January 13: Charles Addams' classic cartoon Downhill Skier is published in The New Yorker, showing a skier magically passing around a tree with each foot on one side.[1]
June 17: Walter B. Gibson's character The Shadow makes his debut as a comics character in a syndicated daily newspaper comic, illustrated by Vernon Greene. The series will run until 13 June 1942.
October 17: The first issue of the short-lived Walloon children's comics magazine Le Soir-Jeunesse, a supplement of the Nazi-controlled Le Soir, is published. It will run until 23 September 1941. In its first issue Hergé's Tintin story The Crab with the Golden Claws is prepublished. Halfway the story Allan Thompson and Captain Haddock make their debut. (In later republications of older Tintin albums Thompson would be retroactively introduced in the older story Cigars of the Pharaoh (1933).)[11]
The first issue of the Belgian comic magazine Aventures Illustrées (later renamed Bimbo) is published. It will run until 1942, when the Nazis ban it.[13]
June 3: Charles R. Snelgrove, Canadian comics artist (Robin Hood and Company), dies at age 47.[21]
June 21: Tjerk Bottema, Dutch caricaturist, political cartoonist, illustrator and comics artist (made some political comics), dies at age 58.[22]
July
July 20: Harry E. Homan, American comics artist (Billy Make Believe, How to Make It, assisted on Joe Jinks), dies at age 51 from a heart attack.[23]
July 28: Gerda Wegener, Danish graphic designer, painter, illustrator and comics artist (erotic comics), dies at age 47 or 51.[24]
September
September 28: Earl Hurd, American animator and comics artist (Trials of Elder Mouse, Brick Bodkin's Pa, Susie Sunshine, Bobby Bumps), dies at age 60.[25]
October
October 4: Tom Wood, American illustrator and comics artist (Disney comics), dies at age 53 from injuries in a car accident.[26]
October 15: Georges Léonnec, French comics artist and illustrator, dies at age 59.[27]
November
November 9: Nikola Navojev, Yugoslavian comics artist (Tarcaneta, Vukadin, Zigomar, illegal versions of Mickey Mouse), dies at age 27 from tuberculosis.[28]
November 16: Albert Engström, Swedish novelist and comics artist (Kolingen, Bobban), dies at age 71.[29]
December
December 5:
Juan Arthenack, Mexican comic artist (Don Prudencio, Adelaido el Conquistador), dies at age 48 or 49.[30]
Jos Wins, Dutch painter and comic artist (Joco en Coco), dies at age 59.[31]
Specific date unknown
Lucien Haye, French illustrator and comics artist (L'Homme Aux Cent Visages, Le Prince Kama), died at age 73 or 74.[32]
Karl Pommerhanz, German-Austrian illustrator and comics artist (made comics for Fliegende Blätter and the Chicago Tribune), dies at age 82 or 83.[33]
Émile Tap, French illustrator, caricaturist and comic artist (Sam et Sap), dies at age 62 or 63.[34]
^Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 300. ISBN9780472117567.
^De Weyer, Geert (2008). 100 stripklassiekers die niet in je boekenkast mogen ontbreken (in Dutch). Amsterdam / Antwerp: Atlas. p. 213. ISBN978-90-450-0996-4.
^"Émile Tap". lambiek.net. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
^ abcWallace, Daniel (2010). "1940s". In Dolan, Hannah (ed.). DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 31. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. The first issue of Batman's self-titled comic written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane, represented a milestone in more ways than one. With Robin now a partner to the Caped Crusader, villains needed to rise to the challenge, and this issue introduced two future legends: the Joker and Catwoman.
