1934 in comics

Events and publications

January

• January 7: Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim makes their debut.
• January 22: Dashiel Hammett and Alex Raymond's Secret Agent X-9 makes its debut and will run until 1996.

  February

• February - August: Hergé's Popol Out West is serialized in Le Petit Vingtième.

  March

• March 4: The final episode of Bucky Bug as part of the Silly Symphony feature is published.
• March 5: Frank Victor Martinek's Don Winslow of the Navy makes its debut. It will run until 30 July 1955.
• March 19: Will Gould's Red Barry makes its debut.

  April

• April: David Low's Colonel Blimp makes his debut.

  May

• Zeke Wolf and the three little pigs debut in comics, in a Tom Wood’s table for the magazine Good Housekkeping.

  June

• June 11: Lee Falk and Fred Fredericks's Mandrake the Magician makes its debut.

  July

• July 23: The first episode of Bud Counihan's Betty Boop newspaper comic is published. It will run until 1937.
• Famous Funnies #1 - The first full-color comic book sold to the public. It set the standard of 68 pages, including covers, and sold for 10 cents. Early issues of this series, starting with #1, advertised the contents as "100 Comics and Games - Puzzles - Magic."

  August

• August 13: Al Capp's Li'l Abner makes its debut.

  September

• September 16: Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro's Silly Symphony comic strip adapts the cartoon The Wise Little Hen, which marks the official debut of Donald Duck as a comics character.
• September: Rube Goldberg's Boob McNutt comes to a close.
• Famous Funnies #2 - With this issue, Famous Funnies would become the first monthly newsstand comic publication.

  October

• October 1: Fred Neher's Life's Like That makes its debut.
• October 7: Fred Harman's Bronc Peeler makes its debut.
• October 14: The first issue of the Italian comics magazine L'Avventuroso is published. It will run until 16 May 1943.
• October 21: First publication of the French Disney comics magazine Le Journal de Mickey. A test issue was already published on June 1, 1934.
• October 22: Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates makes its debut.
• Famous Funnies #3

  November

• November 17: In Billy DeBeck's Barney Google Snuffy Smith makes its debut, leading to an eventual title change as Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.
• Famous Funnies #4
• Adolphe Barreaux' Sally the Sleuth debuts in Spicy Detective.

  December

• December 13: E.O. Plauen's Vater und Sohn makes its debut.
• Famous Funnies #5

  Specific date unknown

• Walter Goetz launches his newspaper comics Colonel Up and Mr. Down and Dab and Flounder.

  Deaths

February

• February 15: Louis Forton, French comics writer and artist, dies at age 54.
• February 27: John Terry, American comics artist and animator, dies at age 53 or 54.

  June

• June 3: Chic Jackson, American comics artist, dies at age 57 from a heart attack.

  July

• July 26: Winsor McCay, American comics artist and animator dies at age 64 from a cerebral embolism.

  November

• November 23: Albert Funke Küpper, Dutch comics artist, dies at age 40 in a car accident.

  December

• December 10: Dan Smith, American illustrator and comics artist, dies at age 69.

  Specific date unknown

• Lee Do-Yeong, Korean comics artist and illustrator, dies at age 49 or 50.
• August Roeseler, German cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and comics artist, dies at age 77 or 78.

  Exhibitions and shows

Conventions

Awards

First issues by title

• Famous Funnies on newsstands in May, cover dated July, published by Eastern Color Printing Company.