Clare Victor Dwiggins

Clare Victor Dwiggins (June 16, 1874 – October 1958) was an American cartoonist who signed his work Dwig. Dwiggins created a number of comic strips and single-panel cartoons for various American newspapers and newspaper syndicates from 1897 until 1945, including his best-known strip, the long-run School Days.

Born in Wilmington, Ohio,[1] Dwiggins was on a path toward a career in architecture but detoured into cartooning when his artwork was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World in 1897. He created a wide variety of gag panels, including J. Filliken Wilberfloss, Leap Year Lizzie, Them Was the Happy Days, Uncle Jim and Tad and Tim, Mrs. Bump's Boarding House, Ophelia and Her Slate[2] and Bill's Diary.

Comic strips

Sample of his work, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn cartoon from 1919.

Dwig's first comic strip was Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (1918), which used more than a half dozen of Mark Twain's characters but employed very little content from his novels. Dwig began School Days in the early 1910s as a single panel, and it eventually evolved into a Sunday strip with a storyline about schoolkids that continued until 1932.[3][4]

Dwig drew Nipper (1931–37) for the Ledger Syndicate. In 1940, he returned to Huckleberry Finn in the pages of Doc Savage Comics and Supersnipe Comics. He also drew Bobby Crusoe in 1945 for Supersnipe Comics.[3]

Books

After 1945, he focused on illustration, including five books published with August Derleth.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Rath, Jay (May 1985). "Dwig, A Pen-and-Ink Poet". Nemo, the Classic Comics Library, No. 11.
  2. ↑ Markstein, Don. Toonopedia: Ophelia's Slate
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lambiek
  4. ↑ Markstein, Don. Toonopedia: School Days

External links