“Bozo” was the original pantomime comic strip. It was created by sixteen year old Foxo Reardon in 1921 after he has been laid off as sports cartoonist by the Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch. It appeared weekly in that paper from at least June 1925 until it was daily syndicated by the Chicago Sun Syndicate in 1945. It is very possibly that it appeared in the Bridgeton (NJ) Evening News where Foxo worked as a cartoonist for two years after his lay off and before returning to the Times-Dispatch at age eighteen as editorial, sports, news and humor cartoonist. Before syndication, “Bozo” was declared by the Times-Dispatch as the original pantomime comic strip and was later promoted by the syndicate as such.
Although it has been claimed in “The Daily Cartoonist” that a couple of pantomime comic strips predated “Bozo,” those particular strips were obscure and very short lived, to the degree that it took a cartooning historian to unearth them. The Wright Brothers are universally credited with being the “First in Flight” not because they built the first airplane but because they built the first successful airplane, that is, an airplane with those features need for sustained and safe flight. "Bozo, like wise, was the first sustained, regularly published and successful comic strip.
“Bozo” was the original pantomime comic strip. It was created by sixteen year old Foxo Reardon in 1921 after he has been laid off as sports cartoonist by the Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch. It appeared weekly in that paper from at least June 1925 until it was daily syndicated by the Chicago Sun Syndicate in 1945. It is very possibly that it appeared in the Bridgeton (NJ) Evening News where Foxo worked as a cartoonist for two years after his lay off and before returning to the Times-Dispatch at age eighteen as editorial, sports, news and humor cartoonist. Before syndication, “Bozo” was declared by the Times-Dispatch as the original pantomime comic strip and was later promoted by the syndicate as such.
Although it has been claimed in “The Daily Cartoonist” that a couple of pantomime comic strips predated “Bozo,” those particular strips were obscure and very short lived, to the degree that it took a cartooning historian to unearth them. The Wright Brothers are universally credited with being the “First in Flight” not because they built the first airplane but because they built the first successful airplane, that is, an airplane with those features need for sustained and safe flight. "Bozo, like wise, was the first sustained, regularly published and successful comic strip.