''Bozo'' is the first pantomime-style

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 ...

, was created by the cartoonist Francis X. Reardon (with the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Foxo Reardon, or FoXo Reardon), who penned it beginning from 1921, until his death in 1955. ''Bozo'' is called America's original pantomime comic strip. ''Bozo'' ran both as a daily comic strip as well as on Sundays. The word "

bozo Bozo or bozo may refer to: People *Bozo people, a fishing people of the central Niger delta in Mali ** Bozo language, languages of the Bozo people * Frédéric Bozo, history Professor at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle * Bozo Mille ...

", that was practically unknown in the 1920s, was popularized by the

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

Foxo Reardon through this weekly

newspaper strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

, decades before the appearance of

Bozo the Clown Bozo the Clown, sometimes billed as "Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown", is a clown character created for children's entertainment, widely popular in the second half of the 20th century. He was introduced in the United States in 1946, and to te ...

About Bozo Comics

The character Bozo was created by ''Foxo Reardon'' at age 16. Starting as early as 1925, the

appeared as a local weekly in ''

The Times-Dispatch The ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'' (''RTD'' or ''TD'' for short) is the primary daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, Richmond, the capital of Virginia, and the primary newspaper of record for the state of Virginia. Circulation The ''Times-Dispatc ...

'' until it achieved national and international

syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

through the

Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate The Field Newspaper Syndicate was a syndication service based in Chicago that operated independently from 1941 to 1984, for a good time under the name the Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate. The service was founded by Marshall Field III and was part of ...

in 1945. Bozo appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sunday for twenty years before it was syndicated nationally and internationally by

Field Enterprises Field Enterprises, Inc. was a private holding company that operated from the 1940s to the 1980s, founded by Marshall Field III and others, whose main assets were the ''Chicago Sun'' and ''Parade'' magazine. For various periods of time, Field Enter ...

in 1945. Bozo was syndicated from 1945 to 1955. In 1943, the Times-Dispatch called ''Bozo'' "the world's first pantomime comic strip," predating comics like ''

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

'', ''

The Little King ''The Little King'' is a 1930-1975 American gag-a-day comic strip created by Otto Soglow, telling its stories in a style using images and very few words, as in pantomime. Publication history Soglow's character first appeared on June 7, 1930, in ...

'', and other pantomime-style comics that arrived in the 1930s. Unlike most other pantomime comics where at least one or the other character may speak a word or a sentence, any of the characters in Bozo did not originally speak a word. From an article in the '' Richmond-Times Dispatch'' on March 24, 1935, the

himself, FoXo Reardon, says that, "Bozo and Bozanne were born in 1924 and I had to do em in pantomime because I hadn't learned to spell yet... ...But now I know all about spelling because the editorial department bought a new dictionary and I swiped the old one...", and the article goes on to say that, "So now every once in a while Bozo opens that big mouth of his and says something, but his pantomime is still his best humor." ''

'' conducted a 1935 survey of 1,500 readers and found ''Bozo'' to be the second most popular comic, behind "

Bringing Up Father ''Bringing Up Father'' is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000. The strip was later titled ''Jiggs and Maggie'' (or ''M ...

". Once it reached

, the Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate conducted a similar survey where readers voted it the most popular comic carried by that syndicate. The Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate promoted ''Bozo'' as the world's original pantomime comic strip. The Bulletin of the Virginia Press Association (in page 8 and page 15) dated May 1946 called Bozo "The Mighty Nobody an Antidote For Blues". These classic ''Bozo'' comics are being republished by Andrew Mc Meel's comics website Go Comics since February 22, 2021.

Main Characters

* Bozo: The

title character The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

. A short and unimpressive-looking man called Bozo. The syndicate described him as "America's

roughneck Roughneck is a term for a person whose occupation is hard manual labor. The term applies across a number of industries, but is most commonly associated with the workers on a drilling rig. The ideal of the hard-working, tough roughneck has been ...

." * Bozann: Bozo's beautiful girlfriend. * The Man with the umbrella: A mysterious "man with an umbrella" who appears more often than not in the background of strips, and who, on very rare occasions appeared in the foreground too. He's also known as Fuzzy. * The neighborhood burglar, mischievous but harmless. * Various uniformed officers of the law with whom Bozo often has"disagreements." * Lady with a flower pot on her head, who appears on occasion. * Bozo's little dog, appearing occasionally

External Links

Bozo on Go Comics

References

{{reflist American comic strips Comic strips started in the 1920s Comic strips ended in the 1950s Pantomime comics