Wednesday, February 11, 2009
News of Yore 1975: American History Strip Debuts
Bicentennial Stories Featured
(E&P, 2/1/1975)
Richard Lynn of Lagro, Indiana has begun self-syndication of a Bicentennial story strip which will run in five-week sequences until July 4, 1976.
The current story in the strip under the general title “The Sons of Liberty” is that of John Peter Zenger, whose trial was a landmark in establishment of freedom of the press. The Zenger story ends just before Washington’s birthday when Lynn will depict early events in Washington’s military career. Other sequences dramatize historical events in the lives of the Founding Fathers. After the highlight date of July 4, 1976 Lynn plans to turn the strip to other historical areas.
The author-cartoonist, who is syndicating the strip through his own firm Richard Lynn Enterprises (Mail Trace Road in Lagro) decided he wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist at the age of six when he started drawing his own version of “Dick Tracy” with pencil and crayons on ruled paper. When he was nine, he got a letter from Tracy’s creator, Chester Gould, who explained to the young artist that cartoonists use black India ink. With that technical information, Lynn went to the drawing board and won two cartoon prizes in an Open Road for Boys contest. He has been an advertising agency art director and editorial cartoonist for the Marion (Md.) Chronicle-Tribune and the Wabash (Md.) Plain Dealer.
[Some vital statistics on The Sons of Liberty: it ran from January 6 1975 to July 4 1976. The final episode was a Sunday page, the only Sunday in the series.]
Labels: News of Yore
