About Me
- The Smith Family Comic Strip
- George J. Smith was born on February 5, 1920, in the back of an ambulance on the way to Cumberland Street Hospital in Brooklyn, New York — a fittingly dramatic entrance for a man who would spend his life making people laugh. George and his wife Virginia Smith were a husband-and-wife cartooning team whose work appeared in syndicated newspapers across the United States from the 1950s through the 1980s. Their strip, The Smith Family, offered an unflinching and often hilarious look at American family life — touching on everything from the generation gap to political absurdity to the everyday negotiations of marriage and parenthood. In 1950, George ranked 14th in national cartoon sales — competing against legendary names like Mort Walker, Hank Ketcham, and the Berenstains. Their work appeared in The Boston Globe, The Columbian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Austin American-Statesman, The Prattville Progress, and dozens of other newspapers nationwide. What made the Smiths' work distinctive was its willingness to go places polite conversation avoided. The strip tackled gun control, military spending, environmental poisoning, women's equality, and cultural
"Preserving history isn't glamorous. It's hours of scanning, researching publication dates, and filling in gaps — 44 years × ~313 strips/year = ~13,700+ strips to document.
George also had a prolific career as a magazine gag cartoonist, Before 1950 selling hundreds of cartoons to publications including The Satur...
