George Gately Gallagher (December 21, 1928 – September 30, 2001), better known as George Gately, was an American cartoonist, notable as the creator of the '' Heathcliff'' comic strip.
Born in
Queens Village, Queens
Queens Village is a mostly residential middle class neighborhood in the eastern part of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bound by Hollis to the west, Cambria Heights to the south, Bellerose to the east, and Oakland Gardens to the north. ...
, Gately came from a family of comics lovers. His father was an amateur doodler, and his elder brother
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
was also a cartoonist. He grew up and went to school in
Bergenfield, New Jersey
Bergenfield is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 28,321, an increase of 1,557 from the 2010 censuscount of 26,764,Pratt Institute. After graduating, he worked at an advertising agency for 11 years, but commercial art gave him little satisfaction. Seeing the success of his elder brother, George decided to enter the cartoon field. In 1957, he sold his first comic. He dropped his last name of Gallagher to avoid confusion with his brother.
Comic strips
In 1964, he created his first strip, ''Hapless Harry'', which ran for a few years in several newspapers. He also created a strip called "Hippy" around 1967 featuring a curvaceous blonde flower child. It only ran until 1969, although it was advertised in E&P until 1970. But his most memorable creation came in 1973 in the form of a fat orange cat, Heathcliff. ''Heathcliff'' was an enormous success and was published in newspapers worldwide. To keep up with the demand, he recruited Bob Laughlin, and later his brother John to help draw the
daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays.
Bud Fisher's ''Mutt and Jeff'' is commonly regarded as the first daily c ...
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
s by
Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate (also known as Creators) is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few suc ...
, who took over the strip from McNaught Syndicate in 1988. Gately gave up drawing in 1998. ''Heathcliff'' is now written and drawn by his nephew Peter Gallagher.
A resident of
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', October 4, 2001. Accessed November 17, 2017. "Gallagher died Sunday of cardiopulmonary disease at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J. A resident of Upper Saddle River, N.J., Gallagher had been hospitalized in declining health for several months."