'The Adventures of Waddles'.
Ray and Carol Carlson were an American cartoonist couple, known for creating 'The Adventures of Waddles' (1945-1953), for the children's page of The Christian Science Monitor.
Life and career
Raymond M. Carlson was born in 1899 in Batavia, Illinois, and lived in Kitsap County since 1902. He served in the U.S. Navy as an enlisted man during World War I and was then in the Merchant Marine. During World War II, he took a commission and served continuously in the Navy through the Korean War until he retired as a captain in 1961. In civilian life, he worked as a freelance writer.
Carol Carlson was born on 13 June 1912 as Carol Louise Hager in Seattle, Washington. She came from a family of cartoonists. Her grandfather was John "Dok" Hager (1885-1932), a cartoonist for The Seattle Daily Times, best known for creating the wisecracking duck 'Dok's Dippy Duck' (1912-1923), who initially illustrated the weather forecast but later gave more general social commentary. When failing eyesight forced Dok Hager to retire, his son, and Carol's father, George Hager (1885-1945) picked up the character and transformed him into 'The Adventures of Waddles' on the children's page of The Christian Science Monitor. His sister Mary Hager Dearborn (1892-1950) wrote the text captions in rhyme.
After the death of George Hager, Carol Hager Carlson and her husband Ray took over 'The Adventures of Waddles'. By then, the feature had evolved from a picture story with text captions into a daily adventure strip with speech balloons. The couple continued the feature until 15 August 1953. Carol Carlson died in the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, in 1979, and Ray Carlson died in 1981 at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Kitsap County at age 82.
'The Adventures of Waddles' (Christian Science Monitor, 23 July 1949).