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then he said, "Well, would you be interested in anything?" I said yes. I would have done anything at that time. Finally, we got back to New York. Three days later, I get my mail and I'm sitting in my car going through it, and I come to an envelope: "Gus Edson." Inside is a little piece of stationery and a very crude drawing of Dondi — a little kid with a big, oversized hat ... big, oversized everything. And Gus writes, "Dear Kleine — ("Kleine" means "short" in German. He was making a cartoonist's half-assed joke ...) — "Dear Kleine — The kid should look like this." He had told me he had an idea for a strip about an orphan ... and I'll tell you something. I looked at that drawing, Mark, and it's like that old story that you're on a dance floor, and you look across a crowded room and you say, "That's the woman I'm gonna marry!" What inspired it was that during the Korean war, officers were adopting war orphans. That was where it was started. And then we just made it World War II, instead. Gus wrote it. He wrote it in longhand — no computer, no typewriter. He couldn't use a typewriter. He drank a lot.
188:, Dondi's character never ages. This became problematic in later years, as Dondi's age made the origin story impossible. Eventually, references to his Italian origin ceased, and he was adopted by Ted and his wife, the former Katje Bogar. "Pop" Fligh, a former pro baseball player, became Dondi's adoptive grandfather when he married Ted Wills' widowed mother. Following this, Dondi was portrayed simply as an adopted child, although in the early 1960s there was a reference to his being an orphan of the Korean War. During the mid-1970s, there was a reference to his being from Vietnam.
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trips to Korea during the war. I went to the frontlines with six cartoonists ... And Gus Edson ... he and I got to be very close on the trip. One day, he asked me, "What are you doing?" Now usually, when you're not working, you say, "I'm in advertising." I wasn't doing any advertising. So
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orphan of
Italian descent. The boy had no memory of his parents or his name, so when a pretty Red Cross worker said he was "a dandy boy," he thought she was naming him "Dondi." Two soldiers who spoke no Italian, Ted Wills and Whitey McGowan, found the child wandering through a war-torn village. The
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A recurring character was Mrs. McGowan, who was the mother of Whitey McGowan. In a rather startling development for a comic strip at the time, Whitey and his new bride died in a car crash on their honeymoon, leaving Dondi to Mrs. McGowan, who had initially resented the boy but came to love him and
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teamed with Hasen, whose first strip was dated April 23, 1967. Oksner and Hasen remained with the strip until its 1986 conclusion. When the strip ended, it was carried in only 35 newspapers.
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by John Arthur
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also starred as Liz, and cameo appearances were made by Edson, as a police captain, and Hasen, as a police sketch artist.
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special issue in 1965 included a calendar that celebrated April 9 as
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This article is about the comic strip. For the graffiti artist, see
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Tell it to
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Volume 1: V. 1 by Roy Thomas Page 58 TwoMorrows
Publishing, 2006
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Dondi was considered by some to be repellently wholesome; a
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American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide
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245:The Fifty Worst Films of All Time
203:"'Kick 'Dondi' in the teeth day."
105:The Chicago Tribune-New York News
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273:Sweet Punkin, I Love You (1976).
137:Creation and publication history
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170:Characters and story
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1127:Paris Model
1085:As producer
1010:Dog Eat Dog
954:As director
850:Spy vs. Spy
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815:Old Doc Yak
773:Little Lulu
752:Harold Teen
696:Beyond Mars
617:Broom-Hilda
131:Irwin Hasen
119:comic strip
83:Launch date
77:Irwin Hasen
68:(1967–1986)
63:(1955–1967)
41:Irwin Hasen
1328:Categories
1287:Girls Town
1135:Top Banana
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689:Aggie Mack
674:Historical
650:Love Is...
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286:References
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225:Patti Page
164:Bob Oksner
123:war orphan
66:Bob Oksner
1074:Violated!
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644:Half Full
638:Gil Thorp
127:Gus Edson
61:Gus Edson
57:Author(s)
45:Gus Edson
1167:Raw Edge
885:Tiny Tim
664:Pluggers
459:Archived
346:Archived
328:Archived
232:Rockette
91:End date
1303:Zig Zag
567:Current
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1045:(1966)
1029:(1965)
1021:(1964)
1013:(1964)
1005:(1963)
997:(1962)
989:(1961)
981:(1960)
973:(1960)
965:(1960)
857:Sylvia
836:Smitty
724:Conrad
575:9 to 5
538:comics
486:
392:
369:
278:Awards
986:Dondi
731:Dondi
589:Bliss
479:Dondi
317:Dondi
240:Dondi
217:Dondi
212:Films
114:Dondi
49:Dondi
29:Dondi
1087:only
484:IMDb
390:ISBN
367:ISBN
248:.
129:and
43:and
482:at
320:at
155:USO
47:'s
1330::
335:^
306:^
938:e
931:t
924:v
528:e
521:t
514:v
421:.
375:.
23:.
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