Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and distributed by Tribune Content Agency. It centers on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines reflecting traditional American values.
The strip debuted on November 24, 1918; as of 2019, it is the longest-running current strip in the United States, and the second-longest running strip of all time in the United States, after The Katzenjammer Kids. Gasoline Alley has received critical accolades for its influential innovations. In addition to new color and page design concepts, King introduced real-time continuity to comic strips by depicting his characters aging over generations.
Early years
The strip originated on the Chicago Tribune's black-and-white Sunday page, The Rectangle, where staff artists contributed one-shot panels, continuing plots or themes. One corner of The Rectangle introduced King's Gasoline Alley, where characters Walt, Doc, Avery, and Bill held weekly conversations about automobiles. This panel slowly gained recognition, and the daily comic strip began August 24, 1919, in the New York Daily News.Skeezix arrives
The early years were dominated by the character Walt Wallet. Tribune editor Joseph Patterson wanted to attract women to the strip by introducing a baby, but Walt was not married. That obstacle was avoided when Walt found a baby on his doorstep, as described by comics historian Don Markstein:Skeezix called his adoptive father Uncle Walt. Unlike most comic strip children, he did not remain a baby or even a little boy for long. He grew up to manhood, the first occasion where real time was shown continually elapsing in a major comic strip over generations. By the time the United States entered World War II, Skeezix was an adult, courting Nina Clock and enlisting in the armed forces in June 1942. He later married Nina and had children. In the late 1960s, he faced a typical midlife crisis. Walt Wallet himself married Phyllis Blossom on June 24, 1926 and had other children, who grew up and had kids of their own. During the 1970s and 1980s, under Dick Moores' authorship, the characters briefly stopped aging. When Jim Scancarelli took over, natural aging was restored.
Sunday strips
The Sunday strip was launched October 24, 1920. The 1930s Sunday pages did not always employ traditional gags, but often offered a gentle view of nature, imaginary daydreaming with expressive art, or naturalistic views of small-town life. Reviewing Peter Maresca and Chris Ware's Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, comics critic Steve Duin quoted writer Jeet Heer:The Sunday pages included several toppers over the course of the run: That Phoney Nickel, Puny Puns, Corky, and Little Brother Hugo aka Wilmer's Little Brother Hugo.
21st century
The strip is still published in newspapers in the 21st century. Walt Wallet is now well over a century old, while Skeezix has become a nonagenarian. Walt's wife Phyllis, age an estimated 105, died in the April 26, 2004, strip; Walt was left a widower after nearly eight decades of marriage. Walt Wallet appeared as a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's anniversary party, and on Gasoline Alley's 90th anniversary, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, and Snuffy Smith each acknowledged the Gasoline Alley anniversary in their dialogue. Snuffy Smith presented a character crossover with Walt in the doorway of Snuffy's house where he was being welcomed and invited in by Snuffy. In May 2013 at the cartoon retirement home, Walt is at a dinner when Maggie's pearl brooch is stolen; Fearless Fosdick is his usual incompetent self trying to catch the thief; cameos include such "retired" comics characters as Lil' Abner; Smokey Stover; Pogo and Albert. Even the active cartoon character Rex Morgan, M.D., appears.Characters
First-generation characters
;Walt Wallet;Phyllis Blossom Wallet
;Avery
;Bill
;Doc Smartley
;Uriah Pert
Timeless characters
These characters break the strip's rule about aging with the calendar.;Joel
;Rufus
;Magnus
;Melba Rose
Second-generation characters
;Allison "Skeezix" Wallet;Nina Clock Wallet
;Sarge
;Hack
;Corky Wallet
;Hope Hassel Wallet
;Judy Wallet Grubb
;Senator Wilmer Bobble
Principal characters of subsequent generations
;Clovia Wallet Skinner;Slim Skinner
;Thomas Walter "Chipper" Wallet
;Adam Wallet
;Teeka Tok Wallet
;Rover Bump -> Skinner
;Hoogy Boogle
;Boog Skinner
;Aubee Rose Skinner
's Gasoline Alley
Writer-artist chronology
Daily:- Frank King: Nov 24, 1918 – Dec 31, 1969
- Dick Moores: 1956 – Aug 23, 1986
- Jim Scancarelli: Aug 25, 1986 – present
- Frank King: Oct 24, 1920 – April 22, 1951
- Bill Perry: April 29, 1951 – Aug 17, 1975
- Dick Moores: Aug 25, 1975 – Aug 24, 1976
- Bob Zschiesche: 1976–1979
- Jim Scancarelli: ghosting 1979–1986, credited Aug 25, 1986 – present
Awards
The strip and King were recognized with the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Strip Award in 1957, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1985. King received the 1958 Society's Reuben Award, and Moores received it in 1974. Scancarelli received the Society's Story Comic Strip Award in 1988. The strip received an NCS plaque for the year's best story strip in 1981, 1982 and 1983.Reprint collections
Examples of the full page Sunday strip were printed in The Comic Strip Century, edited by Bill Blackbeard, Dale Crain and James Vance. Moores' dailies and Sundays have appeared in Comics Revue monthly, as have the first Scancarelli strips. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US postage stamps.''Frank King's Gasoline Alley Nostalgia Journal''
In 2003, Spec Productions began a series of softcover collections, Frank King's Gasoline Alley Nostalgia Journal, reprinting the strip from the first Rectangle panel. To date, four volumes have appeared:- Volume 1, November 24, 1918, to September 22, 1919
- Volume 2, September 23, 1919, to March 2, 1920
- Volume 3, March 3, 1920, to July 25, 1920
- Volume 4, July 26, 1920, to December 31, 1920
''Walt and Skeezix''
Sunday Press
In 2007, Sunday Press Books published Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, which collects early Sunday strips in the original size and color.Dark Horse
In 2014, Dark Horse Comics published Gasoline Alley: The Complete Sundays Volume 1 1920–1922 and Gasoline Alley: The Complete Sundays Volume 2 1923–1925 in hardback.Dick Moores
Moores' work on the strip was published in three different collections, all currently out of print, as well as being serialized in Comics Revue magazine:- Gasoline Alley: Comic Art as Social Comment: Changing Life in America Over More Than Half a Century as Seen Through the Eyes of a Unique 'First Family', Avon/Flare, 1976. Introduction by Nat Hentoff, history of the strip with 1970s continuities.
- The Smoke from Gasoline Alley, Sheed and Ward, 1976.
- Rover from Gasoline Alley, Blackthorne, 1985. Collects the strips introducing Slim and Clovia's adopted son Rover.
Radio
Several radio adaptations were made. Uncle Walt and Skeezix in 1931 starred Bill Idelson as Skeezix with Jean Gillespie as Nina Clock. Jimmy McCallion was Skeezix in the series that ran on NBC from February 17 to April 11, 1941, continuing on the Blue Network from April 28 to May 9 of that same year. The 15-minute series aired weekdays at 5:30 pm. Along with Nina, the characters included Skeezix's boss Wumple and Ling Wee, a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Charles Schenck directed the scripts by Kane Campbell.The syndicated series of 1948–49 featured a cast of Bill Lipton, Mason Adams, and Robert Dryden. Sponsored by Autolite, the program used opening theme music by the Polka Dots, a harmonica group. The 15-minute episodes focused on Skeezix running a gas station and garage, the Wallet and Bobble Garage, with his partner, Wilmer Bobble. In New York, this series aired on WOR from July 16, 1948, to January 7, 1949.