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 43rd Street and later at 229 West 43rd Street. It also reprinted comic strips in book form.
History
Antecedent: the Wheeler Syndicate
In 1913, while working as a sportswriter for the New York Herald, Wheeler formed the Wheeler Syndicate to specialize in distribution of sports features to newspapers in the United States and Canada. That same year his Wheeler Syndicate contracted with pioneering comic strip artist Bud Fisher and cartoonist Fontaine Fox to begin distributing their work. Journalist Richard Harding Davis was sent to Belgium as war correspondent and reported on early battlefield actions, as the Wheeler Syndicate became a comprehensive news collection and distribution operation. In 1916, the Wheeler Syndicate was purchased by S. S. McClure's McClure Syndicate, the oldest and largest news and feature syndicate in America.Foundation of the Bell Syndicate
Immediately upon the sale of his Wheeler Syndicate, John Neville Wheeler founded the Bell Syndicate, which soon attracted Fisher, Fox, and other cartoonists.Ring Lardner began writing a sports column for Bell in 1919.
Mergers and acquisitions
In the spring of 1920, the Bell Syndicate acquired the Metropolitan Newspaper Service, continuing to operate it as a separate division. MNS launched such strips as William Conselman's Good Time Guy and Ella Cinders, and the Tarzan comic strip. In March 1930, United Feature Syndicate acquired MNS and its strips from the Bell Syndicate.In 1924, Wheeler became executive editor of Liberty magazine, and served in that capacity while continuing to run the Bell Syndicate.
In 1930, Wheeler became general manager of North American Newspaper Alliance, established in 1922 by 50 major newspapers in the United States and Canada which absorbed Bell, both continuing to operate individually under joint ownership as the Bell Syndicate-North American Newspaper Alliance. That same year, Bell acquired Associated Newspapers, founded by S. S. McClure's cousin Henry Herbert McClure. Keeping Associated Newspapers as a division, at that point the company became the Bell-McClure Syndicate.
In 1933, just as the concept of "comic books" was getting off the ground, Eastern Color Printing published Funnies on Parade, which reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the Bell-McClure Syndicate, the Ledger Syndicate, and the McNaught Syndicate, including the Bell Syndicate & Associated Newspaper strips Mutt and Jeff, Cicero, S'Matter, Pop, Honeybunch's Hubby, Holly of Hollywood, and Keeping Up with the Joneses. Eastern Color neither sold this periodical nor made it available on newsstands, but rather sent it out free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. The company printed 10,000 copies, and it was a great success.
An April 1933 article in Fortune described the "Big Four" American syndicates as United Feature Syndicate, King Features Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, and the Bell-McClure Syndicate.
The Bell Syndicate-North American Newspaper Alliance acquired the McClure Newspaper Syndicate in September 1952 — making it the second McClure-family-owned syndicate to be acquired by Bell — with Louis Ruppel installed as president and editor.
The syndicate's greatest success with comic strips was in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The company had some strips in syndication through the 1950s but the only ones to have success into the 1960s were Uncle Nugent's Funland, Hambone's Meditations and Joe and Asbestos.
In 1964, the publishing and media company Koster‐Dana Corporation was identified as controlling both North American Newspaper Alliance and the Bell‐McClure Syndicate. and by 1970 the syndicate was no longer distributing comic strips.
Final years
In 1972, United Features Syndicate acquired NANA / Bell-McClure and absorbed them into its syndication operations.Bell Syndicate / Bell-McClure Syndicate strips and panels
- Beauregard by Jack Davis — never successfully syndicated and soon dropped
- Beautiful Babs by Chic Young
- Ben Webster's Career by George Storm
- Betty by Charles Voight — Sunday-only strip; moved to the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate
- Bullwinkle by Al Kilgore
- Cash and Carrie - Lou Skuce
- Cicero's Cat - Bud Fisher and then Al Smith
- Dan Flagg by Don Sherwood — originally with the McNaught Syndicate
- Don Winslow of the Navy - Ken Ernst
- Famous Fiction by J. Carroll Mansfield, Chad Grothkopf, Harry Anderson, Jack Binder, and Barye Phillips — weekly serial adaptations of famous works of literature, including The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Arabian Nights — "The Fisherman and the Genie", Hansel and Gretel, Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, Huckleberry Finn's Trip Down the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Aladdin's Lamp, The Minotaur, and King Arthur
- Flyin' Jenny by Russell Keaton
- Fu Manchu by Leo O'Mealia
- Funnyman - Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Anita Loos, Virginia Huget and Phil Cook
- Hambone's Meditations - originally by James Pinckney Alley and then by his sons Cal Alley and James Alley — came over from the McClure Syndicate
- Highlights of History - J. Carroll Mansfield
- Honeybunch's Hubby — C. M. Payne — alternated as a topper strip with S'Matter, Pop?
- Joe and Asbestos by Ken Kling
- Life's Like That - Fred Neher
- Looie the Lawyer - Martin Branner
- Mescal Ike - Art Huhta and S. L. Huntley
- Miss Fury - Tarpé Mills
- Mutt and Jeff - Bud Fisher and then Al Smith
- The Nebbs - Sol Hess and Wallace Carlson
- Phil Hardy / Born to Win - "Edwin Alger" and George Storm
- Reg'lar Fellers — moved on to George Matthew Adams Service
- Sad Sack - George Baker
- Sergeant Stony Craig and His US Marines - Frank H. Rentfrow and Don L. Dickson
- Sherlock Holmes - Leo O'Mealia
- Sir Bagby by Rick and Bill Hackney
- S'Matter, Pop? - C. M. Payne
- Straight Arrow - John Belfi and Joe Certa
- Tailspin Tommy - Hal Forrest
- That's Different by Walter Berndt
- Teena A Go Go — writer Bessie Little and artist Bob Powell
- Toonerville Folks by Fontaine Fox — originated with Wheeler Syndicate; later moved to the McNaught Syndicate where it ran until 1955
- True Comics - Ed Smalle and Jack Sparling
- You Know Me Al - Ring Lardner with art by Will B. Johnstone and Dick Dorgan
- Uncle Nugent's Funland by Art Nugent
Key people, writers, and columnists
Late in life, after moving over from the Ledger Syndicate, Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer wrote the Dorothy Dix advice column, which ran in 160 newspapers, until her 1951 death, when Muriel Agnelli took over the column. In 20 newspapers it appeared under the byline "Muriel Nissen," Agnelli's maiden name. Born in Manhattan, Muriel Agnelli attended Hunter College and also studied journalism and psychology at Columbia University. After marrying Joseph P. Agnelli in 1929, she began editing Bell's four-page children's tabloid, The Sunshine Club, and she later wrote a column about postage stamps and stamp collecting. Joseph Angelli was the Bell Syndicate's executive vice-president and general manager.
The syndicate also distributed James J. Montague's column More Truth than Poetry, as well as many other articles and light fiction pieces, from about 1924 until his death in 1941. The liberal Washington columnist Doris Fleeson wrote a daily Bell political column from 1945 to 1954. Drew Pearson's Washington-Merry-Go-Round column was carried in 600 newspapers until Pearson's death in 1969.