Wallace A. Carlson started his career as a copy-boy with the Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper in 1905. In 1915 he turned to animation, working for the studio of J.R. Bray two years later. By 1919, he founded his own Carlson Studios. In the same year, Paramount was making an animation film of Sidney Smith's 'The Gumps' and asked Wally Carlson to work on it. It was during this project that he met 'Gumps'-writer Sol Hess, with whom he started a new family strip, called 'The Nebbs', , on 22 May 1923. One of Carlson’s assistants on ‘The Nebbs’ was Art Huhta. Carlson drew this strip until 1946, as well as its Sunday companion strip 'Simp O'Dill', that started in 1929. When his work on 'The Nebbs' ended, Carlson started 'Mostly Malarkey' for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate and continued it until his death in 1967.
