| Factoids
 Benjamin
Franklin, man-of-all-talents, was also a cartoonist. His most famous
cartoon being the "Join or Die" of 1754, depicting a segmented
snake representing the ununited American colonies.
William
Hogarth is considered the father of both the modern cartoon and
the comic strip.
Thomas
Nast is responsible for the creation of both the Republican Elephant
(1874) and the Democratic Donkey (1870).
While
the Donkey first appeared in 1870 representing the Democratic Press,
it was not a universal symbol for the Democratic Party until much
later. The fox, the lion, and the tiger have also been used as symbols
of the Party.
Bud
Fisher's Mutt and Jeff (originally A. Mutt, 1907) is considered
the first successful daily comic strip.
William
Hogarth's appeal to Parliament for an act securing the rights of
artists to their own work (passed in 1735) is the forerunner of
the modern British copyright law.
Joseph
Keppler is credited with giving Uncle Sam his whiskers.
Art
Young and other contributors to the socialist journal, The Masses,
were tried for treason in 1918 under the Espionage Act. It was claimed
that their cartoons had undermined the war effort.
The
Gibson Girl first appeared in the 1894 book, Drawings, and was an
overnight sensation. She has most recently appeared on a U.S. postage
stamp issued in 1998.
The
political cartoon "Drawing the Line in Mississippi" (Nov.
16, 1902), by Berryman was the inspiration for the Teddy Bear.
One
of the first daily comic-strip pages debuted in the New York Evening
Journal on January 31, 1912.
The
image of Santa Claus, as we know him today, was created by Thomas
Nast and first appeared ca. 1863.
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