| The Gumps | |
|---|---|
 Sidney Smith's The Gumps (September 30, 1923) | |
| Author(s) | Sidney Smith (1917–1935) Gus Edson (1935–1959) |
| Current status/schedule | Ended |
| Launch date | February 12, 1917 |
| End date | October 17, 1959 |
| Syndicate(s) | Chicago Tribune Syndicate |
| Publisher(s) | Charles Scribner's Sons IDW Publishing |
| Genre(s) | Comedy, melodrama |
The Gumps is a comic strip about a middle-class family. It was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917, until October 17, 1959.
According to a 1937 issue of Life, The Gumps was inspired by Andy Wheat, a real-life person Smith met through his brother. "Born forty-seven years ago [i.e., in 1890] in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Andy Wheat acquired his unusual physiognomy as the result of an infection following the extraction of a tooth, which eventually necessitated the removal of his entire lower jaw. Through Dr. Thomas Smith of Bloomingdale, Illinois, a dentist and a brother of Sidney Smith, Wheat met the cartoonist, who saw in him an ideal comic character. Wheat subsequently had his surname legally changed to "Gump" to match the cartoon character. His wife's name is Min, and he has two children, Chester and Goliath, now living in San Francisco, and an Uncle Bim who lives in Georgia. Gump's home is in Tucson, Arizona, but he also has a farm near his birthplace in Mississippi."[1]