James Guilford Swinnerton (November 13, 1875 – September 8, 1974) was an American cartoonist known as Jimmy to some and Swinny to others. He signed some of his early cartoons Swin, and on one ephemeral comic strip he used Guilford as his signature. Experimenting with narrative continuity, he played a key role in the development of the comic strip at the end of the 19th century.
Born in Eureka, California, the son of Judge J. W. Swinnerton, he was...
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James Guilford Swinnerton (November 13, 1875 – September 8, 1974) was an American cartoonist known as Jimmy to some and Swinny to others. He signed some of his early cartoons Swin, and on one ephemeral comic strip he used Guilford as his signature. Experimenting with narrative continuity, he played a key role in the development of the comic strip at the end of the 19th century.
Born in Eureka, California, the son of Judge J. W. Swinnerton, he was 14 when he entered the San Francisco School of Design, where the painter Emil Carlsen was one of his instructors. He was still a teenager when he became a staff cartoonist for Hearst's San Francisco Examiner in 1892. One of his first assignments was to produce for the children's section of the newspaper a weekly cartoon, successively titled California Bears, The Little Bears and Little Bears and Tykes. Some comic art historians have called the Little Bears the first comic strip, preceding The Yellow Kid by three years. This assertion is...
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