AP Newsfeatures explained

AP Newsfeatures
Former Name:Associated Press Feature Service
AP Features
Type:Subsidiary
Industry:Print syndication
Hq Location City:New York City, New York
Hq Location Country:U.S.
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.

History

Origins

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 1930 launch

The first nine features:

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.

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.[1]

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.[2]

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."

AP Sunday comics

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.

The Associated Press discontinued distribution of comic strips in 1961.[2]

AP Newsfeatures strips and panels

Notes and References

  1. https://books.google.com/books?id=fm8mRsBP3YkC&dq=ap+%22oh%2C+diana%22&pg=PA146 Waugh, Coulton. The Comics. Macmillan, 1947.
  2. http://strippersguide.blogspot.com Holtz, Allan. Stripper's Guide
  3. "Who's Who Among Leading U.S. Syndicate Executives," Editor & Publisher (September 7, 1946). Archived at "News of Yore 1946: Syndicate Executives Profiled," Stripper's Guide (July 21, 2010).
  4. Current Biography 1944, p. 83.
  5. Jay, Alex. "Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Don Flowers," Stripper's Guide (Oct. 4, 2016).
  6. https://books.google.com/books?id=fm8mRsBP3YkC&dq=ap+%22oh%2C+diana%22&pg=PA146 Waugh, Coulton. The Comics. Macmillan, 1947.
  7. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/russell_bruce.htm Russell entry
  8. Holtz, Allan. "Obscurity of the Day: Things To Come," Stripper's Guide (October 08, 2006).

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