Apartment 3-G

Alex Kotzky's Apartment 3-G

Apartment 3-G was an American newspaper soap opera comic strip about a trio of career women who share the eponymous Apartment 3-G in Manhattan. Created by Nicholas P. Dallis with art by Alex Kotzky, the strip began May 8, 1961, initially distributed by the Publishers Syndicate, which later merged with King Features Syndicate in 1988.

The strip went through several changes of writers and artists over its 54-year run, finally ending on November 22, 2015.[1]

Characters and story

The strip's situations and characters were influenced by the pioneering soap opera strip Mary Worth as well as Rona Jaffe's bestselling 1958 novel The Best of Everything.[2]

The three main characters are Margo Magee, a brunette who has variously held positions as a secretary, actors' agent, publicist and event planner; Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, a redheaded nurse; and Lu Ann Powers née Wright, a blonde art teacher and widow of a U.S. Air Force pilot named Maxwell Powers (renamed Gary in a 2011 story arc) who has only been shown briefly on the strip previous to dying on the Vietnam War. Kindly neighbor Professor Aristotle Papagoras (named for an admired Greek philosopher Aristotle) serves as a father figure. Lu Ann, originally single, met her husband and married in the 1960s, after which she moved out of the apartment to be replaced by another blonde, Beth. Lu Ann's husband was later killed in Vietnam, and she eventually moved back into the apartment, while Beth was written out.

The appearances of the three main characters were loosely based on real actresses. Tommie was based on Lucille Ball, Margo on Joan Collins and Lu Ann on Tuesday Weld.[3]

Creative team

Panels from Apartment 3-G (1969), with the series' lead characters (l. to r.): Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, Lu Ann Powers and Margo Magee.

Alex Kotzky, who drew and inked in a tight and crisp realistic style, was the artist of Apartment 3-G for more than 30 years. When Dallis died in 1991, Kotzky began writing the strip. With Kotzky's death in 1996, his son, Brian Kotzky, took over as the Apartment 3-G artist, and Lisa Trusiani became the scripter. In 2000, Frank Bolle stepped in as the illustrator when Brian Kotzky left to become a teacher. Writer Margaret Shulock later succeeded Trusiani.

Dallis, formerly a psychiatrist, also created the soap opera comic strips Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker.

Awards

Alex Kotzky received the 1968 National Cartoonists Society's Story Comic Strip Award for his work on Apartment 3-G.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Gustines, George Gene (Nov 8, 2015). "Classic Comic Strips Will Return to Newspapers in Special Insert". New York Times.
  2. ↑ Mary Worth at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on October 24, 2015.
  3. ↑ Mendez: Apartment 3-G
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