United States Chaplin appeared in two short-lived syndicated comic strips in the U.S. in the period 1915–1917. Characters based on
the Tramp subsequently appeared in many American comic books, often as
guest stars in superhero comics published by
DC Comics and
Marvel Comics.
''Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers'' ''
Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers was an American gag-a-day celebrity comics strip by Stuart Carothers and later Elzie C. Segar. Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers
was published in the Chicago Herald'', and ran in syndication from 1915 to 1917. Segar took over the strip in early 1916. Contrary to his predecessors, who mostly borrowed ideas from Chaplin's films, Segar thought up his own jokes. He gave Chaplin a tiny
sidekick named "Luke the Gook" to act as a
straight man to his gags. The daily strip ran until July 15, 1916, with the Sunday version running until September 16, 1917. Despite Chaplin's popularity, the comic strip wasn't a huge success in the United States, mostly due to the fact that all artists involved were essentially amateurs. In 1917, however, five "best of" collection books of the strip were published by
M.A. Donohue & Co. ''Return Engagement of Pa's Imported Son-in-Law'' A cartoonist named
Ed Carey created an unauthorized Charlie Chaplin comic strip in 1915. Originally called ''Pa's Imported Son-In-Law
(begun by Charles H. Wellington in 1913), Carey restyled the strip as Return Engagement of Pa's Imported Son-in-Law
(it was also known as Pa's Family and Their Friends''). A Charlie Chaplin lookalike became a recurring character in the strip, which lasted until 1916, syndicated by
Newspaper Feature Service.
The Fuhrer and the Tramp In 2018, American cartoonist
Sean McArdle published via
Kickstarter The Führer and the Tramp, a
speculative fiction graphic novel about Chaplin's battle with
Adolf Hitler, co-starring
Errol Flynn and
Hedy Lamarr.
United Kingdom A Charlie Chaplin comic strip in the
United Kingdom lasted much longer than ''Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers
, published from 1915 until at least the late 1940s. Published by Amalgamated Press in the weekly comics magazine Funny Wonder, the Charlie Chaplin'' strip was usually drawn by
Bertie Brown and appeared from 1915 to 1944, often on the cover.
Freddie Adkins,
Don Newhouse, Roy Wilson,
Henry Puttick, and
Wally Robertson. A
Charlie Chaplin Fun Book was published by Amalgamated Press in 1915. After
World War II, the Charlie Chaplin strip moved to
Film Fun, also published by Amalgamated Press. Now called
Charlie Chaplin — the Film Fun Maker, the strip was drawn by
Terence Wakefield. In recent years, the British
alternative cartoonist Richard Cowdry created a comic strip called
Fat Charlie Chaplin.
France In 1922,
Raoul Thomen, a Belgian cartoonist, created the French-language strip
Les Aventures Acrobatiques de Charlot ("Charlot's Acrobatic Adventures"). for nearly 20 years. Charlot's comic strip adventures were continued by other artists — including C. Rojo, Mat (
Marcel Turlin),
Pierre Lacroix,
Jean-Claude Forest — lasting until 1963. The strip was collected in many albums. Charlot comics in various forms were published in France until 1974, along with academic scholarship on the subject.
Romania In the 1940s,
Pascal Radulescu drew his version of Charlie Chaplin comic strips in Romania.
Classics/Williams The Spanish comics artist
Vicente Torregrosa Manrique (known as "Torregrosa") illustrated
Charlie Chaplin Classics in 1973–1974 for
Classics/Williams, published in German, Dutch, and Norwegian. (These series ran between 13 and 16 issues.) Stories from the series were collected in a 1974
annual, as well as by the British publisher
Brown Watson.
Italy In 1985, the Italian cartoonist
Sergio Zaniboni created a short story starring Chaplin for
Il Giornalino. == Biographical comics ==