| Gasoline Alley | |
| Author: | Frank King (1883–1969) Bill Perry (Sunday strips only, 1951–1975) Dick Moores (1956–1986) |
| Current: | Jim Scancarelli (1986–present) |
| Status: | In syndication |
| Syndicate: | Tribune Content Agency[1] |
| Genre: | Humor, gag-a-day |
Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and distributed by Tribune Content Agency. It centers on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines reflecting traditional American values.[2]
The strip debuted on November 24, 1918;, it is the longest-running current strip in the United States, and the second-longest running strip of all time in the United States, after The Katzenjammer Kids (which ran for 109 years, 1897–2006). Gasoline Alley has received critical accolades for its influential innovations.[3] In addition to new color and page design concepts, King introduced real-time continuity to comic strips by depicting his characters aging over generations.
The strip originated on the Chicago Tribunes black-and-white Sunday page, The Rectangle, where staff artists contributed one-shot panels, continuing plots or themes. One corner of The Rectangle introduced King's Gasoline Alley, where characters Walt, Doc, Avery, and Bill held weekly conversations about automobiles. This panel slowly gained recognition, and the daily comic strip began August 24, 1919, in the New York Daily News.[4]
Some of the early characters were based on people Frank King knew. Skeezix was based on his son Robert Drew King. Walt was based on "jolly" overweight bachelor and Western Union traffic engineer Walter W. Drew, who had "a wisp of unruly hair". Bill and Amy were based on locomotive engineer William D. Gannon and his wife Gertrude.[5]
The early years were dominated by the character Walt Wallet. Tribune editor Joseph Patterson wanted to attract women to the strip by introducing a baby, but Walt was not married. That obstacle was avoided when Walt found a baby on his doorstep, as described by comics historian Don Markstein:
Skeezix called his adoptive father Uncle Walt. Unlike most comic strip children (like the Katzenjammer Kids or Little Orphan Annie), he did not remain a baby or even a little boy for long. He grew up to manhood, the first occasion where real time was shown continually elapsing in a major comic strip over generations. By the time the United States entered World War II, Skeezix was an adult, courting Nina Clock and enlisting in the armed forces in June 1942. He later married Nina and had children. In the late 1960s, he faced a typical midlife crisis. Walt Wallet himself married Phyllis Blossom on June 24, 1926, and had other children, who grew up and had kids of their own. During the 1970s and 1980s, under Dick Moores' authorship, the characters stopped aging. When Jim Scancarelli took over, natural aging was restored.
The Sunday strip was launched October 24, 1920. The 1930s Sunday pages did not always employ traditional gags, but often offered a gentle view of nature, imaginary daydreaming with expressive art, or naturalistic views of small-town life. Reviewing Peter Maresca and Chris Ware's Sundays with Walt and Skeezix (Sunday Press Books, 2007), comics critic Steve Duin quoted writer Jeet Heer:
The Sunday pages included several toppers over the course of the run: That Phoney Nickel (Dec 14, 1930 – Sept 17, 1933), Puny Puns (Feb 5 – Sept 17, 1933), Corky (Aug 18, 1935 – 1945), and Little Brother Hugo aka Wilmer's Little Brother Hugo (January 30, 1944 – 1973).[6]
The strip is still published in newspapers in the 21st century. Walt Wallet is now well over a century old (124, as of February 2024[7]), while Skeezix has become a centenarian. Walt's wife Phyllis, age an estimated 105, died in the April 26, 2004, strip; Walt was left a widower after nearly eight decades of marriage. Walt Wallet appeared as a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's anniversary party, and on Gasoline Alleys 90th anniversary, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, and Snuffy Smith each acknowledged the Gasoline Alley anniversary in their dialogue. Snuffy Smith presented a character crossover with Walt in the doorway of Snuffy's house where he was being welcomed and invited in by Snuffy. In May 2013 at the cartoon retirement home, Walt is at a dinner when Maggie's (of Bringing Up Father) pearl brooch is stolen; Fearless Fosdick is his usual incompetent self trying to catch the thief; cameos include such "retired" comics characters as Lil' Abner; Smokey Stover and Pogo and Albert. Even the active cartoon character Rex Morgan, M.D., appears.
