The Comic Work of Charles H. Winner
Written By Alex Eklund
At a recent comic convention, I found myself lingering at a booth stacked with original newspaper strip art—loose pages and portfolios spanning nearly eight decades of comics history. As someone who has been collecting original art for years, I’ve learned to be selective, especially on a teacher’s salary. But as I thumbed through the pile, one set of pages stopped me cold: Tubby by Charles H. Winner—better known as Doc Winner.
I hadn’t heard of Tubby before, but as an admirer of classic newspaper strips—especially those from the 1920s—I felt compelled to pick them up. It wasn’t simply the novelty of owning an obscure piece of comics history; there was something exceptional in the way the pages were drawn.
I believe the period from the 1910s to the 1940s is considered a golden age of newspaper strips, a time when even the most ephemeral gag comic was executed with a high degree of skill. Yet Winner’s work immediately felt like it stood a cut above much of what I had seen. What impressed me most was his deliberate control over detail. He instinctively knew when to render a main character with rich, precise linework and when to strip down the backgrounds to their essential forms. His economy of line called to mind the elegant simplicity of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat.
In one strip, he suggested an entire building with nothing more than a sloping roofline and a chimney—just enough information to let the reader’s imagination fill in the rest. In another, he depicted a torrential downpour, drawing each raindrop individually but spacing them with such care that the underlying drawing remained completely legible. It was a masterclass in clarity and restraint, a reminder that the best cartoonists know not only what to draw but what to leave out.
When I got home, curiosity led me to research Charles H. “Doc” Winner further, and what I discovered added a new layer of appreciation. Winner wasn’t just the creator of Tubby; he was also the second artist to continue Thimble Theater, the third artist entrusted with the iconic Katzenjammer Kids, and a ghost artist on Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. In other words, he was a pivotal figure in sustaining some of the most important American comic strips of the 20th century—an unsung craftsman who quietly shaped the visual language of the medium.
Unfortunately, like many cartoonists of his era, Winner’s work has largely faded from public view. There have been no significant collections or restorations of his strips in decades, leaving his artistry largely hidden from modern readers.
For anyone who cares about the history of newspaper strips, I urge you to seek out Charles H. Winner’s work, whether through original art, archival scans, or rare printed collections. You may be struck—as I was—by the precision, clarity, and sheer elegance of his cartooning. In an age when comics history is still being rediscovered, Winner’s name deserves to be spoken alongside the greats of his time.
