Alley Oop Park, Museum, & RV Park - Iraan, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 30° 54.994 W 101° 54.478
14R E 222089 N 3423980
A park dedicated to V.T. Hamlin, who lived in Iraan when he created the Alley Oop comic strip.
Waymark Code: WMPZNC
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/18/2015
Views: 2
From Wikipedia:
"Alley Oop, the strip's title character, was a sturdy citizen in the prehistoric kingdom of Moo. He rode his pet dinosaur, Dinny, carried a stone war hammer and wore nothing but a fur loincloth. He would rather fight dinosaurs in the jungle than deal with his fellow countrymen in Moo's capital (and only) cave-town. In spite of these exotic settings, the stories were often satires of American suburban life."
"Initially, Alley Oop was a daily strip which had a run from December 5, 1932 to April 26, 1933. Beginning August 7, 1933, the strip was distributed by NEA syndicate, and the early material was reworked for a larger readership. The strip added a full page Sunday strip, on September 9, 1934. It also appeared in half-page, tabloid and half tab formats, which were smaller and/or dropped panels. During World War II, the full page vanished, and newspapers were offered a third of a page version that dropped panels, so more strips could fit on a page."
"When Hamlin retired in 1971, his assistant Dave Graue took over. Graue had been assisting Hamlin since 1950 and had been doing the daily solo since 1966, although co-signed by Hamlin. The last daily signed by Hamlin appeared December 31, 1972, and his last signed Sunday was April 1, 1973. From his North Carolina studio, Graue wrote and drew the strip through the 1970s and 1980s until Jack Bender took over as illustrator in 1991. Graue continued to write the strip until his August 2001 retirement. Four months later, on December 10, 2001, the 75-year-old Graue was killed in Flat Rock, North Carolina when a dump truck hit his car. The current Alley Oop Sunday and daily strips are drawn by Jack Bender and written by his wife Carole Bender."
"At its peak, Alley Oop was carried by 800 newspapers. Today, it appears in more than 600 newspapers."
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