Walter Louis "Walt" Ditzen (August 8, 1913 – March 4, 1973) was an
American 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 ...
. Ditzen drew the "Fan Fare" cartoon strip. ''Fan Fare'' was launched in 1947 (syndicated by the
John F. Dille Co.
The National Newspaper Syndicate, originally known as the John F. Dille Co., was a syndication service that operated from 1917 to c. 1984. It was founded by Chicago businessman John F. Dille and specialized in comic strips and gag cartoons. It a ...
) running until 1961, when it changed title to ''Fun Fare'', running until 1973.
Ditzen helped and advised
Charles Schulz on the early samples of
Charlie Brown.
[Schulz, Charles M. ''My Life with Charlie Brown'' (University Press of Mississippi, 2010), p. 32: "In all the articles that have been written about Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the other things we have been doing, none of the writers has ever mentioned that the one cartoonist who helped most was Walt Ditzen. When he was working for one of the syndicates in Chicago, I dropped in with a batch of samples and he went far out of his way that day and later to give me advice and help that I badly needed. I have always regretted that Walt never got any credit for this where people could hear about it."]
References
American cartoonists
1914 births
1973 deaths
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