''Life's Like That'' was a gag panel by
Fred Neher
Fred Neher (September 29, 1903 – September 22, 2001) was an American cartoonist best known for his syndicated gag panel, ''Life's Like That'', which offered a humorous look at human nature, with a focus on American society and family life, for ...
which found humor in life's foibles. Spanning five decades -- from October 1, 1934 to August 20, 1977
— the panel was initially distributed by
Consolidated News Features, and later by the
Bell-McClure Syndicate and the
United Feature Syndicate
United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media ( ...
.
[
At its peak, ''Life's Like That'' was published in 500 newspapers. The Sunday format gave several cartoons a free-floating grouping, with variations, including one arrangement similar to ]George Lichty
George Lichty (May 16, 1905 – July 18, 1983) was an American cartoonist, creator of the daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday cartoon series ''Grin and Bear It''. His work was signed Lichty and often ran without mention of his first name. ...
's ''Grin and Bear It
''Grin and Bear It'' is a former daily comic panel created by George Lichtenstein under the pen name George Lichty. Lichty created ''Grin and Bear it'' in 1932 and it ran 83 years until 2015, making it the 10th-longest-running comic strip in Am ...
'', displaying several square-shaped panels with one in a circle.[National Cartoonists Society]
When Neher died at age 98 in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...
in 2001, Owen S. Good wrote in the ''Rocky Mountain News'':
Publication history
Neher had drawn a comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
, ''Goofey Movies'', for five years (1925-1930),[ plus sales of gag cartoons to 42 magazines, including '']Collier's
}
''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter F. Collier, Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened i ...
'' and ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'', when the Bell Syndicate
The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 4 ...
signed him on in 1934.
''Life's Like That'' was launched October 1, 1934, and ran until 1941 but disappeared from newspapers during World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. As the war concluded, it returned by June 1945, running until 1977, when Neher retired. He stopped doing the Sunday half-page in October 1972.
Doug Sweet, of ''The Montreal Gazette
''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
It is the only English-language daily newspape ...
'', recalled that his newspaper ran ''Life's Like That'' when it carried no other syndicated gag panels or comic strips:
Archives
During the 1950s and 1960s, Neher taught cartooning at the University of Colorado for 12 years, and he donated his ''Life's Like That'' cartoons to the University of Colorado Library Archives (where they fill 36 linear feet). As he described it, "Univ. of Colo. ask to have all my original drawings for safe keeping ... came in a truck and left me only my shorts."University of Colorado: "A Guide to Manuscript Collections"
[
]
References
{{reflist
External links
Syracuse University: Fred Neher Papers
American comic strips
Comic strips set in the United States
1934 comics debuts
1977 comics endings
Gag cartoon comics
Gag-a-day comics
Slice of life comics