George Sixta was an American cartoonist, best known for his syndicated comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, Rivets, about a wire-haired terrier. It was syndicated by Field Enterprises

Field Enterprises

Field Enterprises was a private holding company founded on August 31, 1944, by Marshall Field III and others whose main asset was the Chicago Sun. That same year the company acquired the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books....

 and its successor, News America Syndicate.

Born in Chicago, Sixta's art education was at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and he started his career at age 20 with the Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

where he did illustrations and sports cartoons. His syndicated strip Dick Draper, Foreign Correspondent began when he joined the Navy in 1941.

Rivets

Holding down a desk job in the Navy, Sixta got the idea for Rivets when he saw many photos of Navy mascots. Rivets first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

in 1944 and was syndicated from 1953 to 1985. Initially a Navy mascot, the friendly family dog lived with three children, Jamie, Virginia and Steve.

Merchandising of Rivets included magic slates, dolls and coloring books. The strip was collected in Rivets: A Cartoon Book, published by Saalfield in the 1960s.

Hit or Miss

Sixta also drew two newspaper features, One for the Book and the sports humor cartoon series Hit or Miss, which ran from November 1, 1948 to January 9, 1954. Hit or Miss featured the character Louella, as noted by comics historian Allan Holtz

Allan Holtz

Allan Holtz is a comic strip historian who researches and writes about newspaper comics for his Stripper's Guide, launched in 2005. His research encompasses some 7,000 American comic strips and newspaper panels...

:

Sixta's Hit or Miss was the sort of feature that just sort of makes you shrug. It was workmanlike but never memorable. Sixta tried to inject a little more personality into the feature by adding the recurring character Louella, a big-boned, rather dim sports enthusiast. Presumably a Rubenesque gal who liked sports was supposed to be ludicrous... guess George never saw any roller derby. Louella appeared twice a week, with special billing in the panel, through much of the run.

In 1944, Sixta married Jean Edwards of Sierra Madre, California

Sierra Madre, California

The city of Sierra Madre is a municipality in Los Angeles County, California whose population was 10,917 at the 2010 census, up from 10,580 at the time of the 2000 census. The city is located in the Foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains below the southern edge of the Angeles National Forest. ...

, and they lived with their three children in Elmhurst, Illinois

Elmhurst, Illinois

Elmhurst is a suburb of Chicago in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois. The population is 46,013 as of the 2008 US Census population estimate.-History:...

. In 1986, Sixta died in Laguna Hills, California

Laguna Hills, California

Laguna Hills is a city located in southern Orange County, California, United States. Its name refers to its proximity to Laguna Canyon and the much older Laguna Beach. Other newer cities nearby—Laguna Niguel and Laguna Woods—are similarly named.-Geography:...

, at the age of 76.