'Tiny Tim' (from: Four Color Comics #42).
Stanley Link was an American newspaper cartoonist, known for his work on the daily gag panel 'Chich Chow' (1927-1957), the Sunday comic 'Tiny Tim' (1933-1957) and the daily gag strip 'The Dailys' (1948-1957), all through the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate.
Early life and career
Born in 1894, Stanley J. Link took a correspondence course in cartooning as a teenager. At age sixteen he found his first cartooning job with a Chicago-based animated cartoon company. After freelancing for some time in the early 1920s, Link was hired as an assistant on Sidney Smith's 'The Gumps', of which he ghosted the Sunday pages from 1926 onwards.
Wise words of Ching Chow from 8 July 1928 and 7 January 1946.
Ching Chow
On 10 January 1927 both Sidney Smith and Stanley Link created the popular daily gag cartoon 'Ching Chow', about a stereotypical Chinese man. The main punchline was basically that he talked in one aphorism or wise saying a day. The series ran as a daily feature for the News-Tribune group for a remarkably long period, namely 50 years (!). In 1935, after Smith's death, Link continued to draw the series until his own death in 1957. Link's own assistant, Will Henry, continued it from that date until 1971. After being discontinued for four years it was revived in 1975 by Rocco Lotto and Will Levinson. Henri Arnold took over both script and artwork in 1976. The rather racially offensive comic strip managed to survive until 4 June 1990.
'Tiny Tim' (1935).
Tiny Tim
On 23 July 1933 Link started a comic strip of his own, 'Tiny Tim'. This Sunday strip wasn't based on the Dickensian character of the same name, but revolved around Tim and Dotty Grunt, two siblings who were only two inches tall. The little dwarfs were adopted by a farmer and his wife. At the time the comic was a reader's favorite, especially among children. The series ran until 2 March 1958. Tales about tiny people had fascinated youngers newspaper readers ever since Palmer Cox' 'The Brownies' (1881). The concept was also applied in William Donahey's 'Teenie Weenies' (1933) and Walt Scott's 'The Little People' (1952).
'Ching Chow' topper strip (1946)
Ching Chow and other toppers
A 'Ching Chow' companion strip to 'Tiny Tim' ran from 31 October 1943 until the 1950s. Other alternating "toppers" to 'Tiny Tim' were 'Dennis the Menace' (1943, no relation to Hank Ketcham's creation, nor David Law's version, though it preceded it by 8 years), 'Dill and Daffy' (1935-1943) and 'Snap Shot Sam' (1931-1934). Russell Stamm has worked as an assistant on the feature. 'Tiny Tim' stories also appeared in several comic books by Western Publishing from the mid-1930s through the 1940s, including 'Popular Comics', 'Super Comics' and Dell's 'Four Color Comics' line.
The Dailys
Stanley Link was furthermore the creator of the gag-a-day family comic strip 'The Dailys' from 5 January 1948 until 14 September 1957.
Death
He passed away in 1957.
