Tim Tyler's Luck


Tim Tyler's Luck was an adventure comic strip created by Lyman Young, elder brother of Blondie creator Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip ran from August 13, 1928, until August 24, 1996.
Lyman Young studied at the Chicago Art Institute and served in World War I before beginning his career as a cartoonist in 1924, taking over C. W. Kahles' strip The Kelly Kids. In 1927 he created The Kid Sister, a spin-off of The Kelly Kids, which only lasted a few months.

Characters and story

When Tim Tyler's Luck started in 1928, Tyler was living in an orphanage. However, he soon left the orphanage for the outside world. When he teamed with an older sidekick, Spud, they began globe-trotting for a series of international adventures. Many tales took place in Africa, as noted by comic strip historian Don Markstein:

Illustrators

Starting March 31, 1935, Young added a topper strip, ; it ran until January 14, 1945, and sometimes appeared separately.
Young employed several artists, some of whom became famous and successful with their own strips. The illustrators included Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth, Clark Haas, Tony DiPreta, Nat Edson and Tom Massey.
In 1972, Young's son, Bob Young, began sharing credit with his father, completely taking over the strip after Lyman Young's 1984 death. Tim Tyler's Luck slowly faded away and was carried by only a single paper when it was canceled in 1996.

Reprints

In 2016, The Library of American Comics reprinted one year of the strip as an installment in their LoAC Essentials line.

Film

In 1937, a 12-chapter movie serial starred Frankie Thomas as Tim Tyler.
The title of the Umberto Eco novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is taken from the title of a strip episode, in turn inspired by H. Rider Haggard's novel She.