''Teena'' is a

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 teenage girl, created by

Hilda Terry Hilda is one of several female given names derived from the name ''Hild'', formed from Old Norse , meaning 'battle'. Hild, a Nordic-German Bellona, was a Valkyrie who conveyed fallen warriors to Valhalla. Warfare was often called Hild's Game. The ...

. It ran from July 1, 1944, to 1963, distributed by

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 ...

. The strip evolved from Terry's earlier Sunday feature, ''It's a Girl's Life'', a collection of

gag cartoon A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-panel cartoon, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. A pantomime cartoon carries no caption. In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech b ...

s which first appeared in newspapers on Sunday, December 14, 1941. The format displayed six panels about the reactions of teenage girls to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Comics historian

Don Markstein 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 Toonop ...

noted: :They also could be marketed as a daily feature, but wartime paper shortages prevented that. The main characters were named Henny and Penny... In 1943,

Harry Haenigsen Harry William Haenigsen (July 14, 1900 – 1990) was an American illustrator and cartoonist best known for '' Penny'', his comic strip about a teenage girl. He also illustrated for books, magazines and advertising. Biography Born in New York C ...

launched his own girl-protagonist strip, titled ''

Penny A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is t ...

''. In response, Terry dropped hers and started a more traditionally-formatted Sunday comic about a similar character with a different name. "Tina" was a good candidate for the new one's name, but the word "teenager" was just coming into vogue, so that was the spelling used. ''Teena'' started on July 1, 1944. Teena's much younger sister, Gwendolyn, was added to the cast later. Things went well for Terry and Teena for about 20 years, until a general decline in the newspaper business forced the cartoonist to find work elsewhere. She eventually wound up in the burgeoning field of computer animation, for which she won an award in 1979 from the

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 ...

she'd been instrumental in opening up a generation earlier. As for Teena, sources differ as to the exact year of the comic's demise, ranging from 1963 to '66. There is little doubt, however, that Hilda Terry's comics creations are a part of comics history that hasn't been seen in years.Markstein, Don. Toonopedia.
/ref> In Denmark, the strip was known as ''Tina''.

Main Characters

*Teena Merry - The main character, a red-haired teenage girl. In color strips, her hair is either orange, maize yellow, or in rare instances, blonde. *Pipsie Squeakie - Teena's best friend, a teenage girl with dark hair. Her first name is sometimes spelled Pipsy. *Gwendolyn - Introduced later in the strip. A precocious little girl who lives across the street from Teena, whom she had become friends with. Has a big teenage brother, who Teena was infatuated with. *Mary Merry - Teena's mother. *John Merry - Teena's father.

References

External links

"''Teena'' by Hilda Terry", Mike Lynch Cartoons, October 19, 2006.
American comic strips 1944 comics debuts 1966 comics endings Comics characters introduced in 1944 Fictional American people American comics characters Teen comedy comics Gag-a-day comics Gag cartoon comics Comics about women Female characters in comics Teenage characters in comics {{comic-strip-stub

Main Characters

See also

References

External links