The other day, I made a wrong turn on YouTube and found myself looking at this video about Russell Myers, the funny, funny man behind the newspaper strip, Broom-Hilda. The video was assembled by his old high school when they inducted him into some sort of Hall of Fame…
Russell Myers is a friend of mine. I'm not certain how long he's been a friend of mine but if it isn't fifty years, it's darn close to that…and somehow, we haven't spoken in the last five or six of those years. So even though I have pressing deadlines, I decided there was nothing more important than reconnecting with my pal Russell. I called him yesterday and we spent a delightful hour or so chatting. I have a few more friends I need to do this with.
I've always loved Broom-Hilda and even though there's no local newspaper in which I can follow it, I make a point of going every so often to this webpage and catching up on it. It was also a joy catching up with Russell…and a question came up which neither of us could answer. Maybe one of you can.
As we all know, some newspaper strips run an awful long time. Gasoline Alley has been appearing since 1918. Barney Google & Snuffy Smith began the following year. Blondie started in 1930, Dick Tracy in 1931 and Prince Valiant in 1937. All of those strips are still running but they've all had several different writers and artists over the years.
Broom-Hilda started appearing in newspapers on…well, various online sources say it was 4/19/70 but Russell says it was the 20th. Either way, that's 53 years and a couple of days…and all 19,361 (or 19,362) of those strips were drawn by Russell Myers. No one else. And the question is — make that questions are — is that an all-time record? And is there any current strip that's been done for so long by one person?
A couple of places on the Internet say that Charles Schulz drew 17,897 published Peanuts strips and one or two of those sources say that's the all-time record. If that number's right, Russell broke that record some time ago.
"Russell" seems to be a good name for folks who drew comic strips for long periods. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Australian cartoonist Jim Russell drew a strip called The Potts without assistance for 62 years but he did not originate that strip and it was weekly for the first twelve of those years.
And the late comics historian R.C. Harvey wrote once that the longest-running American comic strip was Mister Oswald, which was drawn by Russell Johnson for 62 years…but that was not a newspaper strip and it was not daily. It appeared in a monthly magazine called The Hardware Retailer which I'm sure you all eagerly devoured. By contrast, Broom-Hilda has appeared seven days a week since it started.
Okay, Comic Strip Experts…and I know you're out there. Am I missing something here?