''Apartment 3-G'' is an American newspaper
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
about a trio of
career
The career is an individual's metaphorical "journey" through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are a number of ways to define career and the term is used in a variety of ways.
Definitions
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defin ...
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...
who share an apartment in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Created by
Nicholas P. Dallis
Nicholas Peter Dallis (December 15, 1911 - July 6, 1991), was an American psychiatrist turned comic strip writer, creator of the soap opera-style strips '' Rex Morgan, M.D.'', ''Judge Parker'' and '' Apartment 3-G''. Separating his comics caree ...
with art by
Alex Kotzky
Alex Kotzky (September 11, 1923 – September 26, 1996) was a cartoonist best known for his three decades of work on the comic strip ''Apartment 3-G'', originally distributed by Publishers Syndicate.
Biography Early life and education
Born ...
, the strip began May 8, 1961, initially distributed by the
Publishers Syndicate
Publishers Newspaper Syndicate was a syndication service based in Chicago that operated from 1925 to 1967, when it merged with the Hall Syndicate. Publishers syndicated such long-lived comic strips as '' Big Chief Wahoo/Steve Roper'', ''Mary Wort ...
, which later merged with
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...
in 1988.
The strip went through several changes of writers and artists over its 54-year run, finally ending on November 22, 2015.
Characters and story
The strip's situations and characters were influenced by the pioneering soap opera strip ''
Mary Worth'' as well as
Rona Jaffe's bestselling 1958 novel ''
The Best of Everything''.
[''Mary Worth'']
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on October 24, 2015.
The three main characters are Margo Magee, a
brunette
Brown hair, also referred to as brunet (male) or brunette (female), is the second most common human hair color, after black hair. It varies from light brown to a medium dark hair. It is characterized by higher levels of the dark pigment eumela ...
who has variously held positions as a secretary,
actors' agent,
publicist and
event planner
Event management is the application of project management to the creation and development of small and/or large-scale personal or corporate events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, weddings, formal parties, concerts, or conventions. ...
; Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, a
redheaded nurse
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...
; and Lu Ann Powers née Wright, a
blonde art teacher
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of what ...
.
The appearances of the three main characters were loosely based on real actresses: Tommie was based on
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden ...
, Margo on
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime ...
and Lu Ann on
Tuesday Weld.
Kindly neighbor
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
Aristotle Papagoras serves as a father figure.
Lu Ann, originally single, met and married a
U.S. Air Force pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
named Garth Powers (renamed Gary in a 2011 story arc) in 1964, after which she moved out of the apartment. She was replaced by another blonde, Beth Howard. Lu Ann's husband was later killed in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
and she eventually moved back into the apartment, while Beth was written out after falling in love with young physician Lester Pride.
There have been a number of other notable supporting characters in the comic strip throughout the years. Byron Frost was Margo's generally supportive boss from 1962 to 1990. Newton Figg (1966, 1971, 1977, 1980, 1986), the handsome but childlike author of children's books, talked to his pet stuffed animals as though they were real. Not surprisingly, he had some romantic challenges. Roberta Magee, Margo's temperamental mother, caused recurring troubles.
When Lisa Trusiani took over scripting the strip, stories began to revolve more around family relations. Gabriella Gatica turns up in 1999 as Margo's biological mother, a maid that Margo's father had had an affair with. Blaze Wright, Lu Ann's employment-challenged cousin and an aspiring actor, first appeared in 1998 and appeared off and on through 2011. Ruby Wright followed in 2007 and turned out to be Lu Ann's biological mother. Eric Mills, owner of the Mills Gallery, nurtures Lu Ann's interest in painting; he also became a reoccurring romantic interest for Margo in 2006-2008 (when he is presumed dead in an avalanche) and in 2014-15 (when he turns up alive after all).
Creative team
* Nicholas Dallis (story) & Alex Kotzky (art): May 8, 1961 - 1991
* Alex Kotzky (story and art): 1991 - Jan 12, 1997
* Lisa Trusiani (story) & Brian Kotzky (art): Jan 13, 1997 - Nov 29, 1999
* Lisa Trusiani (story) & Frank Bolle (art): Dec 1, 1999 - 2006
* Margaret Shulock (story) & Frank Bolle (art): 2007 - Nov 22, 2015
Alex Kotzky, who drew and inked in a tight and crisp
realistic style, was the artist of ''Apartment 3-G'' for more than 30 years. When Dallis died in 1991, Kotzky began writing the strip. With Kotzky's death in 1996, his son, Brian Kotzky, took over as the ''Apartment 3-G'' artist, and Lisa Trusiani became the scripter. In 1999,
[ Note: Information "by Frank Bolle via Jim Amash March 2006".] Frank Bolle
Frank W. Bolle (June 23, 1924 – May 12, 2020) was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips ''Winnie Winkle'' and ''The Heart of Juliet Jones''; for stints on th ...
stepped in as the illustrator when Brian Kotzky left to become a teacher. Writer
Margaret Shulock later succeeded Trusiani.
Dallis, formerly a psychiatrist, also created the soap opera comic strips ''
Rex Morgan, M.D.'' and ''
Judge Parker''.
Awards
Alex Kotzky
Alex Kotzky (September 11, 1923 – September 26, 1996) was a cartoonist best known for his three decades of work on the comic strip ''Apartment 3-G'', originally distributed by Publishers Syndicate.
Biography Early life and education
Born ...
received the 1968
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
's Story Comic Strip Award for his work on ''Apartment 3-G''.
See also
*
List of women in comics
This is a list of women who have been involved with producing comic books and comic strips. Many notable female comics creators exist even though the field of comics creation is traditionally male-dominated.
Africa
Congo
* Fifi Mukuna
Egypt
* ...
References
External links
King Features Syndicate: ''Apartment 3-G''(official site
Archivedfrom the original on December 10, 2015.
at
Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...
Archivedfrom the original on April 4, 2012.
Comics Curmudgeon: ''Apartment 3-G''National Cartoonists Society Awards*
{{King Features Syndicate Comics
American comic strips
Drama comics
1961 comics debuts
2015 comics endings
Fictional locations in comics