Researching Gus Edson

Gus Edson (September 20, 1901 - September 26, 1966) was an American cartoonist known for two popular, long running comic strips, The Gumps and Dondi.

Born to Max and Emma Edson in Cincinnati, Ohio, Gus Edson dropped out of school at age 17 to join the Army, serving in Australia in 1918. After his discharge, he studied briefly at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. Edson was a sports cartoonist with the New York Evening Graphic from 1925 to 1928, followed by a year with the Paul Block Chain of Newspapers and a year at the New York Evening Post.

Along with his freelance work, he was a standby ghost for King Features Syndicate, eventually arriving at the Daily News as a sports cartoonist (1931–35). In 1933, while at the Daily News, he created his first daily comic strip, Streaky, which he wrote until 1935.

When Sidney Smith, creator of The Gumps, died suddenly in 1935, Edson took over Smith's strip. Two years later, there was a continuity problem, as noted in Editor & Publisher::Gus Edson, who has been carrying on the Andy Gump assignment, reported to his office at the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and found a mail stack of more than 100 letters waiting for him, all containing reminders, in one form or another, that the two principals in the current chapter of the Gump strip, who are planning marriage, have been wed before. When the artist contemplated marrying off Tom Carr and the Widow Zander, after the former had been released from prison, his staff reminded him that the couple had been married previously in the story of the strip some eight years ago and then had drifted apart when the Widow Zander's husband, believed to be dead, had returned. Edson's firm conviction that no one would remember the previous situation was rocked when he was faced with the mail-bag full of reminders.

Edson wrote and drew The Gumps for 24 years. His assistant on The Gumps in the early 1950s was the actor Martin Landau. Cousin Juniper was a topper strip which Edson also drew for his Sunday page. Edson helped sell war bonds during World War II, and he traveled around the world entertaining troops with his amusing chalk talks.