AP Newsfeatures

AP Newsfeatures, aka AP Features, was the cartoon and comic strip division of Associated Press, which syndicated strips from 1930 to the early 1960s.

In February 1930, I.M. Kendrick, executive assistant to AP president Kent Cooper, announced a March 17, 1930, launch for the Associated Press Feature Service, with an initial nine units, including a daily news cartoon, various comic strips and several panels. With the expansion of the Associated Press Feature Service to include a comprehensive comic strip and cartoon service for evening papers, AP that April announced plans to provide a similar service for morning papers. Cooper commented:

The first nine features: Gloria, a daily pretty girl strip with continuity, by Julian Ollendorf (who also worked on the animated Topics of the Day and Sketchographs); Homer Hoopee, a daily family strip by Fred Locher (former creator of Cicero Sapp for the New York Evening World); Colonel Gilfeather, an imitation of Our Boarding House in a daily three-column panel by Dick Dorgan (brother of the cartoonist Tad Dorgan; Scorchy Smith, an aviation-adventure strip by John Terry (who also worked on animated cartoons); Rollo Rollingstone, a daily strip by Bruce Barr; Modest Maidens, a two-column pretty girl panel by Don Flowers; a news cartoon by Lance Nolly (formerly of the Austin American and the Dallas News); a three-column village life feature by Oscar Hitt and a two-column cartoon by Aleyn Burtis.

The AP service eventually made a full page of daily strips available, including Dickie Dare and Oaky Doaks. Other strips carried by AP included C. Mozier's Junior's Viewpoint (1935), Aldine Swank's panel Beautyettes (1935), Frank Stevens' Li'l Chief Hot-Shot (1945-46), Ed Sullivan's The Nerve of Some People (1945-46), George Wunder's See for Yourself (1946), Rome Siemon's Little Moonfolks (1952) and Sylvia Robbins' panel, Don't Do That (1950-56). How Christmas Began, which first appeared in 1951 and ran annually for five days each Christmas week, was drawn in an outline form, minus blacks or shadows, so children could color the panels.

Flowers also created Oh, Diana!, which was continued by Bill Champi and Phil Berube after Flowers left AP for King Features. Virginia Clark was drawing Oh, Diana! in 1947. Flowers' other AP creation, Modest Maidens, was taken over by AP staff artist Jay Alan.

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