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Jason on Ginger at 100
The Ginger Meggs sketch will mark its one hundredth anniversary this week.
It was Aussie Jimmy Bancks who launched the world to this mischevious scamp in November 1921 in a characteristic referred to as Us Fellers, which he modified to Ginger Meggs a couple of month later. A collection of creators adopted Bancks’s premature demise in 1953: Ron Vivian from 1953 to 1973; Lloyd Piper from 1973 to 1983; and James Kemsley from 1984 to 2007.
Since then, Meggsie and his crew have been penned and illustrated by Jason Chatfield.
GoComics interviewed that last named cartoonist about the rare comic strip achievement.
What’s one factor folks don’t learn about Ginger?
Lots of people don’t know that he began out as Ginger Smith, and was a supporting character in a strip referred to as Us Fellers. The strip starred a special character named Gladsome Gladys. Isn’t that wild? The creator, Jimmy Bancks, had written such a lovable character in Ginger that the readers gravitated to him. Finally, it made sense to make him the primary character, title the strip after him, and for some purpose nonetheless not identified to today, change his title from Smith to Meggs.
Note that Jason is honoring the five Ginger Meggs cartoonists this week, leaving Saturday for ????
© Jason Chatfield; Ginger Meggs ™ Winslow Investments Pty Ltd
disclosure: GoComics and Every day Cartoonist each a part of Group Andrews McMeel
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