Clare Victor Dwiggins


Clare Victor Dwiggins was an American cartoonist who signed his work Dwig. Dwiggins created a number of comic strips and single-panel cartoons for various American newspapers and newspaper syndicates from 1897 until 1945, including his best-known strip, the long-running School Days.

Biography

Born in Wilmington, Ohio,
Dwiggins was on a path toward a career in architecture but detoured into cartooning when his artwork was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World in 1897. He created a wide variety of gag panels, including J. Filliken Wilberfloss, Leap Year Lizzie, Them Was the Happy Days, Uncle Jim and Tad and Tim, Mrs. Bump's Boarding House, Ophelia and Her Slate and Bill's Diary.
Dwiggins died in a North Hollywood rest home on October 26, 1958, after a long illness.

Comics

Dwig's first comic strip was Home Wanted for Tags, a daily/Sunday strip for the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, which ran from 1910–1919. His longest-running strip was Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, which used more than a half dozen of Mark Twain's characters but employed very little content from his novels.
Dwig began School Days circa 1909 as a single panel, and it eventually evolved into a Sunday strip with a storyline about school kids that continued until c. 1932.
Dwig drew Nipper for the Ledger Syndicate. During that same period, he did Footprints on the Sands of Time for the Ledger Syndicate. In 1940, he returned to Huckleberry Finn, which was reprinted in the pages of Doc Savage Comics and Supersnipe Comics. He also drew Bobby Crusoe in 1945 for Supersnipe Comics.

Comic strips and panels chronology

1897-1899

Adventures of Bobby CrusoeJ. Filliken WilberflossLeap Year Lizzie
  • ''Them Was the Happy Days''

1900s

Ophelia and her Slate In the Jungle Pinochle Twins Child Book of Jungle Lore in Limericks Bolivar Gallant Cholly The Nabobs Professor Gesla Little Roland
  • ''School Days / Ophelia's Slate''

1910s

Day by Day with the Deys Home Wanted for Tags Pip Gint White Fibb Willie Fibb Wunst Upon a Time Makin' Believe Uncle Jim and Tad and Tim Mrs. Bumps Boarding House The District School Kidsburg School Days — also known as The School Days of Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn
  • ''Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn''

1920s

A Dog's Life Ophelia's Slate School Days
  • ''Footprints on the Sands of Time''

1930s

Golden Days Nipper
  • ''Bill's Diary''

1940s

  • ''Huckleberry Finn''

Books

Toasts published by John C. Winston Co., was a hardcover collection of bawdy and intemperate Edwardian poems and limericks, illustrated with line drawings. After 1945, Dwig focused on illustration, including five books published with August Derleth.