| … of his creations and another — characters would constantly drift from short stories to comic strips and back again. Members of the Feitelbaum family of New York City, for example, might turn up just about anywhere.
A prominent Feitelbaum was Looy (pronounced "Louie", like the
Nephew
), a young man whose point of view regarding his own importance in the world was at odds that of the general public. For this reason, and as an indication of what most of his associates thought of his intelligence, he was generally referred to (in the thick, Yiddish-influenced New York
patois
Gross usually used) as "Looy dot dope".
Looy first joined the cast in Gross's illustrated New York
World
column
Gross Exaggerations in the Dumbwaiter,
during the early 1920s. The characters, including Looy, soon transferred to Gross's comic strip, also called
Gross Exaggerations
(it had been changed from
Banana Oil
in 1925). The title was changed again on June 1, 1926, to
The Feitelbaum Family;
and one last time, on January 7, 1927, to
Looy Dot Dope.
The World's
previous contributions to American cartoonery include
Hawkshaw the Detective
and
Caspar Milquetoast.
Like those two, the comic strip survived the demise of the newspaper that carried it. Before long, it was being distributed by United Feature Syndicate (
Fritzi Ritz,
Gordo
). There, Looy prospered, to the point where a
Sunday page
was added in the early-to-mid 1930s — but not by Gross, who had moved to
King Features Syndicate
(
Popeye,
Krazy Kat
). Gross's assistant, Johnny Devlin (Molly the Model,
no relation,
Lala Palooza
), who had been ghosting Looy (with far less emphasis on Gross-style Yiddishisms) since the early days, started signing it at that point.
While most papers stuck with Gross's title, at least after its re-naming, some carried it as
The Misadventures of Louie,
and others under the truncated name
Looy.
But under whatever title, Devlin, who became the assistant of
Rube Goldberg,
didn't stick with Mr. Feitelbaum. Devlin was gone by November, 1935. Early in 1936, Bernard Dibble (Danny Dingle,
Iron Vic
) took over, and kept it until the end.
Looy was reprinted in
Tip Top Comics,
Sparkler Comics
and other venues where United Feature comics like
Li'l Abner
and
Tarzan
appeared. He even, like
Jim Hardy
and
Peter Pat,
was featured in an issue of United's
Single Series.
All this was over by the end of the decade. Tho World Color Press (
Major Ozone,
Slim Jim
) offered it as reruns briefly, in 1940, United Feature dropped Looy on July 8, 1939.
— DDM
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