Morty Meekle is an American syndicated newspaper comic strip that was published between 1956 and 1966, created and produced by cartoonist Dick Cavalli. The series featured the title character dealing with office and dating situations, and, like Fritzi Ritz, which became Nancy after sixteen years, evolved to focus on the younger characters from Cavalli's strip, and was renamed Morty Meekle and Winthrop and then just Winthrop on February 27, 1966.[2]
| Morty Meekle | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Dick Cavalli |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded daily & Sunday strip |
| Launch date | January 9, 1956[1] |
| End date | February 26, 1966 |
| Alternate name(s) | Morty Meekle and Winthrop |
| Syndicate(s) | Newspaper Enterprise Association |
| Genre(s) | comedy, gag-a-day |
| Followed by | Winthrop |
Publication history
editGag cartoonist Dick Cavalli—whose work appeared in magazines including The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's—had achieved such popularity by 1956 that Writer's Digest observed he had "risen to the top faster than any other cartoonist in the business."[3] On January 9 of that year, Cavalli launched Newspaper Enterprise Association's syndicated comic strip Morty Meekle, featuring the courtship of the title character and his girlfriend, Jill Wortle, as well as Morty's travails at his low-level office job under boss E.G. Boomer.[4] The strip gradually deemphasized the romance and work aspects in favor of what comics historian Maurice Horn called its "background chorus of snide youngsters with a perceptive take on the human condition."[3] On February 27, 1966, Cavalli removed the adult characters and renamed the strip Winthrop, after Jill's kid brother, the most prominent of the young social critics.[3][4]
Cast
edit- Morty Meekle – office worker
- Jill Wortle – Morty's girlfriend
- Mr. and Mrs. Wortle – Jill's parents
- Winthrop Wortle – Jill's kid brother
- E. G. Boomer – Morty's boss
Paperback collections
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Morty Meekle/Winthrop". toonopedia.com. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
- ^ Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 415. ISBN 9780472117567.
- ^ a b c Wepman, Dennis, in Horn, Maurice, ed. (1996). 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics. New York City; Avenel, New Jersey: Gramercy Books. pp. 395–396, Winthrop (entry). ISBN 978-0-517-12447-5.
- ^ a b Morty Meekle (Winthrop) at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015.
- ^ "Yesterday's Papers: Morty Meekle". john-adcock.blogspot.com. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
External links
edit- Cavalli, Dick. "Dick Cavalli". National Cartoonists Society. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
Further reading
edit- "Dick Cavalli and Winthrop". Cartoonews. No. 10. 1976. pp. 23–24.