seem kind but do not pay him much attention; he has a few friends (notably Sooky) without much personality, except for Butch O'Leary, the neighborhood bully. Skippy himself is an odd mix of mischief and melancholy; he may equally be found stealing from the corner fruit stand, or failing to master skates or baseball, or complaining about the adult world, or staring sadly at an old relative's grave ("And only last year she gave me a tie.") The strip most resembles the early years of Peanuts--indeed, Charles Schulz was a great fan of Skippy--though without the fantasy elements.

During the war years, Crosby's politics increasingly intruded on the strip, and it began to lose readers. Negotiations on a new contract failed, and Crosby ended Skippy in 1945. His final years were tragic: he was unable to find steady work, drifted into alcoholism, and after a suicide attempt, he was placed in the asylum at Kings Park, New York in 1949: he died there in 1964, unable to secure release.

Crosby's daughter, heir to the rights to Crosby's character, has been involved in much litigation over the decades against the company that manufactures Skippy peanut butter, which she claims stole its name from Crosby and violated a 1934 court decision barring them from using "Skippy" as a trademark. She also alleges that Crosby's institutionalization was engineered as part of a conspiracy to prevent him from objecting to this trademark appropriation.

[edit] References

Jerry Robinson, Skippy and Percy Crosby, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-03-018491-6. Contains a biography of Crosby as well as a generous selection from Skippy.