Ferd Johnson

Ferdinand Johnson (December 18, 1905 – October 14, 1996), usually cited as Ferd Johnson, was an American cartoonist, best known for his 68-year stint on the Moon Mullins comic strip.

Biography Johnson was born December 18, 1905, in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania,

After graduating from high school in 1923, he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for three months. Johnson dropped out of school and became Willard's assistant, two months after the latter launched Moon Mullins in 1923. Johnson worked at the Tribune as a color artist and sports illustrator.

While Johnson was still in his teens, the paper offered him the opportunity to create his own comic strip. Johnson's effort, Texas Slim, about a ranch hand working for the antihero Dirty Dalton, debuted as a Sunday page from the Tribune Syndicate on August 30, 1925. It ran three years, until February 12, 1928. Starting October 4, 1931, Johnson revived Texas Slim as a topper strip paired with his short-lived domestic-comedy strip Lovey Dovey. The topper lasted until September 11, 1932; Lovey Dovey held on until September 25, 1933.

He stayed with the strip until it concluded in June 1991.

Johnson continued to draw and paint after he moved into a retirement home in Irvine, California in 1995, and he died 15 months later. Doris, his wife of 57 years, whom he met in art school in Chicago, died in 1986.

Awards Ferd Johnson received a ComicCon International Inkpot Award in 1993.