The Yellow Kid

New York Journal's Colored
Comic Supplement
Color lithographic poster

Richard Outcault (1863-1928)
Copyright registration of
"The Yellow Dugan Kid"
Ink, pencil, watercolor, and blue pencil on paper, September 7, 1896

Prints & Photographs Division
Copyright deposit, 1896 (192B, 192A.3)

America's first great comic strip character, "The Yellow Kid" first appeared on May 5, 1895, in a comic panel entitled At the Circus in Hogan's Alley. New York World cartoonist Richard Felton Outcault created a boisterous cast of characters and an unprecedented explosion of activity in his Hogan's Alley. One particular character, the gap-toothed kid garbed in an oversize yellow night shirt, captured the country's imagination. When Outcault moved to the New York Journal, he was allowed to take the Dugan character although the World retained rights to the character and the title Hogan's Alley, and for more than a year rival "Yellow Kids" appeared in the weekly supplements of both papers.