| Formerly | Associated Press Feature Service AP Features |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Print syndication |
| Founded | 1930 |
| Defunct | 1961 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | United States |
Key people | I. M. Kendrick, Kent Cooper, Charles Elsworth Honce, M. J. ("Joe") Wing |
| Products | Comic strips, editorial cartoons |
| Owner | Associated Press |
AP Newsfeatures, also 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 Associated Press activities today in the feature service field are a natural outgrowth of what used to be the daily mail letter, which the Associated Press called the supplemental mail service. I held that since there was matter going out by mail it might as well go out in the best possible way that we could produce it, which, of course, meant the inclusion of illustrations, regular columns, etc. [1]
The first nine features: [1]
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), Bud Sagendorf's Spur Line (1954-55) 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. [1]
Flowers also created Oh, Diana!, which was continued by Bill Champe 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. [2]
AP carried a set number of strips, so a new strip was not added until one was dropped. When the Oaky Doaks daily debuted on June 17, 1935, it replaced Harold Detje's Be Scientific with Ol' Doc Dabble which ran from June 6, 1932, until June 15, 1935. In a similar fashion, when Milton Caniff learned of an opening while he was working on AP spot illustrations, he spent the weekend drawing samples, and Caniff's strip career was launched when his Dickie Dare began in 1933. The following year, Dickie Dare was taken over by Coulton Waugh. [1]
In 1944, Charles Elsworth Honce became the assistant general manager of all AP special services, overseeing AP Newsfeatures and World Wide Photos, and that same year M. J. ("Joe") Wing stepped in as the general editor of AP Newsfeatures. [3]
The strips variously carried the tag "AP Newsfeatures," "AP Features" or in some cases, "The A.P."
Over a decade passed before AP finally introduced Sunday strips on March 7, 1942, in the New York Post . The initial line-up:
AP sports cartoonist Tom Paprocki's Sport Slants began with the Sunday strips in 1942 and continued until March 6, 1955. Fred Locher worked with Rand Taylor on Homer Hoopee, and Phil Berube drew the strip's final three years (1953–56). Hank Barrow wrote and drew Things to Come, an AP Sunday feature focusing on speculative technology. The title derived from H. G. Wells science fiction novel, The Shape of Things to Come (1933). When Barrow departed in 1949 or 1950, the feature was taken over by Jim Bresnan. [4]
The Associated Press discontinued distribution of comic strips in 1961. [1]
Terry and the Pirates is an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff, which originally ran from October 22, 1934, to February 25, 1973. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff's work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip, providing Caniff with the title and locale. The Dragon Lady leads the evil pirates; conflict with the pirates was diminished in priority when World War II started.
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist known for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.
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Scorchy Smith is an American adventure comic strip created by artist John Terry that ran from March 17, 1930 to December 30, 1961.
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Dickie Dare was a comic strip syndicated by AP Newsfeatures. Launched July 31, 1933, it was the first comic strip created by Milton Caniff before he began Terry and the Pirates. The strip ended on October 12, 1957.
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Richard William Dorgan was an American cartoonist, writer, and illustrator. His first known published work appeared in The New York Call in 1913. A wide variety of his early work was published in The Broadside: A Journal for the Naval Reserve Force, 1918–1920.
Oaky Doaks was an American newspaper comic strip, which ran between June 17, 1935, and December 30, 1961. It was distributed by AP Newsfeatures for more than 25 years, illustrated by veteran magazine cartoonist Ralph Fuller and scripted by AP Newsfeatures comics editor William McCleery.
Don Flowers (1908–1968) was an American cartoonist best known for his syndicated panel Glamor Girls. Flowers was noted for his fluid ink work, prompting Coulton Waugh to write that Flowers displayed "about the finest line ever bequeathed to a cartoonist. It dances; it snaps gracefully back and forth; the touches related."
Ralph Briggs Fuller was an American cartoonist best known for his long-running comic strip Oaky Doaks, featuring the humorous adventures of a good-hearted knight in the Middle Ages. He signed the strips R. B. Fuller.
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