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Most
every syndicate was interested when George Baker was starting his successful
Sunday comic strip. Interested in owning the strip and characters
that is, as was the order of the day. George held out, and with good reason,
his collection of cartoons from "Yank" The Army Weekly, titled "The Sad
Sack" and published by Simon and Schuster, was the best selling comic strip
collection of all time!
John
Wheeler of Bell Syndicate did business differently and George became one
of the earliest comic creators to retain the rights to his syndicated strip,
the characters as well as all the artwork he created. Something which was
pretty much unheard of at the time. George helped blaze the way, for many
of the cartoonists, that own their strips and art today!
The
newspaper strip took over from it's "Yank" predecessor in the post World
War II era of 1946 with Sad Sack getting his discharge and becoming a "civilian".
Still in pantomime Sack suffered the everyday woes of the everyday man.
The
strip was continuously evolving as Baker took the Sad Sack through many
different phases. In and out of pantomime and the Army, from highly technical
and elaborate illustrations to a very simple cartoon style.
With
the Korean War ending, popular demand would have The Sad Sack back in the
Army again. As if being a civilian was a nightmare, Sack was back digging
trenches, cleaning garbage pails, and peeling potatoes, only this time
he was enjoying it! While in the Comic Books produced by Alfred Harvey,
The Sad Sack would remain forever the soldier of misfortune, the comic
strip would soon have him sporting his civvies once again. Many of Sad
Sack's civilian adventures will be collected here for the first time.
Join
us here everyday, as we present George Baker's classic comic strip on SadSack.net,
where everyday is like Sunday!
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Special Thanks to Shel Dorf.
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Thanks to Claude Held.
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Thanks to Starland Strips.
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