Boody Rogers

Boody Rogers
A Boody Rogers WWII chalk talk
Born	Gordon G. Rogers 8 September 1904 Hobart, Indian Territory, Oklahoma
Died	6 February 1996
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Writer, Artist
Pseudonym(s)	Charles McGraw Cliff Perrill R. Donrog Tody Turnovah
Notable works	Sparky Watts
Awards	First prize, Childress County Fair, 1922

Gordon G. Rogers (September 8, 1904, Hobart, Oklahoma – February 6, 1996), better known as Boody Rogers, was an American comic strip and comic book cartoonist who created the superhero parody Sparky Watts.

Born in Hobart, Oklahoma, Rogers attended the University of Arizona, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Chicago Art Institute. His artistic influences included Walter Berndt.

In the late 1920s and through the 1930s, Rogers illustrated newspaper strips for such syndicates as the Newspaper Feature Service, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Rogers was Zack Mosley's assistant on The Adventures of Smilin' Jack when he sold his own strip, Sparky Watts, to the Frank Jay Markey Syndicate, which distributed such strips as Ed Wheelan's Big Top and Rube Goldberg's Lala Palooza. Sparky Watts debuted Monday, April 29, 1940 in some 40 newspapers. The strip ended when Rogers was drafted. During World War II he gave chalk talks to servicemen. His World War II experiences are detailed in his autobiography, Homeless Bound (1984).

During the 1930s, Rogers illustrated cowboy comics for Dell Comics and DC Comics. Because Markey was part owner of the Columbia Comics Group (Skyman, The Face), reprints of Sparky Watts turned up in Columbia's Big Shot Comics, which featured other strips distributed by either Markey or the McNaught Syndicate (which distributed Mickey Finn and Toonerville Folks). Sparky Watts began in Big Shot #14 (June, 1941), and the character starred in four issues of his own comic for Columbia, beginning November, 1942.