Barnaby (comic strip)

Barnaby
Barnaby cast (l. to r.): Gus the Ghost, Jackeen J. O'Malley, Gorgon Baxter, Barnaby Baxter and Jane Shultz
Author(s)	Crockett Johnson (1942–1946, 1947–1952) Jack Morley and Ted Ferro (1946–1947) Warren Sattler (1960–1962)
Current status / schedule	Ended
Launch date	20 April 1942 (PM) revived September 1960
End date	2 February 1952 revival ended 14 April 1962

Barnaby was a comic strip which began 20 April 1942 in the newspaper PM and was later syndicated in 64 American newspapers (for a combined circulation of more than 5,500,000).

Created by Crockett Johnson, who is best known today for his children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon, the strip featured a cherubic-looking five-year-old and his far-from-cherubic fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley, a short, cigar-smoking man with four tiny wings. With a distinctive appearance because of its use of typography, the strip had numerous reprints and was adapted into a 1940s stage production. The usually caustic Dorothy Parker had nothing but praise: "I think, and I'm trying to talk calmly, that Barnaby and his friends and oppressors are the most important additions to American Arts and Letters in Lord knows how many years."

Barnaby Baxter got into a fair number of scrapes. However, most of them were either of Mr. O'Malley's making or resulted in embarrassment of some sort for the rather clumsy fairy godfather, a member of the Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society.

Barnaby's parents denied that Mr. O'Malley was real and took Barnaby to a number of child psychologists. They continued this denial even when O'Malley was seen flying past their picture window, when he walked into their living room, and even after O'Malley was elected their representative to Congress.

The strip ended when Barnaby finally reached his sixth birthday, the magical point beyond which he could no longer have a fairy godfather. With much regret, O'Malley left, and so (after a short-lived attempt in the 1960s to revive the strip by redoing the original stories) did Johnson, to pursue other interests.

Barnaby was primarily a daily strip which began 20 April 1942 and later had a short-lived Sunday strip. Instead of hand-lettering, Barnaby used typography in the balloons. The typeface is Italic Futura Medium, which was designed by the German typographer Paul Renner in the 1920s.