Henry (comic strip)
| Henry | |
|---|---|
Henry (July 28, 1935)
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| Author(s) | Carl Thomas Anderson |
| Current status / schedule | Concluded |
| Syndicate(s) | King Features Syndicate |
| Genre(s) | Gag-a-day, Pantomime comics |
| Preceded by | Herr Spiegelberger, the Amateur Cracksman |
Henry is a comic strip created in 1932 by Carl Anderson. The title character is a young bald boy who is mute (and sometimes drawn minus a mouth). With the exception of a few early episodes, the comic strip character communicates only through pantomime, a situation which changed when Henry moved into comic books.
The Saturday Evening Post was the first publication to feature Henry, a series which began when Anderson was 67 years old. The series of cartoons continued in that magazine for two years in various formats of single panel, multiple panels or two panels.
After seeing a German publication of Henry, William Randolph Hearst signed Anderson to King Features Syndicate and began distributing the comic strip on December 17. 1934, with the half-page Sunday strip launched March 10, 1935. Henry was replaced in The Saturday Evening Post by Marjorie Henderson Buell's Little Lulu. Anderson's Post cartoons featuring Henry are credited with early positive depictions of African-American characters during an era when African-Americans were often unflatteringly depicted.
Anderson's assistant on the Sunday strip was Don Trachte. His assistant on the dailies was John Liney. In 1942, arthritis kept Anderson away from the drawing board, so Anderson turned the dailies over to Liney, and Trachte drew the Sunday strips. Liney retired in 1979. Jack Tippit then took over the dailies until 1983. Dick Hodgins, Jr. worked on the dailies from 1983 until 1990. Trachte continued on the Sundays through 1995. About 75 newspapers still run classic Henry strips. These are also available through King Features' Comics Kingdom.
Cartoonist Art Baxter analyzed the appeal of the character and the strip:
Henry appears (and speaks) alongside Betty Boop in the Fleischer Studios animated short Betty Boop with Henry, the Funniest Living American (1935).
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