Ken Kling

Ken Kling was born (in 1985) and raised in Harlem. His father (J. Kling){{cite news|title=Kenneth L. Kling, Cartoonist, to Wed|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 13, 1921|page=15|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-kenneth-l-kling-car/164152853/|via=newspapers.com}} was an Alsatian butcher who hoped Ken would become an actor.{{cite magazine|magazine=Ebony|title=What's Not So Funny About the Funnies|first=Ponchitta|last=Pierce|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9zlc1lcRd44C&dq=%22Joe+and+Asbestos%22+Ebony&pg=PA48|page=54|date=November 1966}} During high school, he ran track, setting a record for the fifty-yard dash. After high school, he worked in a factory making veils.

Kling enlisted in the Navy during World War I.

Prior to his military service, Kling began his cartooning career as an assistant to Bud Fisher on Mutt and Jeff, at first just drawing the shadows cast by the characters, then expanding to doing the backgrounds and lettering as well. After his military stint, he started getting his own strips, with Fisher's support.{{cite magazine|magazine=Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kkkEAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Joe+and+Asbestos%22&pg=PA49|date=July 29, 1946|title=Close-Up: Ken Kling|page=49-58|first=Maitland|last=Edey}}

Kling produced five strips during his career:

• Hank and Pete, 1916–1922 (when it was taken over by Ray I. Hoppman)
• Buzz and Snooze, 1918–1919
• Katinka, 1920–1923
• Joe and Asbestos (beginning as Joe Quince, then briefly Joe Quince and Asbestos), 1923–1926, 1932–1968
• Windy Riley, 1927–1932{{cite web|website=Lambiek Comicpedia|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kling_kenneth.htm|title=Ken Kling|access-date=January 26, 2025}}

File:Ken Kling self portrait 1925.jpg

Fisher introduced the young cartoonist to horse racing, which would shape much of Kling's career and fortune. When the Joe Quince strip – which focused on the waxing and waning financial fortune of a man who quit his job upon inheriting $3,000 – became Joe and Asbestos in 1924, it began focusing heavily on horse racing, including suggestions for good bets. These proved popular with racing fans, particularly when it became clear that Kling was making good suggestions. His method focused not on trying to predict the winner, but on finding longshots that he felt had a better chance of winning than the odds suggested.

Kling retired the strip to do Windy Riley, but was drawn back in to relaunch in William Randolph Hearst's New York Daily Mirror, where the horse forecast was the main point. The strip was soon augmented with a form of a weekly tip sheet sold at the race tracks: the daily strip would run its predictions in code, and the tip sheet would have the information needed to decode it. The combination proved popular and profitable.

Newspapers would pay large amounts to have 300-mile exclusives on running the strip, which meant that the strip had few outlets but was very profitable. Adding to the profits was the fact that, while the original run of the strip had been syndicated by the Bell Syndicate, Kling self-syndicated the second run, increasing his share of the earnings.

With his reputation in horse racing secured, Kling wrote two books on the topic: 1941's Stuff About Steeds and 1948's How I Pick the Winners.{{cite news|title=Books in Review|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-news/164036381/|via=newspapers.com|newspaper=The Miami Daily News Sunday Magazine|date=July 18, 1948|page=14|first=Roy|last=Sullivan}} In 1946, Life magazine called him the "most widely read and respected turf expert in the country". In 1958, Sports Illustrated referred to him as "the most successful public handicapper".{{cite magazine|magazine=Sports Illustrated|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BbARAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Ken%20Kling%22|via=Google Books|title=page 51|date=1957}}

He worked on adapting Joe and Asbestos to other media, co-writing the book for a stage musical{{cite news|title=Addenda|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette/141963193/|via=newspapers.com|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=January 9, 1948|page=20}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPriAAAAMAAJ&q=%22joe%20and%20asbestos%22|via=Google Books|title=Dramas and Works Prepared for Oral Delivery|publisher=Library of Congress|date=1948}} and voicing one of the characters in a proposed radio series.{{cite news|newspaper=Radio Daily|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x2tj1bEaPlQC&q=%22joe%20and%20asbestos%22|via=Google Books|date=1937|page=4|title=[Something] with Ol' Scoops [something]}} He also provided the story for Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, a two-reel film based on his comic strip.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkoBBQAAQBAJ&dq=%22Ken%20Kling%22&pg=PT307|title=The Day the Laughter Stopped|first=David|last=Yallop|publisher=Little, Brown Book |isbn=978-1-4721-1659-8 |publication-date=2014}}

Kling became engaged to Mayme Cohen in 1921,{{cite news|title=Miss Cohen Engaged|newspaper=The Brooklyn Standard Union|date=November 13, 1921|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/times-union-miss-cohen-engaged/164150855/|via=newspapers.com|page=14}} and they married the following year{{cite news|title=Marriage Licenses|newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle|date=April 23, 1922|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/brooklyn-eagle-marriage-licenses/164150559/|via=newspapers.com|page=D 21}} (she would survive him, dying in 1979).{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday-obituary-for-mayme-kling/164145283/|via=newspapers.com|title=Mayme Kling|newspaper=Newsday|date=April 11, 1979|page=15}} They had two sons, Ken Kling Junior and television writer and producer Heywood "Woody" Kling. At the time of his death on May 3, 1970, he had three grandchildren. His last request was that his pallbearers be beautiful women.

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Category:American comics writers

Category:American comics artists

Category:Year of birth missing

Category:Place of death missing

Category:1890s births

Category:1970 deaths

Category:20th-century American illustrators

Category:20th-century American male artists

Category:20th-century people from New York (state)

Category:American comic strip cartoonists

Category:American humorists

Category:American sports comics artists

Category:Artists from Manhattan

Category:People from Harlem