One hundred years ago, the first installment of the Gasoline Alley newspaper strip appeared in newspapers. It isn't in a lot of papers today but it is still running.
The strip was created by Frank King, who wrote and drew it — with the increasing help of assistants — until 1959. One of those assistants, Bill Perry, took over full responsibility for the Sunday page in 1951 and another assistant, Dick Moores, officially took over the daily strips in 1959, though he'd been doing most of the work on them a few years before that. In 1975, Perry retired and Moores took over the Sunday pages along with the dailies. When Moores died in 1986, his assistant Jim Scancarelli took over the strip and is still drawing it today. So the amazing feat or creating a comic strip every day for a century has been done essentially by four men.
And you know…it's been a pretty good strip. It's not loud or controversial or shiny and there's been very little merchandising of it over its hundred years. It's a quiet, gentle story about a couple of generations of a family that has the same problems and challenges as most families. Now and then, the characters in it aged and then they'd become frozen in time. I think the lead character, Walt Wallet, must be pushing 115 by now.
I don't follow it regularly but every now and then, I'll click over to this page on Go Comics and read me a month or two. It always feels very comfortable…like an old neighborhood landmark that you're glad is still there. The page has a link which says that if you click on it, you can Read Gasoline Alley from the Beginning but alas, it's a lie. It only takes you back to April of 2001. Someday when I have nothing better to do and if it's available, I'd like to try reading it from the actual beginning. Maybe when I'm pushing 115…