John Henry Striebel was born in 1891 in Bertrand, Michigan and shortly after moved to South Bend, Indiana. At the age of fourteen he was a political cartoonist for the South Bend Daily News, using the proceeds to pay his tuition at the University of Notre Dame. Striebel went to Chicago where he became an advertising illustrator for the Chicago Tribune.
His first comic strip, 'Pantomime' was a feature for eight years, after which Striebel illustrated 'The Potters', a feature written by J. P. McEvoy. After illustrating 'Show Girl', which was considered too risqué for the times, he moved to Woodstock in 1923 to study painting with Henry Lee McFee and Andrew Dasburg.
"Good Deed" Dotty ran at the top of Dixie Dugan.
Before he could apply himself intensively to the study of painting, John Striebel found himself enmeshed in the 'Dixie Dugan' cartoon with J.P. McEvoy and soon 'Dixie' took precedence over all of his other endeavors which included cover illustrations for Liberty magazine. Dixie Dugan is a comic strip about a showgirl, modeled after Louise Brooks. One of Striebel's assistants on the feature was Creig Flessel.
Striebel continued to work on this strip until the early 1960s when Al Bare and Dave Huffine helped him with the illustrations when he became ill. His daughter, Margery Ann Huffine did all the lettering from the time she was fourteen years old. John Striebel died on 22 May, 1962 in Woodstock, NY.
(biography courtesy of Striebel's granddaughter, Sandra Scott)
