- CIVILIZATION CAN NEVER OCCUR TILL EXACERBATION, PERSPICACITY MUNIFICENCE AND MAGNANIMITY?

 

 

We think it will be evident to our readers, after they've finished the following account by GEORGE SMITH, how he and his wife, VIRGINIA, have managed to come up with ideas for THE SMITH FAMILY comic strip over the past 40 years and have thus accomplished a very rare feat in our profession! THE SMITH FAMILY is currentty distributed by the UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE.

BY GEORGE & VIRGINIA SMITH

 

MOM, IF SUBJUGATION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE WEAK IS SAVAGERY, HOW COME I GOTTA BRING OUT THE GARBAGE ALL THE TIME YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER WE ARE STILL LIVING IN THE PRIMITIVE UNCIVIL- IZED PHASE OF HISTORY.

 

The Oregonian Portland, Oregon · Monday, April 25, 1960

 

Guy on TV described us as "the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence..." just before the news came on

 

“Now, the most important point of my whole speech!” Distributed by The George Matthew Adams Service, Inc., 1960

 

"GOODNESS!! IF THIS GETS OUT OF HAND, WHO WILL MAKE TOMORROW'S BOMBS?"

 

1954

 

Do you think people should be allowed to carry guns?"

 

"Goodness! What a vicious species!

 

 

Do you give anesthesia?

 

Virginia Mary Quinlan July 20, 1919 - June 30, 2006

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While George held the pen, The Smith Family was a dual engine. Virginia Smith was not merely the inspiration for the strip but its Editor and Co-Writer. In an era where creative partnerships of this scale were rare in syndication, the Smiths maintained a formidable 44-year tenure in The Boston Globe, appearing daily from 1951 to 1995. This collaboration ensured the strip remained an "old familiar friend" to millions, grounded in a shared voice that only a four-decade marriage could produce.

THERE IS A MOVEMENT TO GET A NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM. SOMETHING NOT REMINISCENT OF WAR. MAY I SUGGEST.... PLOP PLOP FIZZ FIZZ

 

Over fifty years, the Smiths created more than 12,000 daily and Sunday comic strips, reaching millions of readers worldwide. One of the longest-running family humor strips of the 20th century.​

 

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.

 

1954