A History of Hatlo - Introduction

Hatlo's first appearance as his cartoon self in They'll Do It Every Time on April 15, 1929

It seems history has left Jimmy Hatlo behind.

In the mid 20th century, cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo was undeniably a comic strip superstar, as popular then as later creators Charles Shultz, Hank Ketchum and Lynn Johnston would become in future decades.  Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time was arguably the most popular comic in the country and the name Jimmy Hatlo became a brand unto itself.  He tragically left the world at what now feels like a very young sixty-six years of age.  His creation went on to endure without him for more than forty years.  Unfortunately, in that time, the name Jimmy Hatlo slowly faded into obscurity.

Sadly, the lasting legacies of comic strips are more often the memorable characters produced rather than the individuals who created them.  Creators frequently rode the coattails of their creations, i.e. Shultz with Charlie Brown, Ketchum with Dennis the Menace and Smythe with Andy Capp.  While TDIET did feature a stable of regulars such as Henry Tremblechin, Lushwell, Bigdome and most notably Little Iodine, those characters were secondary to the overall format and dynamic of the strip.  Little Iodine made the greatest impact, channeling TDIET notoriety into a spinoff Sunday feature, comic books and even a modest B-grade feature film.  But the popularity of TDIET sprang from its concept of showcasing the frustrations, absurdities and hypocrisies of the human condition (as submitted by readers), and its recurring characters were never able to enter the popular culture to any significant degree. 

Hatlo died on December 1, 1963. As I was only two years old at the time, it is safe to say I was never exposed to Hatlo and his own original work on TDIET. Hatlo debuted the one-panel comic in 1929 and was it's creative force until his untimely death. As an avid comic strip reader growing up, I occasionally encountered the strip on the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when it was being shepherded by the team of Bob Dunn and Al Scaduto. But I never developed a continued interest in it as my family subscribed to the city's other daily, the Pittsburgh Press, which without argument had the better comics pages.

In researching other mid 20th century comic strips over the past decade or so, I kept bumping into TDIET and was subsequently impressed with the rather dense dialog and detailed artwork that was unusual for a gag-a-day one panel.  I managed to trace it back to its 1936 debut with the Kings Features syndicate and began to archive it for my own personal reading.  Miraculously, a short time later, the archives for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin became available. That was the newspaper where TDIET began in 1929 and where Hatlo essentially honed his skills and refined his craft.  It is now certainly revelatory to have access to the whole of the TDIET collection and be able to trace the evolution of one of the medium's more notable talents.

Finding accurate biographical and historical information on Hatlo and TDIET is a challenge.  The Wikipedia entries are sparse and often inaccurate and the citations often lead to equally sparse and inaccurate sources.  The best and most clearly reputable information can be found in a 2012 article from the publication Hogan's Alley that has been thankfully archived on the magazine's web site.  "Jimmy Hatlo - Man of Many Hats" by Ed Black is an extensive and exceptionally well-researched biographical piece that fills in many gaps in Hatlo's life and details much of the history of the TDIET strip.

My exploration of TDIET here at Boom Pop! is intended to expand upon Ed Black's material and provide a more specific chronology of times, places, events and individuals as benefited by material that has only more recently become accessible.

To be continued - soon!