Tim Tyler's Luck
Encyclopedia
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....
created by Lyman Young
Lyman Young
Lyman W. Young was an American cartoonist who created the strip Tim Tyler's Luck. His younger brother, Chic Young, was the creator of Blondie....
, elder brother of Blondie
Blondie (comic strip)
Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930...
creator Chic Young
Chic Young
Murat Bernard Young , better known as Chic Young, was an American cartoonist who created the popular, long-running comic strip Blondie. His 1919 William McKinley High School Yearbook cites his nickname as Chicken, source of his familiar pen name and signature...
. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
, the strip ran from August 13, 1928 until August 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
C. W. Kahles
Charles William Kahles was a prolific cartoonist responsible for numerous comic strips, notably Hairbreadth Harry...
' strip The Kelly Kids. In 1927 he created The Kid Sister, a spin-off of The Kelly Kids.
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:- By the time the Sunday version started (July 19, 1931), Tim and Spud were well away from the orphanage, living a life of adventure. At first, their adventures tended to be light and cartoony, but later, with Buck RogersBuck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Dick TracyDick TracyDick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
and the like gaining popularity, the strip took a more serious turn. Tim and Spud traveled the world before settling for several years in Africa, where (having grown into their late teens or so) they joined the Ivory Patrol and spent their time chasing after poachers and the like. They returned to America during World War II, where they mostly dealt with spies and saboteurs. Afterward, they went traveling again, eventually returning to Africa, where they remained for good.
Illustrators
In 1935, Young added a topperTopper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
strip, Curley Harper. Young employed several artists, some of whom became famous and successful with their own strips. The illustrators included Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie "Alex" Raymond was an American cartoonist, best known for creating Flash Gordon for King Features in 1934...
, Burne Hogarth
Burne Hogarth
Burne Hogarth was an American cartoonist, illustrator, educator, author and theoretician, best known for his pioneering work on the Tarzan newspaper comic strip and his series of anatomy books.-Biography:...
, Clark Haas
Clark Haas
Clark S. Haas, Jr. was a cartoonist and, from 1957 to 1965, owner of Cambria Studios, which produced the limited animation series, Clutch Cargo .-Career:...
, Tony DiPreta
Tony DiPreta
Anthony Lewis DiPreta , better known as Tony DiPreta, was an American comic book and comic strip artist active from the 1940s Golden Age of comic books...
, 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 only carried by a single paper when it was canceled in 1996.
Film
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
starred Frankie Thomas
Frankie Thomas
Frank Marion Thomas, Jr. was an American actor, author and bridge-strategy expert who played both lead and supporting roles on Broadway, in films, in post-World War II radio, and in early television. He was best known for his starring role in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.-Early years:Thomas was born...
as Tim Tyler.
The title of the Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is a novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco. It was first published in Italian in 2004, and an English language translation by Geoffrey Brock was published in spring 2005...
(2004) is taken from the title of a strip episode, in turn inspired by H. Rider Haggard's novel She
She (novel)
She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books...
.