Tillie the Toiler
Tillie the Toiler was a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled Rose of the Office. With a title change, it sold to King Features Syndicate. The daily strip began on Monday, January 3, 1921, followed by the Sunday page on October 10, 1922. The strip ended in 1959. The storyline followed the adventures of young working girl Tillie Jones, an attractive brunette employed as a stenographer, secretary and part-time model at the fashion salon of clothing mogul J. P. Simpkins. She usually was in the company of her pint-sized friend and co-worker, Clarence “Mac” MacDougall, who often got dumped when Tillie set her sights on various handsome and wealthy young men. Russ Westover (1886-1966) studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, and was 18 years old when he landed a job as a sports cartoonist with the San Francisco Bulletin. He also contributed to the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Post and the Oakland Herald. His first comic strip, Daffy Dan, about a baseball player, was published in the Post. Relocating to New York, he was at the New York Herald when he drew his first nationally syndicated strip, Snapshot Bill (1914), followed by Ginger Pop, Fat Chance, Looie and His Tin Lizzie and The Demon Demonstrator. He also worked as an illustrator for Life and Judge (1918-21). His creation Tillie the Toiler quickly established a wide readership, leading to a 1927 film adaptation. In 1926, he added another strip, The Van Swaggers, to his Sunday page as a topper.
Tillie the Toiler reprints select dailies from 1928. Available on Complete Inventory USB, 78 black & white pages.
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