King Features Syndicate - History

History

William Randolph Hearst's newspapers began syndicating material in 1895 after receiving requests from other newspapers. In 1914, Hearst and his manager Moses Koenigsberg consolidated all of Hearst's syndication enterprises under one banner. Koenigsberg gave it his own name (koenig=king) when he launched King Features Syndicate. Production escalated in 1916 with King Features buying and selling its own staff-created feature material. A trade publication, Circulation, was published by King Features between 1916 and 1933. Syndication peaked in the mid-1930s with 130 syndicates offering 1,600 features to more than 13,700 newspapers.

In 1941, Koenigsberg wrote an autobiographical history of the company, King News. Hearst paid close attention to the comic strips, even in the last years of his life, as is evident in these 1945-46 correspondence excerpts, originally in Editor & Publisher (December 1946), about the creation of Dick's Adventures in Dreamland, a strip which debuted Sunday, January 12, 1947, written by former Daily News reporter Max Trell and illustrated by Neil O'Keefe (who also drew for King Features a strip based on Edgar Wallace's Inspector Wade of Scotland Yard):

Hearst to King Features president J. D. Gortatowsky (December 28, 1945): "I have had numerous suggestions for incorporating some American history of a vivid kind in the adventure strips of the comic section. The difficulty is to find something that will sufficiently interest the kids... Perhaps a title, Trained by Fate, would be general enough. Take Paul Revere and show him as a boy making as much of his boyhood life as possible, and culminate, of course, with his ride. Take Betsy Ross for a heroine, or Barbara Fritchie... for the girls."

King Features editor Ward Greene to Hearst: "There is another way to do it, which is somewhat fantastic, but which I submit for your consideration. That is to devise a new comic... a 'dream' idea revolving around a boy we might call Dick. Dick, or his equivalent, would go in his dream with Mad Anthony Wayne at the storming of Stony Point or with Decatur at Tripoli... provide a constant character... who would become known to the kids."

Hearst to Greene: "The dream idea for the American history series is splendid. It gives continuity and personal interest, and you can make more than one page of each series... You are right about the importance of the artist."

Greene to Hearst (enclosing samples): "We employed the dream device, building the comic around a small boy."

Hearst to Greene: "I think the drawing of Dick and His Dad is amazingly good. It is perfectly splendid. I am afraid, however, that similar beginning and conclusion of each page might give a deadly sameness to the series... Perhaps we could get the dream idea over by having only the conclusion on each page. I mean, do not show the boy going to sleep every time and then show him waking up, but let the waking up come as a termination to each page... Can you develop anything out of the idea of having Dick the son of the keeper of the Liberty Statue in New York Harbor? I do not suggest this, as it would probably add further complications, but it might give a spiritual tie to all the dreams. The main thing, however, is to get more realism."

Greene to Hearst: "We do not have to show the dream at the beginning and end of every page... If we simply call the comic something like Dreamer Dick, we would have more freedom... Some device other than the dream might be used... A simple method would be to have him curl up with a history book."

Hearst to Greene: "If we find is not a success, of course we can brief it, but if it is a success it should be a long series."

Greene to Hearst: "I am sending you two sample pages of Dick's Adventures in Dreamland which start a series about Christopher Columbus."

Hearst to Greene: "In January, I am told, we are going to 16 pages regularly on Puck, the Comic Weekly. That would be a good time to introduce the Columbus series, don't you think so?"

In the 1940s, Ward Greene (1893-1956) was King Features' editor, having worked his way up through the ranks. He was a reporter and war correspondent for the Atlanta Journal from 1913 to 1917, moving to the New York Tribune in 1917 and then the New York Journal as correspondent in France and Germany (1918–19). He joined King Features in 1921, became a writer and editor of the magazine section in 1925, advancing to executive editor and general manager. King Features vice president Bradley Kelly (1894-1969) was a King comics editor during the 1940s.

Sylvan Byck (1904-1982) was the head editor of the syndicate's comics features for several decades, from the 1950s until his retirement in 1978. A King Features employee for more than 40 years and comics editor for 33 years, Byck was 78 when he died July 8, 1982. Comic strip artist John Celardo (1918 – 2012) began as a King comics editor in 1973.

In 1973, Tom Pritchard (1928-1992) joined King Features, and he became executive editor in 1990, overseeing daily editorial operations and the development of political cartoons, syndicated columns and editorial services for King Features and North America Syndicate. Born in Bronxville, New York, Pritchard arrived at King Features after work as a reporter at The Record-Journal (Meriden, Connecticut), as feature writer with The Hartford Times, as editor-publisher of Connecticut's weekly Wethersfield Post and as executive editor of The Manchester Journal Inquirer in Connecticut. He died of a heart attack in December 1992 at his home in Norwalk, Connecticut.

In 1978, cartoonist Bill Yates (1921 – 2001) took over as King Features' comics editor. He had previously edited Dell Publishing's cartoon magazines (1000 Jokes, Ballyhoo, For Laughing Out Loud) and Dell's paperback cartoon collections. Yates resigned from King Features at the end of 1988 in order to spend full time on his cartooning, and he died March 26, 2001. In 1988, Yates was replaced by Jay Kennedy, author of The Official Underground & Newave Comix Price Guide (Norton Boatner, 1982). On March 15, 2007, Kennedy drowned in a riptide while vacationing in Costa Rica.

King Features appointed associate editor Brendan Burford to the position of comics editor on April 23, 2007. Burford, who attended the School of Visual Arts, was employed for a year as an editorial assistant at DC Comics before joining King Features as an editorial assistant in January 2000. Working closely with Jay Kennedy over a seven-year span, he was promoted from assistant editor to associate editor to editor.

In 2007, King Features donated its collection of comic strip proof sheets (two sets of over 60 years accumulation) to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and the Michigan State University Comic Art Collection while retaining the collection in electronic form for reference purposes.