When he had completed one year at the New York art school, DIK
BROWNE quit school to start working at The New York American
newspaper, where he made various technical illustrations. He joined
the art staff of Newsweek, and then was inducted into the Army,
where he spent three years in the Corps of Engineers.
Simultaneously he published his first comic, 'Ginny Jeep', which
was distributed among American soldiers. In the 1940s he began an
association with Johnstone & Cushing, an ad company specialized in
advertising comics. Browne worked on promotional comic art for most
of the 1950s, including the design of 'Chiquita Banana', the
redesign of the 'Campbell Soup Kids' and a comic for Boy's Life,
the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America.
Browne's contribution was a strip called 'The Tracy Twins', that he
drew from 1953 to 1960. But it would take him until 1954 before he
got his lucky break: King Features editor Sylvan Beck, who noticed
his work in Boy's Life magazine. Beck introduced him to Mort
Walker, who was looking for an artist to draw a newspaper comic
about the family life of the sister of his famous comic soldier
'Beetle Bailey'. By then, Walker had already picked the artist of
the newspaper ad comic 'The Trouble Twins', which turned out to be
Browne as well!
'Hi and Lois', written by Walker and drawn by Browne, debuted in
October 1954. The strip met with great success and after two years,
a Sunday page was added to the daily. Over the years, Browne has
been assisted by Jerry Dumas, Bob and Greg Gustafson, as well as
Mort Walker's sons Greg and Brian (script) and his own son Chance
(art), who finally took over completely after Browne's death in
1989.
In 1973, Browne came up with the viking family comic 'Hagar the
Horrible', also for King Features. Both 'Hi and Lois' and 'Hagar'
have earned Dik Browne a place among the greatest comic artists of
the U.S. 'Hagar' was continued by Browne's other son, Chris Browne.
Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 - 16 May 1703) was a French
author considered the founder of the modern fairy tale.
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