The Smith Family Comic Strip

George Smith, the Washington state artist who draws "The Smith Family," has seldom been one to keep his views to himself.

Several years ago his once popular strip plummeted from being carried in more than 70 newspapers to being featured in just under 25.

His distaste for the public school systems, his beliefs that modern society leads its members to acquire a destructive agression, one of his character's "Dirty Is Beautiful Society," and an argument against the automobile led to a big wave of cancellations in the late 1970s. It nearly forced the strip, which was started in 1950, to end itself.

Smith has now toned down his criticism, although it does occasionally slip through. And his strip is once again regaining its popularity.

"I'm not going to do that anymore," Smith said of his aggressive criticism two years ago in an interview with The Columbian. "I've been beating the air. You know we do have to eat occasionally. 

Although family comic strips are very popular today, The Smith Family was an innovation when it was first picked up by The Boston Globe 33 years ago.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Smith now lives with his wife, Virginia, near White Salmon, Washington. Several members of his large family (they had 11 children) live nearby.

A devout Catholic much of his life, Smith received his early education in the church school. He attended art schools early in his life under programs funded by Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. In the late 30s, the took classes at Brooklyn's prestigious Pratt Institute.

He began selling one-panel cartoons as a teenager.