The comic strip

The comic strip developed in America towards the end of the nineteenth century, originally created as a tool to draw customers to the Sunday edition of the local newspaper and becoming an icon of American culture. Though many contributed to it's format and existence, there are five people directly connected to it's birth. These five men, Richard Outcault, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, James Swinnerton and Rudolph Dirks are responsible for popularizing what is now a major part of American culture.

Richard Felton Outcault was a staff illustrator at Joseph Pulitzer's "The World" in 1895 when he created a one panel cartoon called "Down Hogan's Alley". Within the panel of the first Hogan's Alley is a homely, bald little boy dressed only in a frock.

Shortly after he first appeared, the World's engravers were experimenting with color inks and in a test yellow was added to his frock (the strip was at first only black & white) and the gap toothed urchin was named the "Yellow K...