These characters break the strip's rule about aging with the calendar.
Daily:
Sunday:
King was succeeded by his former assistants, with Bill Perry taking responsibility for Sunday strips in 1951 and Dick Moores, first hired in 1956, becoming sole writer and artist for the daily strip in 1959. When Perry retired in 1975, Moores took over the Sunday strips, as well, combining the daily and Sunday stories into one continuity starting September 28, 1975. Moores died in 1986, and since then, Gasoline Alley has been written and drawn by Scancarelli, former assistant to Moores. Scancarelli returned to done-in-one separate situations for the Sunday strip.[12]
The strip and King were recognized with the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Strip Award in 1957, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1985. King received the 1958 Society's Reuben Award, and Moores received it in 1974. Scancarelli received the Society's Story Comic Strip Award in 1988. The strip received an NCS plaque for the year's best story strip in 1981, 1982 and 1983.[13]
Examples of the full page Sunday strip were printed in The Comic Strip Century (1995, reissued in 2004 as 100 Years of Comic Strips), edited by Bill Blackbeard, Dale Crain and James Vance. Moores' dailies and Sundays have appeared in Comics Revue monthly, as have the first Scancarelli strips. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US postage stamps.
In 2003, Spec Productions began a series of softcover collections, Frank King's Gasoline Alley Nostalgia Journal, reprinting the strip from the first Rectangle panel (November 24, 1918). To date, four volumes have appeared:
See main article: Walt and Skeezix. In 2005, the first of a series of reprint books, Walt and Skeezix, was published by Drawn & Quarterly, edited by Chris Ware and included contributions by Jeet Heer. The first volume covers 1921–22, beginning several weeks before baby Skeezix appears. These reprint only the daily strips, with Sundays slated to appear in another series:[14]
In 2007, Sunday Press Books published Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, which collects early Sunday strips in the original size and color.
In 2014, Dark Horse Comics published Gasoline Alley: The Complete Sundays Volume 1 1920–1922 and Gasoline Alley: The Complete Sundays Volume 2 1923–1925 in hardback.
Moores' work on the strip was published in three different collections, all currently out of print, as well as being serialized in Comics Revue magazine:
On October 9, 2012, IDW Publishing's imprint The Library of American Comics published a hardback collection titled Gasoline Alley, Volume 1, collecting several years of the daily strip by Frank King and Dick Moores.[15]
See main article: Gasoline Alley (radio).
Several radio adaptations were made. Uncle Walt and Skeezix in 1931 starred Bill Idelson as Skeezix with Jean Gillespie as Nina Clock. Jimmy McCallion was Skeezix in the series that ran on NBC from February 17 to April 11, 1941, continuing on the Blue Network from April 28 to May 9 of that same year. The 15-minute series aired weekdays at 5:30 pm. Along with Nina (Janice Gilbert), the characters included Skeezix's boss Wumple (Cliff Soubier) and Ling Wee (Junius Matthews), a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Charles Schenck directed the scripts by Kane Campbell.
The syndicated series of 1948–49 featured a cast of Bill Lipton, Mason Adams, and Robert Dryden. Sponsored by Autolite, the program used opening theme music by the Polka Dots, a harmonica group. The 15-minute episodes focused on Skeezix running a gas station and garage, the Wallet and Bobble Garage, with his partner, Wilmer Bobble. In New York, this series aired on WOR from July 16, 1948, to January 7, 1949.[16]
Gasoline Alley was adapted into two feature films, Gasoline Alley (1951) and Corky of Gasoline Alley (1951). The films starred Jimmy Lydon as Skeezix, known at that time for Life with Father (1947) and his earlier character of Henry Aldrich.[17]