Sol Hess (writer)


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Sol Hess was a comic strip writer best known for creating the long-run strip The Nebbs with animation artist Wallace Carlson.
Born on an Illinois farm, Hess moved with his parents to Chicago, where a short time later, his father died. He took a job as a traveling salesman for a wholesale jewelry company and became a successful jeweler with Rettif, Hess & Madsen, a prominent firm. The company office was located near the Chicago Tribune, and Hess became friendly with the Tribune journalists and comic strip cartoonists.
He entered the comics field as an amateur writer, receiving no pay for the gags he supplied to the cartoonists. Sidney Smith created The Gumps in 1917, and two years later, he started using Hess' dialogue and ideas.

''The Nebbs''

In 1922, after Smith signed a million-dollar contract, Hess felt he was due a significant share as writer. When Smith offered him only $100 a week, a bitter Hess decided to create his own comic strip, earning $800 a week
after he teamed with cartoonist Carlson to launch The Nebbs on May 22, 1923. Carlson had been animating The Gumps for John Randolph Bray in 1919, and while the series was not successful, it brought Carlson in contact with Hess, and the two struck up a friendship. Carlson's career as animator ended with his last Gumps short, Fatherly Love. The Nebbs closely paralleled The Gumps, although the character of Junior Nebb bore a strong resemblance to an earlier Carlson character, Dreamy Dud. With a situation and characters not unlike The Gumps, the strip caught on with readers and quickly became popular, enabling Hess to leave the jewelry business in 1925.
Comics historian Don Markstein described the characters:
Interviewed in 1929, Hess talked about his characters and finding humor in real-life situations:

Reprints

Cupples & Leon collected The Nebbs into a 1928 book. Dell published The Nebbs comic book in 1941, and four years later, Croydon Publishing printed a single issue of The Nebbs comic book. Through Chicago's Artists and Creators Guild, Hess issued a Nebbs Bridge Scorepad in 1932. Other merchandising included bisque statuettes and a Nebbs board game.

Radio

Heard on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945, The Nebbs radio series aired on Sunday afternoons. It featured Gene Lockhart as Rudy Nebbs and Kathleen Lockhart as Fanny Nebbs. Others in the cast were Ruth Perrott, Francis "Dink" Trout and Dick Ryan.

''The Toodle Family''

With Hess's death in 1941, the scripts for The Nebbs were taken over by his daughter, Betsy Hess, and her husband, Stanley Baer. They ran another strip called The Toodle Family. In 1955, the two strips merged into a single series.

Death

Hess died at his apartment at the Shoreland Hotel, in Chicago, of a heart attack, on December 31, 1941.