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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Follow ChronAm by subscribing to email alerts and RSS feeds.
Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
In October 1907, Mr. Skygack, From Mars made its debut as a comic strip illustated by A. D. Condo and produced/written by Fed Schaefer. Despite being a mostly single panel comic strip, Mr. Skygack was syndicated throughout multiple newspapers leading to a wider audience. The comic was about an extraterrestial named Mr. Skygack who would observe "Earth-beings" while meticulously taking notes. It also marked the first feature of an extraterrestial in comics history. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| October 1907 | Mr. Skygack, From Mars,” a comic strip produced by Fred Schaefer (writer) and A.D. Condo (illustrator), makes its first appearance. |
|---|---|
| June 1908 | Mr. Skygack observes the “Second Battle of San Juan Hill”; five panels drawn by George W. Rehse. |
| February 1912 | Fred Schaefer explains Mr. Skygack in his “Who’s Who in the Comics” column. |
| October 1912 | W. Aird MacDonald becomes the illustrator of “Mr. Skygack From Mars.” |
| July 1913 | Last appearance of Mr. Skygack in his own comic strip. |
| January 1914 | Mr. Skygack visits Osgar und Adolf after “Mr. Skygack From Mars” has ceased publication. |
