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Paul Fung Cartoons

An inventory of his cartoons at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: BB
Date: Dec 1968

Biographical History

Paul Fung (1897-1944) was an American cartoonist. He worked on a number of newspaper comic strips during his career but is most known for the work he did as Chic Young's successor on Dumb Dora (1930-1932) and as an assistant to Cliff Sterrett on Polly and Her Pals (late 1930s).

Born in Seattle in 1897, Paul Fung was educated in the U.S. and China, where his Baptist minister father, the Rev. Fung Chak, sent him to study traditional Chinese art. In 1916, he started his newspaper career doing sports cartoons for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Fung's first original comic strip appeared a few months later, Innocent Hing, but it was short lived. After working as an assistant on Billy DeBeck's Barney Google in the early 1920s, Fung went on to crank out a variety of quality, but short-lived comic strips—A Guy from Grand Rapids, Bughouse Fables, Gus and Gussie. In April of 1930, Fung inherited Dumb Dora and its topper panel When Mother Was a Girl from creator Chic Young, who had left the strip to launch Blondie. Fung continued on Dumb Dora for a few years, passing it on to Bil Dwyer in 1932. Subsequently, Fung worked as an assistant on Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals in the late 1930s. The Dumb Dora comic strip ceased newspaper publication in 1934, but Fung brought Dora back in the early 1940s as part of an ad campaign for Shredded Ralston cereal. Paul Fung died in 1944. His son is the noted cartoonist Paul Fung, Jr.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Paul Fung Cartoons collection contains 36 original daily cartoons and 10 original Sunday cartoons from the newspaper comic strip Dumb Dora (1930, 1932). The Sunday version is complete in 2 panels, so note that some of our holdings are partial (see Inventory for details). The collection also contains 4 original cartoons from the topper strip When Mother Was a Girl, a companion to the Dumb Dora Sunday feature (1930).

Arrangement of the Collection

Cartoons are arranged by title in chronological order (daily and Sunday cartoons are foldered separately).

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

See the Chic Young Cartoons collection and the Bil Dwyer Cartoons collection for additional material related to these comic strips. Please refer to the SCRC Subject Index for a complete listing of the cartoonist collections at the Special Collections Research Center.

Subject Headings

Persons

Fung, Paul, 1897-1944.

Corporate Bodies

King Features Syndicate.

Associated Titles

Dumb Dora (comic strip)
When mother was a girl (comic strip)

Subjects

American wit and humor, Pictorial.
Caricatures and cartoons -- United States.
Cartoonists -- United States.
Comic books, strips, etc. -- United States.

Genres and Forms

Cartoons (humorous images)

Occupations

Cartoonists.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Paul Fung Cartoons,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Rendell, 1968.

Table of Contents

Dumb Dora

When Mother Was a Girl

Inventory