Richard Felton Outcault | ||
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At the same time that Outcault's first panels are being published, the newspapers are experimenting with four color inks. Quite a bit of experimentation is required to get proper colors and when an engraver for the World wanted to try a new yellow he chose to spot it in the comig Sunday's paper on the "kid's" frock, and the kid became known as "the Yellow Kid". The success of the kid raised many earbrows however and one of those brows belonged to rival news publisher William Randolph Hearst of the Journal American. Before successfully launching his own Sunday color suplement, Hearst hired Outcault away from the world at an increased salary late in 1896. Pulitzer fumed over the loss and it was not long before he hired Outcault back from Hearst. Then the same ritual played out again and finally a third time, in which Hearst not only hired away Outcaiult but the World's entire editorial staff! The legal squabbles that ensued led to the creation of the term "Yellow Journalism" centered as it was on the Yellow Kid. |
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He died in his home in Flushing, New York on September 25, 1928. |
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