By: E&P Staff You may be surprised to learn that the longest continuously published cartoon panel on the planet is not, in fact, "Peanuts." And it celebrates a milestone birthday this Friday.
Ninety years ago this month, a young Robert Ripley, faced with the task of filling the space assigned to him as an illustrator for the New York Globe, pulled a file marked ?Dubious Athletic Achievements,? a collection of sports oddities he had saved. He created a panel made up of nine of his favorite sports feats, and titled it ?Champs and Chumps.?
It was published on Dec. 19, 1918, and became an instant hit. The cartoon soon expanded beyond the sports world and was renamed ?Believe It or Not!? And his legacy of chronicling strange and wonderful peope, places and things was born. In 1929, Ripley partnered with William Randolph Hearst to syndicate the strip globally, and by the mid 1930s it was published in more than 350 newspapers.
Today, the ?Ripley?s Believe It or Not!? cartoon is syndicated by United Media to more than 200 newspapers throughout the world and is now in full color, seven days a week, a first for the panel. It can also be delivered to readers daily via email through www.comics.com -- for free. The modern edition is drawn by John Graziano of Tampa, Fla.; he is only the fifth artist, including Ripley himself, to draw it.
In the decades since the strip?s debut, Ripley Entertainment has forged a publishing dynasty, selling more than a million books annually. ?Ripley?s Believe It or Not! Prepared to be Shocked,? this year?s release, made it to the Top 10 on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Believe it, or not.
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