When Fairfield County - And Greenwich - Ruled The World Of Comic Strips: Vanity Fair

GREENWICH, CT — If you're over the age of, say, 45 you probably remember many of them very well. They were the comic strips of our youth, and many of them were created and drawn right here in Fairfield County, according to a loving tribute in Vanity Fair magazine.

In "When Fairfield County Was the Comic-Strip Capital of the World," author Cullen Murphy, whose father, John Cullen Murphy, drew the epic adventure "Prince Valiant," remembers the medium's rich history in the county.

The creators and illustrators of iconic comic strips such as "Beetle Bailey," "Little Orphan Annie," "Popeye," "Hi and Lois," "Nancy," "Prince Valiant" and a host of others lived in Greenwich, Westport, Wilton, Stamford, New Canaan, Redding and Ridgefield to name a few.

"I grew up in an unusual environment—not only the child of a cartoonist and illustrator but among a network of families where everyone’s father was a cartoonist or illustrator," writes Murphy, who estimates more than a hundred cartoonists and illustrators lived in the area during the peak. "The place was Fairfield County, Connecticut. In the peak years of the American Century, for reasons I’ll come to, it was where most of the country’s comic-strip artists, gag cartoonists, and magazine illustrators chose to make their home."

Click here to read the full story on the Vanity Fair website.

Prince Valiant comic strip, created by Hal Foster, via Wikipedia Fair use