Carl Frank Ludwig Ed was the man who first celebrated the juvenile teens in a comic strip. Born in Moline, Illinois, his cartooning ability got him a job as sports cartoonist on the Chicago American in 1912. In 1916 he continued Bud Counihan's 'Luke McGlook, the Bush League Bearcat', a baseball comic, distributed by the World Color Syndicate. Ed's run on the series lasted until 28 October 1916, but the comic strip itself remained in syndication during the 1920s and 1930s. Ed's talent was noticed by a co-publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who hired him to undertake the nation's first strip about a boy in his teens in 1918, called 'Seventeen'.
The strip was soon retitled to 'Harold Teen', and was read widely by teenagers of the 1920s. In the grim 1930s, some of the appeal of 'Harold Teen' ebbed away, and in 1941, Harold was a government spy in uniform. Public interest slipped. Carl Ed continued drawing his strip until 1959, when he was struck by an acute illness. He died a short time later on October 10, 1959, at the age of 69. He was an influence on Hank Ketcham.
