In keeping with the flavor of this week’s DailyINK theme, I discuss probably the greatest Canadian-themed strip ever, KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED, the exciting snow-bound saga of Sergeant Dave King, stalwart member of one of the world’s most famous and elite organizations, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The series was created by Stephen Slesinger, a comics impresario who licensed many properties over the years, including RED RYDER Ryder and Winnie the Pooh.
According to American popular culture historian and author Ron Goulart, the daring Mountie was inspired by an earlier, actual Canadian strip, MEN OF THE MOUNTED which was sold in Canada by the Toronto Star Syndicate. A story from it was adapted for one of Whitman Publishing Company’s “Big Little Books,” which featured a Corporal King.
It may be just coincidence, but the day after MEN OF THE MOUNTED ended, the new King Features strip began (Sunday, 17 February 1935), called KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED. A daily version began a year later. It was supposedly written by the prolific author of popular western fiction, Zane Grey, though he had little to do with the strip except lend his name for sales purposes. His son, Romer, did some story work on it, but Gaylord DuBois was the chief writer for many years. The principal artists involved in the strip were Allen Dean, Charles Flanders and Jim Gary.
Movies, comic books, a radio series and other licensing followed, but eventually, perhaps World War II stories and science fiction made KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED seem less heroic, or even old fashioned. After 19 years, the strip ended in February 1954. But we’ve brought back some of the series in our Vintage section, and I invite you to look into it today, here.
A Jim Gary comic book cover of 1952.
A Chilean version of a King comic, Circa 1966.
Probably the greatest Canadian cartoonist ever was Hal Foster. His creation, PRINCE VALIANT, is still in its 75th anniversary year, so I’ll show off a prize of my collection today: the original promotion brochure selling the new strip back in the summer of 1937.
One last item: I promised to show the first BEETLE BAILEY Sunday some months ago—and the 60th anniversary will be this Friday—so here it is, still funny all these years later.
So long until next week,
The Archivist
Thanks for this addition. Now I’m sure to renew this year.
I’ve read before the story of how King of the Royal Mounted was created by Stephen Slesinger, and how he licensed the Zane Grey name. I’m also aware that the copyright included on the strips lists both Slesinger and King Features. So I had wondered until your contest if K of the RM could ever appear here or if there would be a copyright issue. Then, I’ve also read how Western Publishing had a hand in creating some other strips for KFS, such as the Roy Rogers strip, yet the RR strips featured only a King Features Syndicate copyright. Going further, The Lone Ranger strip featured a “Lone Ranger” copyright followed by “Distributed by King Features Syndicate”. And then there were the Mickey Mouse strips, which carried only the Walt Disney copyright.
My question, Mr. Archivist, is how did the business side play out for the many strips KFS syndicated in its history which did not feature King-owned properties? Who owned the copyrights then and are they still owned now? Could similar “licensed” strips possibly appear on DailyInk someday, or are there strips that had once been syndicated by KFS but would be blocked from appearing on DailyInk today?
Great to see the 1st Bailey Sunday but what year was that? Copyright date looks like 1956 but it blurs when I enlarge the screen.