''The Adventures of Patsy'' was an American

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written 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 politics, business, sports 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 ...

which ran from March 11, 1935, to April 2, 1955. Created by , it was syndicated by AP Newsfeatures. The Phantom Magician, an early supporting character in the strip, is regarded by some comics historians as among the first

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...

es of comics.

Publication history

departed in May 1940 to take over ''

Secret Agent X-9 ''Secret Agent X-9'' is a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett ('' The Maltese Falcon'') and artist Alex Raymond (''Flash Gordon''). Syndicated by King Features, it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996. Premise and publ ...

''; the last daily strip credited to Graff ran June 15, 1940. Charles Rabb took over the strip on June 17, 1940, and added a Sunday page in October 1941, also known as ''Patsy in Hollywood''. Rabb left the strip as of December 5, 1942. After Rabb, the strip was unsigned for a few months (December 7, 1942 - March 20, 1943), and then went through a succession of creators: George Storm (March 22, 1943 - April 8, 1944), Al McClean (April 10, 1944 - April 7, 1945), Richard Hall (April 9, 1945 - April 6, 1946) and finally William Dyer, who debuted on the strip April 8, 1946, and stayed for nine years, until the strip came to a conclusion on April 2, 1955.

Characters and story

The strip originated as a fantasy. The story began with five-year-old Patsy carried away in a kite to the magical kingdom of Ods Bodkins. (This setting is unrelated to ''Odd Bodkins'', a later comic strip launched in 1964 by cartoonist

Dan O'Neill Dan O'Neill (born April 21, 1942) is an American underground cartoonist, creator of the syndicated comic strip ''Odd Bodkins'' and founder of the underground comics collective the Air Pirates. Education O'Neill attended the University of Sa ...

.) During her fanciful journey, Patsy was accompanied and often rescued by the masked Phantom Magician. When they returned to Earth, the Phantom Magician doffed his duds for conventional clothing and assumed the identity of Phil Cardigan, Patsy's uncle, in December 1936. With stories situated in Hollywood, Uncle Phil worked as a screenwriter and Patsy was a young movie actress for producer J. P. Panberg. After Phil was eventually written out of the strip, Patsy's new sidekick was Hollywood agent Skidd Higgins.

The Phantom Magician

An early supporting character, the swashbuckling Phantom Magician, introduced a fantasy element. Some comics historians regard this character and

Lee Falk Lee Falk (), born Leon Harrison Gross (; April 28, 1911 – March 13, 1999), was an American cartoonist, writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the comic strips ''Mandrake the Magician'' and ''The Phantom''. At the ...

Mandrake the Magician ''Mandrake the Magician'' is a syndicated newspaper 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 balloon ...

as among the first

es of comics.

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 Toonopedi ...

writes, "Depending on how you define the term, Patsy's recurring rescuer, The Phantom Magician, may have been the first superhero in comics... Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics' first superhero."''The Adventures of Patsy''
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 ...

Archived
from the original on March 15, 2012.

References

1935 comics debuts 1954 comics endings American comics characters American comic strips Comics about women Comics characters introduced in 1935 Fantasy comics {{comic-strip-stub