''Apartment 3-G'' is an American newspaper
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
comic strip about a trio of
career
The career is an individual's metaphorical "journey" through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are a number of ways to define career and the term is used in a variety of ways.
Definitions
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defi ...
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
who share an apartment in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Created by
Nicholas P. Dallis with art by
Alex Kotzky, the strip began May 8, 1961, initially distributed by the
Publishers Syndicate, which later merged with
King Features Syndicate in 1988.
The strip went through several changes of writers and artists over its 54-year run, finally ending on November 22, 2015.
Characters and story
The strip's situations and characters were influenced by the pioneering soap opera strip ''
Mary Worth
''Mary Worth'' is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight-decade run from 1938. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this soap opera-style strip influenced several that followed. It was created by writer Allen Saunders and ar ...
'' as well as
Rona Jaffe
Rona Jaffe (June 12, 1931 – December 30, 2005) was an American novelist who published numerous works from 1958 to 2003. During the 1960s, she also wrote cultural pieces for ''Cosmopolitan''.
Biography
Jaffe was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1 ...
's bestselling 1958 novel ''
The Best of Everything''.
[''Mary Worth'']
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on October 24, 2015.
The three main characters are Margo Magee, a
brunette
Brown hair, also referred to as brunet (male) or brunette (female), is the second most common human hair color, after black hair. It varies from light brown to a medium dark hair. It is characterized by higher levels of the dark pigment eume ...
who has variously held positions as a secretary,
actors' agent,
publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for a work such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists who ...
and
event planner
Event management is the application of project management to the creation and development of small and/or large-scale personal or corporate events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, weddings, formal parties, concerts, or conventions. ...
; Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, a
redheaded nurse
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...
; and Lu Ann Powers née Wright, a
blonde
Blond (male) or blonde (female), also referred to as fair hair, is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can ...
art teacher
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
.
The appearances of the three main characters were loosely based on real actresses: Tommie was based on
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golde ...
, Margo on
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primeti ...
and Lu Ann on
Tuesday Weld
Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld; August 27, 1943) is an American actress and model. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over t ...
.
Kindly neighbor
Professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
Aristotle Papagoras serves as a father figure.
Lu Ann, originally single, met and married a
U.S. Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
named Garth Powers (renamed Gary in a 2011 story arc) in 1964, after which she moved out of the apartment. She was replaced by another blonde, Beth Howard. Lu Ann's husband was later killed in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
and she eventually moved back into the apartment, while Beth was written out after falling in love with young physician Lester Pride.
There have been a number of other notable supporting characters in the comic strip throughout the years. Byron Frost was Margo's generally supportive boss from 1962 to 1990. Newton Figg (1966, 1971, 1977, 1980, 1986), the handsome but childlike author of children's books, talked to his pet stuffed animals as though they were real. Not surprisingly, he had some romantic challenges. Roberta Magee, Margo's temperamental mother, caused recurring troubles.
When Lisa Trusiani took over scripting the strip, stories began to revolve more around family relations. Gabriella Gatica turns up in 1999 as Margo's biological mother, a maid that Margo's father had had an affair with. Blaze Wright, Lu Ann's employment-challenged cousin and an aspiring actor, first appeared in 1998 and appeared off and on through 2011. Ruby Wright followed in 2007 and turned out to be Lu Ann's biological mother. Eric Mills, owner of the Mills Gallery, nurtures Lu Ann's interest in painting; he also became a reoccurring romantic interest for Margo in 2006-2008 (when he is presumed dead in an avalanche) and in 2014-15 (when he turns up alive after all).
Creative team
* Nicholas Dallis (story) & Alex Kotzky (art): May 8, 1961 - 1991
* Alex Kotzky (story and art): 1991 - Jan 12, 1997
* Lisa Trusiani (story) & Brian Kotzky (art): Jan 13, 1997 - Nov 29, 1999
* Lisa Trusiani (story) & Frank Bolle (art): Dec 1, 1999 - 2006
* Margaret Shulock (story) & Frank Bolle (art): 2007 - Nov 22, 2015
Alex Kotzky, who drew and inked in a tight and crisp
realistic style, was the artist of ''Apartment 3-G'' for more than 30 years. When Dallis died in 1991, Kotzky began writing the strip. With Kotzky's death in 1996, his son, Brian Kotzky, took over as the ''Apartment 3-G'' artist, and Lisa Trusiani became the scripter. In 1999,
[ Note: Information "by Frank Bolle via Jim Amash March 2006".] Frank Bolle
Frank W. Bolle (June 23, 1924 – May 12, 2020) was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips ''Winnie Winkle'' and ''The Heart of Juliet Jones''; for stints on th ...
stepped in as the illustrator when Brian Kotzky left to become a teacher. Writer
Margaret Shulock later succeeded Trusiani.
Dallis, formerly a psychiatrist, also created the soap opera comic strips ''
Rex Morgan, M.D.'' and ''
Judge Parker
''Judge Parker'' is an American soap opera-style comic strip created by Nicholas P. Dallis that first appeared on November 24, 1952. The strip's look and content were influenced by the work of Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst on ''Mary Worth''.
Char ...
''.
Awards
Alex Kotzky received the 1968
National Cartoonists Society's Story Comic Strip Award for his work on ''Apartment 3-G''.
See also
*
List of women in comics
References
External links
King Features Syndicate: ''Apartment 3-G''(official site
Archivedfrom the original on December 10, 2015.
at
Don Markstein's ToonopediaArchivedfrom the original on April 4, 2012.
Comics Curmudgeon: ''Apartment 3-G''National Cartoonists Society Awards
*
{{King Features Syndicate Comics
American comic strips
Drama comics
1961 comics debuts
2015 comics endings
Fictional locations in comics