Origins After
World War I, Nugent worked as the
New York World's puzzle cartoonist for eight years. For the
World, Nugent created a feature called
Puzzlers in 1927, which was syndicated until c. 1931 by the
World's
Press Publishing Co. Puzzlers had the same elements that characterized ''Uncle Art's Funland'', launched in 1933, which introduced Nugent's autobiographical character,
Uncle Nugent (a.k.a.
Uncle Art).
In comic books After initially failing to be syndicated in 1933, Nugent took his puzzle page concept to the new medium of
comic books. Essentially the same concept as ''Uncle Art's Funland
, the single-page feature was published in many Golden Age comics in the 1930s and 1940s. Funland'' was published in almost every issue of
Eastern Color Printing's
Famous Funnies from 1934 to 1948. Other publishers who ran the feature — under a variety of titles — during this period included
Dell Comics,
All-American Publications,
Harvey Comics,
DC Comics,
Holyoke Publishing, and
Toby Press.
Syndicated feature Beginning in 1950,
Funland was regularly syndicated until after Nugent's death. Originally syndicated by the
Bell-McClure Syndicate, it became part of
United Feature Syndicate in 1972, lasting there until 1991. In 1975,
Funland was being distributed by United Features to more than 100 newspapers. ''Uncle Art's Funland'' ended in 1991 but was revived in circa 2009 by
United Media. It is now distributed by
Andrews McMeel Syndication under the
United Features brand. Today, the puzzle is produced by N.A. Nugent (hypothesized by some to be "Not A Nugent"). == Comic books ==