The Born Loser
Encyclopedia
The Born Loser is a newspaper comic strip
created by Art Sansom
in 1965. His son, Chip Sansom
, who started assisting on the strip in 1989, is the current artist. The strip is distributed by United Features Syndicate. The Sansoms won the 1987 National Cartoonists Society
Humor Comic Strip Award and the 1990 Newspaper Comic Strip Award.
Gladys "Hornet" Thornapple - Brutus's wife, she's even more old fashioned than Brutus and doesn't seem to be very bright, especially with popular culture or technology. Taller than Brutus, with blond hair, she's rather similar to Edith "Dingbat" Bunker
. She can be a bit scolding of Brutus, and often gets into fights with him that he simply cannot win. Nevertheless, their relationship always seems to be intact.
Wilberforce Thornapple - The son of the Thornapple family, he's a very curious boy who looks up to his father and often turns to him for advice. We can only wonder how this will affect his later life. He's friends with his neighbor Hurricane Hattie, and enjoys baseball, but as one would expect from being the son of Brutus, he's not very good at it. He currently wears his blond hair
in a crew cut
but in the 1970s, when boys and men tended to wear much longer hair, he wore his hair in sausage curls, and wore sailor-type suits with shorts. His appearance looked much more boyish with the new hairstyle as his wardrobe was updated with jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes.
, a word popularized in the 1950s by Harvey Kurtzman
in early issues of Mad
.
Ramona Gargle - Gladys's mother. A stereotypical mother in law, she often visits to pepper Brutus with insults and emotional anguish. However, Brutus does occasionally gets his own jibes back at "Mother Gargle".
Hurricane Hattie O'Hara - The mischievous girl next door, she delights in menacing pretty much any adult she encounters, namely Brutus and her teacher.
Other characters regularly featured are the Thornapple family dog, Kewpie; Miss Fungus, Wilberforce and Hattie's school teacher; and Wastrel P. Gravesite, a bum who regularly hounds Brutus for money.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by Art Sansom
Art Sansom
Arthur B. Sansom , better known as Art Sansom, was an American comic strip cartoonist who created the long-running comic strip The Born Loser....
in 1965. His son, Chip Sansom
Chip Sansom
Arthur Sansom, better known as Chip Sansom is an American comic strip cartoonist.In the mid 1980s, he started to assist his father Art Sansom on the comic strip The Born Loser.-Awards:...
, who started assisting on the strip in 1989, is the current artist. The strip is distributed by United Features Syndicate. The Sansoms won the 1987 National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
Humor Comic Strip Award and the 1990 Newspaper Comic Strip Award.
History
Art Sansom created The Born Loser after spending 20 years churning out the illustrations on his syndicate's serious strips. He originally titled it The Loser, but under the urging of the syndicate, renamed it The Born Loser. The dailies started May 10, 1965 while the Sundays premiered on June 27th. Initially, the strip had no recurring characters but now focuses on the Thornapple family and the few people in their lives.Main characters
Brutus P. "Thorny" Thornapple - As the name of the comic implies, he's a born loser. He simply can't get a break, whether it involves his job, his family, or just plain every day life. He's rather old fashioned, perhaps explaining why the modern times seem to be running him over. His birthday is November 29, 1951, though the May 10, 2011 edition proclaimed it to be his 46th birthday.Gladys "Hornet" Thornapple - Brutus's wife, she's even more old fashioned than Brutus and doesn't seem to be very bright, especially with popular culture or technology. Taller than Brutus, with blond hair, she's rather similar to Edith "Dingbat" Bunker
Edith Bunker
Edith Bunker is a fictional 1970s sitcom character on All in the Family , played by Jean Stapleton. She was the wife of Archie Bunker , mother of Gloria Stivic, mother-in-law of Michael "Meathead" Stivic, and, after 1975, grandmother of Joey Stivic...
. She can be a bit scolding of Brutus, and often gets into fights with him that he simply cannot win. Nevertheless, their relationship always seems to be intact.
Wilberforce Thornapple - The son of the Thornapple family, he's a very curious boy who looks up to his father and often turns to him for advice. We can only wonder how this will affect his later life. He's friends with his neighbor Hurricane Hattie, and enjoys baseball, but as one would expect from being the son of Brutus, he's not very good at it. He currently wears his blond hair
Hair
Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....
in a crew cut
Crew cut
A crew cut is a type of haircut in which the hair on the top of the head is cut relatively short, graduated in length from the longest hair at the front hairline to the shortest at the back of the crown. The hair on the sides and back of the head is usually tapered short, semi-short or medium. A...
but in the 1970s, when boys and men tended to wear much longer hair, he wore his hair in sausage curls, and wore sailor-type suits with shorts. His appearance looked much more boyish with the new hairstyle as his wardrobe was updated with jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes.
Secondary characters
Rancid W. "Rank" Veeblefester - Brutus's boss, a rich tycoon. A very cranky, unpleasant man, he works in an office surrounded by money bags and doesn't seem to do any real work. He always scolds Brutus for being incompetent and seems to enjoy tormenting him. He loves to give a seemingly nice remark to Brutus to get his hopes up, and then turns it around as an insult (one example being that the only empty cubicle in the entire office belongs to Brutus). It's often a wonder how Brutus, who dubs him "Chief," manages to escape being fired by him; this implies that Rancid is satisfied with Brutus' work and simply enjoys terrorizing him. Even in their home lives, nothing changes (such as when Brutus wants to borrow the lawnmower and Veeblefester tells him not to take it out of the yard). His wife's name is "Lividia", a play on the word "livid"; presumably she is as unpleasant as her husband. The character's name is a variation on veeblefetzerVeeblefetzer
Veeblefetzer is a word usually used facetiously as a placeholder name for any obscure or complicated object or mechanism, such as automobile parts, computer code and model railroad equipment....
, a word popularized in the 1950s by Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
in early issues of Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
.
Ramona Gargle - Gladys's mother. A stereotypical mother in law, she often visits to pepper Brutus with insults and emotional anguish. However, Brutus does occasionally gets his own jibes back at "Mother Gargle".
Hurricane Hattie O'Hara - The mischievous girl next door, she delights in menacing pretty much any adult she encounters, namely Brutus and her teacher.
Other characters regularly featured are the Thornapple family dog, Kewpie; Miss Fungus, Wilberforce and Hattie's school teacher; and Wastrel P. Gravesite, a bum who regularly hounds Brutus for money.
External links
- The Born Loser
- "The Born Loser Celebrates 40 Years as America's Favorite Underdog" - press release (pdf)
- NCS Awards