Background

Richard Felton Outcault was born on January 14, 1868, in Lancaster, Ohio, the son of J. P. and Catherine (Davis) Outcault.

Education

Richard Outcault was educated at McMicken College (later part of the University of Cincinnati), and went to Paris for further training in art, returning with his status assured by a beret and a velveteen painting jacket.

Career

With his wife Richard Outcault removed to New York City, where his comic talents were disciplined and persecuted by the minutiae and drawing-to-scale required of him as draftsman on the Electrical World and the Street Railway Journal. He found time, however, to do some comic pictures for Truth, a weekly journal with a none too respectable reputation, and to submit other drawings to Life and Judge. Meanwhile the newspapers were experimenting with color presses, and after many ludicrous failures a process was developed by the New York World which seemed satisfactory. Morrill Goddard, the Sunday editor, carried the day for comics rather than fashions as the feature of the new colored supplement, and in casting about for comic talent was referred to Outcault, since the men whose reputations were already established were unavailable because of contracts with comic periodicals.

Accordingly, on Sunday, November 18, 1894, Outcault inaugurated the "funny paper. " His first drawing--with significance probably undreamed of - was entitled "The Origin of a New Species. " Shortly afterward he produced "Hogan's Alley" and its hero, the "Yellow Kid, " which boosted to sensational heights the already notable success of the comic supplement. Meanwhile the New York Journal had added a colored page to its regular Sunday edition, and in 1896, with the lure of a tremendous salary, enticed Outcault away from the World. George Luks, however, was employed to take his place, and with Luks doing yellow kids for the World and Outcault continuing the original in the Journal a sensational rivalry developed in Park Row. While this struggle was in process the other papers designated the contenders as "Yellow Kid journals, " later shortened to "yellow journals, " a term destined to have a career of its own in journalism.

Outcault's next connection was with the New York Herald, in which his "Pore Li'l Mose" appeared in 1901 and, in 1902, the renowned "Buster Brown. " Buster and his dog Tige eclipsed all their inventor's earlier successes and brought him a fortune and countless offers of employment on foreign newspapers. Buster became a fad that spread all over the country and his name was appropriated for cigars, suits, garters, belts, sweaters, and even children. Outcault published several books on Buster Brown and Tige. He returned to the Journal in 1905, but he retired from active work about ten years before his death.

Outcault died at his home in Flushing, Long Island, after an illness of about ten weeks. Outcault was the originator of the bad boy type of humor which dominated the comic productions of the country for the first decade of the twentieth century. The fun of the hoodlum is perennial, but he interpreted it with what he himself called a "kind of epigrammatical humor of a strain that I look on peculiarly as my own. "

Achievements

• Richard Outcault is considered to be the father of the modern comic strip. He created the first star character of the genre, "The Yellow Kid", and the popular "Buster Brown".

Works

More photos

• book

  • R.F. Outcault's the Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics

    (The Yellow Kid was the main character in the precursor to...)

  • Buster Brown, His Dog Tige and Their Troubles

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Buster Brown: Early Strips in Full Color

    (This is a 1974 Dover "unabridged republication" of the bo...)

  • Buster Brown 1906: An Original Compilation, First Collection in Full Continuity of a Complete Year from the Sunday Strip (Classic American Comic Strips S)

    ("first compilation in full continuity")

  • Buster Brown abroad

    (Richard F. Outcault was an American cartoonist. He was th...)

  • Buster brown t2
  • R.F. Outcault's the Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics by Richard Felton Outcault (1995-12-03)

Interests

• Richard Outcault was seriously interested in the theater, delighted in taking part in amateur performances, and was co-author of the dramatic version of Buster Brown.

Connections

On Christmas Day, 1890, Richard Outcault was married to Mary Jane Martin, in Lancaster, Ohio.

Father:

Jesse Pugh Outcalt

Mother:

Catherine Ann (Davis) Outcalt

Sister:

Matilda Pearlia Outcalt

Wife:

Mary Jane (Martin) Outcault

Daughter:

Mary Jane (Outcault) Pershing

Brother:

Charles Willoughby Outcalt